Speech vs. Hate

On October 7, 1998, twenty-one year old Matthew Shepard was robbed, pistol whipped, and left for dead in a remote area in Colorado. Sheppard, a homosexual, asked his murderers for a ride home from a bar. The police would eventually find his shoes and wallet in the trunk of the murders car (along with the bloody pistol).

During the trial, the defendants attempted to use the “gay panic defense” arguing they were driven to temporary insanity while Sheppard was making advances at them. They were both found guilty, sentenced to life in prison without parole, and are currently in a Nevada maximum-security facility.

Despite the seriousness of the punishment, Shepard’s story created a national discussion on hate crime legislation. Should punishments be more severe if the crimes were racially or religiously motivated? What if the crimes were committed out of hatred of homosexuals? People with disabilities?

In March of last year, The Matthew Sheppard Act was introduced in the US House of Representatives, and has recently passed through the Senate. It increases the severity of a federal crime (not state) if it was committed because of the victims race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

President Bush has promised to veto the bill.

Should criminals be given harsher punishments for a “hate crime”?

Does the first amendment play any role in your answer?

It’s worth noting the Shepard’s killers will never see the light of day again, and were not charged with a hate crime.

Tasering the first amendment?

As Stevenson students debate whether the first amendment protects their senior t-shirts, a different free speech battle has erupted in Colorado.

On Friday, The Rocky Mountain Collegian, the student newspaper for Colorado State University, ran a four-word editorial that read: "Taser this . . . F--- Bush."

The profane editorial was a response to last week's Tasering of a University of Florida student who disrupted a forum with Sen. John Kerry.

Asked by CNN if the editorial could be characterized as vulgar or sophomoric, student editor David McSwane said he "wouldn't entirely disagree."

"We wanted people to understand that free speech is something we should talk about," he told CNN. "We felt that this campus, for one reason or another, has been really apathetic. Too quiet. We felt that the best way to spark that dialogue was to exercise it ourselves."

College Republicans at Colorado State University collected more than 300 signatures calling on CSU's Board of Student Communications to fire McSwane.

Patriot of ’76 can’t help to think of the Hazelwood decision in 1988. The Rehnquist Court ruled that public school student newspapers are not forums for student expression, and are therefore not fully protected by the first amendment.

This, however, was on a college campus. Should the rules be more relaxed?

PO ’76 is reminded of another case, this one involving the use of profanity. In 1973, the Court set up a test to see when speech is obscene (not protected) or expression (is protected). The Miller Test goes as follows.

1. Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
2. Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law,
3. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.

Does the editorial pass the Miller Test? Is it protected expression, or obscene speech?

The beauty of our constitution is its brevity. It’s short, and can be interpreted in many different ways. What’s your interpretation?

Iranian speech

Another day, another battle over free speech in educational institutions.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is traveling to New York to address the United Nations' General Assembly. He was to appear Monday at a question-and- answer session with Columbia (private school) faculty and students as part of the school's World Leaders Forum.

This is the same man who is funding Iraqi insurgents, and providing them with the weapons and intelligence to kill American soldiers.

This is the same man who has openly questioned the Holocaust, and has voiced his desire for Israel to be wiped off of the map.

This is the same man whose nation is constructing a nuclear bomb, against the mandates of the international community.

This is the same man whose country brutally oppresses women and ethnic minorities.

City Council speaker Christine Quinn called Thursday for the university to rescind the invitation, saying "the idea of Ahmadinejad as an honored guest anywhere in our city is offensive to all New Yorkers."
Quinn, a Democrat, said Ahmadinejad was coming to the city "for one reason—to spread his hate-mongering vitriol on the world stage”.

This past week, Columbia Dean John Coatsworth said that he would have “invited Hitler to speak”.

By granting the Iranian President permission to speak, is a university granting legitimacy to the twenty first century’s version of Adolf Hitler? Does it serve any educational purpose?

Offensive speech? What would Tinker say?

The Court ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines that high school students do not leave their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. Student are allowed to express themselves politically (in Tinker, it was with a black armband to protest Vietnam) at an American public high school.

That’s not to say that students have complete first amendment protections. Students may not cause a distraction to learning, nor can they use profanity, or reference drugs or alcohol.

High school students are allowed to express themselves politically.

