Round-Up
In today’s New York Times, Linda Greenhouse has this recap of yesterday’s argument in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation; Robert Barnes of the Washington Post reports here; Karoun Demirjian has this article in the Chicago Tribune; and Tony Mauro reports here for the Legal Times at Law.com.
Dahlia Lithwick has this audio segment with Alex Chadwick on NPR’s “Day to Day” and this article at Slate discussing the church-state separation case. At FindLaw, Rodger Citron has this essay on the case. In the Wall Street Journal, Mark H. Anderson has this article (subscription req’d) on yesterday’s argument and the Court’s unanimous decision reinstating a Nevada child molester’s conviction.
In the USA Today, Joan Biskupic has this article on Morse v. Frederick, a case testing students’ speech rights that will be heard before the Court on March 19.
At Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr has this post on the facts in Scott v. Harris; his first response to the oral argument, heard on Monday, is here.
At PrawfsBlawg, Jessie Hill has this post, which is part two in a series entitled “Overruling Roe v. Wade”; part one is here.
Finally, Doug Berman has this post at Sentencing Law & Policy about how Bockting might apply to Apprendi or Blakely.
One of the arguments made in Morse v. Frederick, the student speech case that Joan Biskupic wrote about, is that the student’s speech was supposedly not protected because it was not “political” in nature.
But speech need not be “political” to be protected by the First Amendment. “It is immaterial whether the beliefs sought to be advanced . . . pertain to political, economic, religious, or cultural matters.” NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460 (1958). The First Amendment protects not only the right to engage in political speech, but also any “expression about philosophical, social, artistic, economic, literary, or ethical matters.”
Moreover, a student’s speech need not be on a matter of public concern, much less be political, to be protected. See, e.g., Pinard v. Clatskanie School District, 446 F.3d 964, 973 (9th Cir. 2006); Garcia v. S.U.N.Y. Health Sciences Center, 280 F.3d 98, 106 (2d Cir. 2001); cf. Iota Xi Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity v. George Mason University, 993 F.2d 386 (4th Cir. 1993) (even low-grade, juvenile entertainment, such as a fraternity skit, is protected by the First Amendment).
Comment by Hans Bader — March 2, 2007 @ 10:20 am