First Amendment 📍

NPR

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Supreme Court Rules For Cheerleader In Free Speech Case : NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with students on Wednesday, ruling that a cheerleader's online F-bombs about her school is protected speech under the First Amendment.

By an 8-1 vote, the court declared that school administrators do have the power to punish student speech that occurs online or off campus if it genuinely disrupts classroom study. But the justices concluded that a few swear words posted online from off campus, as in this case, did not rise to the definition of disruptive.

"While public schools may have a special interest in regulating some off-campus student speech, the special interests offered by the school are not sufficient to overcome B. L.'s interest in free expression in this case," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court's majority.

At issue in the case was a series of F-bombs issued on Snapchat by Brandi Levy, then a 14-year-old high school cheerleader, who failed to win a promotion from the junior varsity to the varsity cheerleading term.

"I was really upset and frustrated at everything," she said in an interview with NPR in April. So she posted a photo of herself and a friend flipping the bird to the camera, along with a message that said, "F*** the school,... F*** cheer, F*** everything."

I just think the Florida anti-protesting law is just disgusting. 🤮

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Citizens have the right to speak up, rally and have their concerns heard. Any attempt to silence dissent should be frowned upon. Protestors should not be labeled rioters or insurrectionists, but merely demonstrators. Sometimes protests get emotional, sometimes property is broken or damaged. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have protests.

Now I get that the Florida anti-protesting law is mostly a response to the Democrats labeling the unruly and rather asinine pro-Trump protests at the US Capitol insurrectionists, and the abuse of the law by federal agents to aggressively prosecute those who marched on and in some cases damaged the Capitol grounds is gross. But two wrongs don’t make a right. Republicans shouldn’t be enacting a law because Joe Biden’s administration is being unfair to the January 6th protestors. And just because a protest is completely asinine and insane, doesn’t mean people don’t have the right to be heard and not be taken seriously.

There is a lot of injustice in the world today. People have the right to be heard. Law enforcement should work with demonstrations to ensure that people have a chance to have their voices heard, while minimizing damage to property and injury to fellow protestors and people going on their businesses. But remember broken glass isn’t end of world. The government breaks a lot of glass and tears down a lot of buildings with eminent domain to build highways, office parks and “public” works.

Protests may be asinine, and the may be inconvenient to people trying to get through daily business, but that shouldn’t be a reason to allow people to have their voices heard.

NPR

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Florida Adopts Nation’s Toughest Restrictions On Protests : NPR

The law increases penalties for protesters who block roadways or deface public monuments. It creates a new crime, "mob intimidation." And it requires that anyone arrested at a protest be denied bail until their first court appearance, likely making for overnight jail stays. The law makes local officials in Florida liable to lawsuits from injured parties if they are found to have not done enough to respond to control violent protests. And it reacts to the "defund police" movement, allowing officials to appeal to the governor and his cabinet any decision by local officials to reduce funding to law enforcement.

NPR

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Larry Flynt, Porn Mogul And ‘Hustler’ Founder, Dies At 78 : NPR

His truly gross pornography, says sex columnist Dan Savage, made Flynt a necessary outlier testing the principle of free speech. "At the same time, he helped create Supreme Court decisions that further enhanced and strengthened the First Amendment that protects us. So we should be grateful for Larry Flynt even if his output wasn't something you're interested in," he says. "And I'm certainly not."

America lost a great man, a true patriot with the death of Larry Flint. He will be missed. 

KunstlerCast 339

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KunstlerCast 339

1/5/21

Web player: https://podcastaddict.com/episode/117388740
Episode: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/kunstlercast/KunstlerCast_339.mp3?dest-id=14822

Adam Ellwanger is a professor of English at the University of Houston – Downtown, where he teaches rhetoric and writing. In addition to those topics, his varied research interests include popular culture, political philosophy, media studies, and the American Mess writ large. Check out his dangerous new book on the modern politics of identity, entitled Metanoia: Rhetoric, Authenticity, and the Transformation of the Self. You will also like his essay on the Human Events website: Toward a Woke Metaphysics. Recently, he authored an open letter signed by over 180 professors that outlines forms of non-compliance that signatories will undertake in an effort to resist the current ideological trends on campus. Ellwanger also offers regular commentary at sites like Human Events, New Discourses, American Greatness, Quillette, and more. In his free time, he writes, plays guitar, drinks beer and ruby port, and listens to music. Follow him @DoctorEllwanger on Twitter. The KunstlerCast theme music is the beautiful Two Rivers Waltz written and performed by Larry Unger.