Contemplating Media & the First Amendment
Last week Facebook announced that it has employed a forty member board to make final decisions about posts that have been taken down. In her article "Facebook Restricts Speech By Popular Demand", Daphne Keller highlights more than a few of the issues that go along with this new system. Keller compares Facebook's new forty person... Continue Reading →
Lat week in Tennessee, Nicholas Ennis was driving his car when the Sheriff’s Department deputies cited him for having an obscene car sticker on the window of his truck. It has the letters “U” and “C” with a rifle on both ends followed by “Gun Control.” Anyone with a vocabulary that is above a sixth-grade... Continue Reading →
National Archives-Atlanta, Records of District Courts of the United States (ARC ID 2641477) Sarah C In chapter four of “Freedom for the Thought We Hate” by Anthony Lewis, a case that I found incredibly interesting was New York Times v. Sullivan. This case was, (for lack of a better word,) huge. It took all the... Continue Reading →
In Chapter 4 of Freedom for the Thought We Hate, I found the case of Near v. Minnesota to be the most interesting. Reading about the Minnesota “Public Nuisance” law, that shut down “malicious, scandalous, and defamatory newspapers,” reminded me of the tons of malicious, scandalous, and defamatory newspapers I see at CVS every day... Continue Reading →
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/29/denver-children-drag-show-endures-amid-demonstrations/ The Denver Post, 9/29/19 The First Amendment protects the citizens’ right of assembly. But what happens when those being protested against are children? The Colorado Proud Boys and several antifascist activists exercised their First Amendment rights this Sunday... at the front of a children’s drag show. This drag show, held in Denver, Colorado, brings... Continue Reading →
In chapter 4 of his book, Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, Anthony Lewis outlines the evolution of Libel law. He identifies the supreme court case, New York Times v. Sullivan as a turning point in the United States, claiming that it put an end to the concept of seditious libel and was extremely... Continue Reading →
We all have past experiences we aren’t proud of. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone without a few ancestral skeletons in the closet––but few take home the prize for cringeworthy family roots quite like Edward Tayloe II. Tayloe is your average 76-year-old guy from Virginia: he’s white, he's angry, and he just happens to come... Continue Reading →
Contemporary climate activism is extremely white. The UN Climate Summit and National Climate Strike happened last week, so there has been a lot of talk about climate change in the news and on social media. I have seen a lot of articles and posts praising Greta Thunberg for her activism. I find Greta Thunberg to... Continue Reading →
NPR News’ recent report of activism in Houston dissects the fine line between peaceful protest and public disturbance. Greenpeace protesters, tied to ropes and carrying streamers, rappelled off of Houston’s Fred Hartman Bridge, blocking a ship channel through which oil from Shell and Exxon Mobil is imported and exported. More oil is exported through Houston... Continue Reading →
Since Friday’s Global Climate Strike, and now Greta Thunberg’s speech at the UN Climate Action Summit, climate change headlines are more abundant than ever. Videos of the young Swedish activist gone icon are being shared by the millions every day. Her catalyst affect brought millions from their schools, work, and homes to the streets to... Continue Reading →
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