Do school uniforms rob them of that right?

State courts have ruled that uniforms are acceptable. However, in the spirit of Tinker , students in New Jersey decided to test the first amendment. To protest the school uniform policy, two students decided to wear buttons featuring a picture of the Hitler Youth.

According to the Associated Press, the buttons bear the words "no school uniforms" with a slash through them superimposed on a photo of young boys wearing identical shirts and neckerchiefs. There are no swastikas visible on the buttons, but the parties agreed that they depict members of Hitler youth.

Outraged? The school was, threatening suspension if the boys didn’t remove the buttons.

A federal judge certainly wasn’t outraged. He sided with the students, writing that a student may not be punished for merely expressing views unless the school has reason to believe that the speech or expression will 'materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school.'"

Are these buttons a distraction? Are they political? Do they satisfy the Tinker requirement?

Giving em Hill

In 1994, “HillaryCare” cost the Democrats the midterm elections, and branded them the party of high taxes and big government.
Thirteen years later, in a different political climate, Hillary is making the same push as a presidential candidate as she did as first lady: Health care for all Americans.

According to Yahoo News, she called for a requirement for businesses to obtain insurance for employees, and said the wealthy should pay higher taxes to help defray the cost for those less able to pay for it. She put the government's cost at $110 billion a year.

The New York senator said her plan would require every American to purchase insurance, either through their jobs or through a program modeled on Medicare or the federal employee health plan. Businesses would be forced to follow the federal legislation because of the commerce clause in the US Constitution.

Businesses would be required to offer insurance or contribute to a pool that would expand coverage. Individuals and small businesses would be offered tax credits to make insurance more affordable.

Clinton framed her quest as a moral imperative in which individuals, businesses, the insurance industry and the federal government each had a role to play.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit continues…

The apathetic American high school student

PO76’s last post asked the question if the pledge of allegiance violated the establishment clause of the first amendment.

The responses were diverse, but there seemed to be an outrage over schools outlawing conservative values such as open devotion to country and religion.

On the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, students at one high school were not allowed to wear clothes with an American Flag.

Under a new school rule, students at Hobbton High School are not allowed to wear items with flags, from any country, including the United States.

The new rule stems from a controversy over students wearing shirts bearing flags of other countries.

Students not allowed to wear shirts with American flags to an American public high school.

Is there any connection between rules like this and the dramatic decrease in civic engagement?

Establishment Violation?

“ Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen”.

You would be hard-pressed to find an American that wouldn’t classify this passage as a prayer. It is references the almighty, it is asking for his blessing, but, perhaps most importantly, it is non-denominational. There are no references to overtly Judeo-Christian tenets.

Then why can’t it be optional for students to recite in a public school?

In 1962, the Supreme Court, by a 6-1 decision, answered that question in the landmark case Engel v. Vitale. The court decided that government-directed prayer in public schools was an unconstitutional violation of the Establishment Clause (as applied to the states by the fourteenth amendment).

Schools must stay neutral on the issue of religion.

This begs the question, when the pledge of allegiance comes on the morning announcements, and the words “under God” are recited to every classroom at our public high school, is this too a violation?

Does SHS violate the establishment clause on a daily basis? What should be done?

The Edwards Plan

By this time, the number 46,000,000 should be familiar to all Americans. A nation whose birth certificate promised to provide “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” has nearly twenty percent of its citizens with little or no health insurance.

Forty-six million Americans are uninsured. Although there are a myriad of reasons, the most common cause is the rapidly rising cost of health care. It’s simply too expensive for many companies to provide their employees with health care, and students and the self employed often times choose to spend their money on short term needs (food, shelter, etc..)

Needless to say, it promises to be a major issue for the 2008 election.

North Carolina Democrat John Edwards wants universal care. His plan, according to Edwards, “requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care. If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK”

Mandatory doctor visits for preventative care.

Edwards said his mandatory health care plan would cover preventive, chronic and long-term health care. The plan would include mental health care as well as dental and vision coverage for all Americans

Edwards said his plan would cost up to $120 billion a year, a cost he proposes covering by ending President Bush's tax cuts to people who make more than $200,000 per year.

Mandatory doctors visits and the rich being forced to pay cover the middle-lower class. Is this the right move?

If you don’t like the Edwards plan, what’s your plan?