New Mexico is one of about two dozen states in which religious objectors are presumptively entitled to religious exemptions from generally applicable laws. (About a dozen states, plus the federal government, provide this protection by statute; the other dozen states provide it as an interpretation of the state constitution’s religious freedom provisions.) Here’s the relevant […]
Archive | Freedom of Speech
Compelling Speech by Commercial Photographers, Freelance Writers, Musicians, and So On
By Eugene Volokh on December 16, 2009 4:01 pm in Freedom of Speech, Religious Freedom, Same-Sex Marriage
I just finished reading the New Mexico trial court’s Elane Photography decision, and thought I’d blog a bit about it. Let me begin with the compelled speech question. Elane Photography — a husband-and-wife company in which the wife, Elaine Huguenin, is the head photographer (and I think the only routine photographer) — refused to photograph […]
New Mexico Trial Court Upholds Sanctions Based on Wedding Photographer’s Refusal to Photograph a Same-Sex Wedding Ceremony
By Eugene Volokh on December 16, 2009 3:13 pm in Freedom of Speech, Religious Freedom, Same-Sex Marriage
The case is Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock, and I blogged about it here, when it was being considered by the New Mexico Human Rights Commission. The decision was handed down last Friday, but the opinion wasn’t distributed until yesterday. I hope to blog more about it today, but here’s my analysis from last year: […]
Rifqa Bary’s Parents Ask Court to Order Bary’s Lawyers Not To Give Her Messages from Third Parties
The Jawa Report posts what appears to be a copy of the motion: IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, FRANKLIN COUNTY, OHIO DIVISION OF DOMESTIC RELATIONS AND JUVENILE BRANCH IN THE MATTER OF: FATHIMA RIFQA BARY, AN ALLEGED DEPENDENT CHILD Case No. 09 JU 11 14895 Judge: GILL Magistrate: GOODRICH MOTION TO ENJOIN COUNSEL FROM […]
No “Continuing Duty to Investigate the Accuracy” of a Newspaper Article Posted on a Web Site
So held a Massachusetts trial court last year in Jenzabar, Inc. v. Long Bow Group, Inc. (PDF p. 4); I just ran across the case online, so I thought I’d mention it. Defendant had posted a Boston Globe article that mentioned certain allegations by one DiLorenzo; DiLorenzo had later retracted those allegations. The court held […]
ANSWER Prevails in D.C. Circuit
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has reversed a district court’s dismissal of a suit by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition (“ANSWER”) and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation challenging the District of Columbia Department of Transportation’s regulations governing the placement of posters. The district court had dismissed […]
May CRS Analysts Criticize the President’s Policies?
Earlier this month, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) informed Col. Morris Davis he would be dismissed from his position as assistant director of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division. His job ends on December 21, at the end of a one-year probationary period. CRS won’t comment publicly on the matter, by it has been […]
Keeping the Nation Safe, or Making Citizens Vulnerable? The Dangers of Vagueness in Anti-terrorism Laws
By Harvey Silverglate on December 15, 2009 8:32 am in Counter-Terrorism Policy, Criminal Law, Cyberspace Law, Freedom of Speech, Uncategorized
Second installment of a five-part series on Silverglate’s book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. Sami Omar al-Hussayen was a doctoral candidate at the University of Idaho when he was arrested in February 2003. Federal prosecutors alleged that al-Hussayen, a Saudi citizen studying computer science in the United States, provided “material […]
Should Access to Public University Property and Funding Be Treated Differently from Access to Other Public Property and Funding?
By Eugene Volokh on December 15, 2009 12:28 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
David French of the Alliance Defense Fund responds further to my posts about Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. I much appreciate David’s thoughtful reactions on this, and I’d like to continue the conversation. Here’s David’s argument slightly abridged: By treating this case as a “government benefits” case, I think Eugene is missing a few vital […]
Christian Legal Society v. Martinez and the Court’s University Speech Decisions
By Eugene Volokh on December 11, 2009 1:20 pm in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law
David French writes at National Review Online: I don’t have time to detail Eugene’s argument in all its complexity, but the one sentence summary is: Public universities are not constitutionally compelled to provide government benefits (like room access and student fee funding) to “discriminatory” Christian student organizations…. [Here is] his post’s primary shortcoming: Eugene cites […]
The “Purpose of the Program” Argument and Christian Legal Society v. Martinez
By Eugene Volokh on December 11, 2009 1:11 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law
One more item about the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez case: Some people argue that applying nondiscrimination conditions to student religious groups (alongside other groups) as a condition of funding violates the underlying purpose of the benefit program. Universities say they fund and provide space for student groups to “facilitat[e] the free and open exchange […]
Why No-Discrimination-Based-on-Religion Conditions for Government Benefits Aren’t Viewpoint-Discriminatory
By Eugene Volokh on December 11, 2009 1:09 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law
David and others have argued that university policies that deny benefits to groups that discriminate based on religion are unconstitutionally based on the groups’ viewpoint, when applied to religious groups. Other groups, the argument goes, are allowed to exclude people who don’t share the group’s ideology: The environmentalist group may exclude anti-environmentalists, and the gun […]
Appeals Court Sets Aside Order Barring Parents Who Gave Up Child from Talking About Child’s Medical Condition
The case is In re T.T., decided today by the Nebraska Court of Appeals. A few relevant passages: This appeal involves a 17-year-old youth, T.T., who was left by his parents at a Lincoln, Nebraska, hospital under a previous version of Nebraska’s “Safe Haven” law. The mother and stepfather, S.Q. and A.Q., respectively, whom we […]
No Duty To Subsidize Student Groups’ Discriminatory Officer and Member Selection Decisions
By Eugene Volokh on December 8, 2009 2:31 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
The Court has agreed to hear Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, and to decide whether public universities may open up various student group benefits — funding, access to classrooms, and the like — only to groups that don’t discriminate based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and the like. 1. To begin with, I should […]
Ideological Groups Being Taken Over by Those Hostile to the Underlying Ideology
By Eugene Volokh on December 8, 2009 12:42 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
A commenter (Tim) on an earlier thread raised an important objection to rules that bar religious discrimination by campus groups (including religious groups): Imagine that anyone, regardless of religious belief, were allowed to become voting members of the “Christian Legal Society” or the “Muslim Students’ Association” or any other such group. What would stop people […]