One of the excellent benefits of teaching and writing on First Amendment issues is that friends and colleagues send me articles about First Amendment doctrine, free speech values, and academic freedom.  To respond to these myriad current events, I am creating a new type of post, called Abridged.  In Abridged, I will share, discuss, and connect all of the links sent to me over the past week. I would love to hear your thoughts as well.

Today’s theme:  Is the marketplace of ideas broken?

Continue reading “Abridged. (In which I connect all the links shared with me over the past week.)” →

I enjoy the television show The Good Doctor, as I enjoy most medical dramas.  This week’s episode, “Point Three Percent” makes an all-too-common math error.  This error has profound significance for criminal procedure, tort law, and scientific studies, because it changes whether we consider certain data significant.

Continue reading “The Math Problem in The Good Doctor, and Why It Matters” →

There are many valid approaches to combating sexism.  Reasonable minds can differ about the underlying definition of sexism, the ideal situation to achieve, and about the best strategies for achieving gender equality.  As a free speech-minded egalitarian, I want to share my own approach.  In our culture of increasing polarization, the most committed to a given cause are the most vocal, and more moderate views are not voiced.  There are a subset of views on this sensitive topic, in particular, not often expressed, especially in certain circles.  In my own personal experience with discussions about gender discrimination, I find that people tend to over-read discrimination and to remove the onus on women to assert themselves.   That doesn’t mean the opposite doesn’t also happen, but we need better methods for discerning which is which.

Continue reading “Why I Don’t Want You To Save Me From The Patriarchy” →

Continue reading “Common Misconceptions about Constitutional Rights” →

Earlier this month, journalists exposed Hollywood’s open secret that movie executive Harvey Weinstein harassed and assaulted female actresses.  Weinstein denies allegations of non-consensual sex, and he deserves his presumption of innocence in a courtroom, where evidence can be tested and weighed.  The conversation has, rightly, moved to larger cultural forces that sustained and facilitated Weinstein’s abuses of power.  Last Sunday, social media exploded with the hashtag “MeToo,” so that women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed can share their stories.  Soon after that, the meta conversation began about whether men, or gender non-conforming women, should also share their stories.

I believe that answer is a resounding yes.  Calls for silencing certain comments as irrelevant are an illegitimate, and counterproductive, way of simplifying and impoverishing a conversation.

Continue reading “Who is Allowed to Speak in the “Me Too” Conversation?” →

I began thinking about this post on Yom Kippur, the day when Jews ruminate on their sins.

This week, students affiliated with the College of William & Mary’s Black Lives Matter movement shut down a speaking event featuring an alumna from the American Civil Liberties Union.  The ACLU speaker had come to discuss “Students and the First Amendment.”  I do not support the tactic of hijacking a speaking event for one’s own purposes, even for a good cause.  A coordinated effort to shout down a scheduled speaker is not protected First Amendment activity.  Nor do I agree with the protesters’ sentiment that “liberalism is white supremacy.”  The protection of hate speech is a critical component of maintaining robust, viewpoint-neutral speech protections, and liberalism has likely promoted civil rights better than any other system of political thought.

However, the activists who refused to even let students interact with the ACLU’s Claire Gastañaga highlight an important point with which I have been reckoning: the First Amendment is process-based and somewhat justice-neutral.  The First Amendment provides a methodology – open exchange of ideas – for attaining truth and reaching the best results, but must remain fairly agnostic about what those results are.   My own views about the First Amendment, and my exaltation of open, dispassionate dialog as a way of reaching enlightenment, often lead to political paralysis or a ceding of political responsibility to others.  Strong belief in a values-neutral process like free speech can lead to political disengagement.   The aftermath of the heartbreaking events in Las Vegas provide a useful lens for my reckoning with the sins of the First Amendment.

Continue reading “Politicizing Tragedies, and the Sins of the First Amendment” →