Mann Middle School in Colorado Springs has banned students from wearing rosaries as visible necklaces. School officials have offered two different rationales: some gang members wear rosaries as gang symbols; some Catholics are offended by the wearing of rosaries on the neck. A Colorado Springs Gazette editorial on the controversy quotes Eugene Volokh and David […]
Archive | First Amendment
The First Amendment in the Classroom
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected a teacher’s claim that a local school board violated her First Amendment right “to select books and methods of instruction for use in the classroom without interference from public officials” by failing to renew her contract after a series of conflicts over her choice of reading assignments for […]
Sixth Circuit Holds Ohio Can’t Prohibit “rbST-Free” Labels
Last month, in International Dairy Foods Association v. Boggs, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit struck down Ohio’s regulations barring dairy processors from labeling milk as “rbST-Free,” but upheld the agency’s ability to require disclaimers for some rbST-related product claims, subject to First Amendment constraints. In the process the decision illustrated […]
Debating France’s Burqa Ban
Today’s WSJ has a debate between two members of its editorial board, Matthew Kaminski and Bret Stephens, over France’s decision to prohibit people from concealing their faces in public. The legislation is generally understood as a measure to prohibit women from wearing burqas with face veils in public. Stephens supports the measure (at least for […]
Is Koran-Burning Protected by the First Amendment?
In a recent interview with ABC News, Justice Breyer questioned whether burning a Koran would necessarily be protected by the First Amendment. Some excerpts: “Holmes said [the First Amendment] doesn’t mean you can shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” Breyer told me. “Well, what is it? Why? Because people will be trampled to death. And […]
Tattoos as Speech
Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Anderson v. City of Hermosa Beach, struck down a local ban on tattoo parlors on the grounds that tattooing is “purely expressive activity fully protected by the First Amendment.” This opinion conflicts with several district court and state court decisions that have upheld local […]
D.C. Circuit Strikes Down Limits on Expressive Activity in National Parks
This morning, in Boardley v. U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the National Park Service’s permitting regulations for expressive activities in national parks on First Amendment grounds. The panel opinion, by Judge Janice Rogers Brown, begins as follows: It is unlawful to engage in expressive […]
Judge Denies TRO in Minneapolis Pride Festival Case, But…
By Dale Carpenter on June 25, 2010 4:18 pm in Constitutional Law, First Amendment, Freedom of Speech
Minnnesota District Judge John Tunheim has denied a temporary restraining order sought by Twin Cities Pride (TCP) to prevent an anti-gay preacher from distributing literature and displaying signs inside the park where TCP has a permit for the annual gay pride festival. (The desision is here. I wrote about some of the basic issues here.). Twin Cities […]
First Amendment Clash Brewing Over Gay Pride Festival in Minneapolis
By Dale Carpenter on June 22, 2010 11:38 am in Constitutional Law, First Amendment, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Speech
Must an expressive association that paid for a permit in a public park to advance its message include someone using the event to convey an opposing message? Specifically, must an anti-gay preacher and others be allowed to condemn homosexuality in signs and literature by roaming the permit grounds of a gay-pride celebration? For more than 30 years, gay-rights organizers have annually paid for […]