Contemplating Media & the First Amendment
"What a b!tch!" "B!tch please." "SON OF A B!TCH!" Whether it comes from a college frat bro, a drunken Red Sox fan, a Starbucks-yielding lady you accidentally bumped into on the street, or the average Massachusetts driver on a Monday morning––getting called a bitch is basically Boston's rite of passage. The well-known swear first got... Continue Reading →
When is and isn’t it okay to ask a journalist to divulge their sources in court? Should the press be allowed to have special privileges? Who even is the press, anyway? In chapter six of his book Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, Anthony Lewis talks about the complicated nature of reporter’s privilege when... Continue Reading →
Matthew McConaughey as "Danny Buck Davidson" in Bernie. One of my all-time favorite films is Bernie. The film, released in 2011, tells the real story of a 1999 murder trial in Carthage, Texas. Bernie Tiede, the film’s titular character, murders an elderly woman to whom he was very close in a fit of rage following... Continue Reading →
Elizabeth Warren is quickly becoming the candidate known for having a plan for nearly anything (check out her entire merch line dedicated to this idea. In unrelated news, Warren’s PR team never sleeps.) She’s rocked the boat a lot this election cycle, but one of her most controversial ideas is undoubtedly breaking up “Big Tech.”... Continue Reading →
On October 16th, 2019 the ACLU of Tennessee requested an investigation into Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s speech delivered 5 days before. Entitled “Being a Christian Leader” and delivered to the American Association of Christian Counselors, the ACLU claims it acted essentially as a Christian sermon and that using the State Department’s social media, website,... Continue Reading →
On October 11, Attorney General Bill Barr delivered a speech at the University of Notre Dame Law School with the message that we should be concerned about the secularist agenda to oppress religious people (specifically Catholics) and take away their freedom of religion — yes, you read that right. To me, it’s no surprise that... Continue Reading →
When it comes to the media coverage of a legal trial, the First Amendment and the Sixth Amendment often clash. While some will argue that the press has the right to publish whatever they want whenever they want, others believe this infringes on the rights of the defendant. This issue was first brought about in... Continue Reading →
While a first-reading of Vikram Amar's The First Amendment: Freedom of Speech; Its Constitutional History and the Contemporary Debate can often leave you feeling like "what did I just read?" the message behind content regulations in Part III is actually pretty relevant. The two types of content limitations presented in Amar's book are content-neutral and... Continue Reading →
The NPR notification read: “Showdown Over LGBTQ Employment Rights Hits Supreme Court.” I grabbed my headphones and committed to not going back to sleep, as one does after they involuntarily waking up at 5:05 am. The piece from Morning Edition gives a breif rundown of the case at hand; today, October 8th, 2019, the United... Continue Reading →
Free Press Free Speech 