First Amendment

• 
• SOURCE: ProPublica
  6/9/2020
  

  The Police Have Been Spying on Black Reporters and Activists for Years. I Know Because I’m One of Them.

  by Wendi C. Thomas

  Wendi C. Thomas is a black journalist who has covered police in Memphis. One officer admitted to spying on her. She’s on a long list of prominent black journalists and activists who have been subjected to police surveillance over decades.

• 
• SOURCE: Virginia Mercury
  4/27/2020
  

  As Campaign 2020 Shifts into High Gear, Trump’s Defamation Suits Pose a Chilling Prospect for the Press

  Although the 1964 Times v. Sullivan ruling makes it unlikely Trump would win a libel suit against a media outlet, the adminstration wants to break the historical relationship between the press and public figures.

• 
• 4/5/2020
  

  US v. Sineneng-Smith Echoes the Fugitive Slave Act

  by Alan J. Singer

  A Supreme Court decision in United States v. Sineneng-Smith that broadens the authority of the federal government to suppress the rights of advocates for undocumented immigrants could divide the nation irreparably.

• 
• SOURCE: Freedom Forum
  4/2/2020
  

  "Be Nice" Is Not Needed During Crisis — But A Free Press Is

  “Be nice” — two words not found anywhere among the 45 words of the First Amendment.

• 
• 7-3-18
  

  The Media Have Been the Target of Violence since the Beginning of the Republic

  by Harold Holzer

  It’s always an ominous sign.

• 
• 6/29/18
  

  Why Is Christian America Supporting Donald Trump?

  by John Fea

  Their belief is based on a false reading of American history.

• 
• 4/30/18
  

  At a Time Like This We Need more Truth Tellers Like Michelle Wolf

  by Ed Simon

  Her great contribution is demonstrating how afraid of uncomfortable truths we’ve become.

• 
• SOURCE: LikeTheDew
  11-12-17
  

  Cheerleaders taking a knee aren’t dishonoring the flag

  by David B. Parker

  Why the president of Kennesaw State University might want to reconsider his criticism.

• 
• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  10-25-17
  

  Finally, we can see the long-hidden records of the U.S. government prosecution of the Chicago Tribune during WW2

  This article draws on grand jury records that had been sealed for decades until historian Elliot Carlson, joined by the Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press, the National Security Archive, and other historians’ organizations, filed a lawsuit for their release.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  10-2-17 (accessed)
  

  Flip-Flopping on Free Speech

  by Jill Lepore

  The fight for the First Amendment, on campuses and football fields, from the sixties to today.

• 
• SOURCE: PennLive
  3-7-17
  

  The press was way more political in Jefferson's day - but he defended it anyway

  by John Fea

  The Founding Father had his problems with the press. But what he didn't note was that despite his agitation with the press, he defended a much more biased press as a necessary part of free speech.

• 
• SOURCE: Huffington Post
  3-3-17
  

  The Press Was the Enemy of the People in John Adams’s Era

  by Jeff Biggers

  Federalists even passed a law allowing the authorities to jail journalists.

• 
• SOURCE: NYT
  2-26-17
  

  Trump Embraces ‘Enemy of the People,’ a Phrase With a Fraught History

  It is difficult to know if President Trump is aware of the historic resonance of the term, a label generally associated with despotic communist governments rather than democracies.

• 
• 3-5-17
  

  FROM OUR ARCHIVES The American Press Has Served Us Well. We Need to Protect It.

  by Vaughn Davis Bornet

  That new man in the White House needs to be made aware that the job he occupies is a Bully Pulpit—and not a Bullying Pulpit.

• 
• SOURCE: Corpus Christi Caller Times
  2-10-17
  

  Partisan at the pulpit: The Johnson amendment

  by Randall Balmer

  Donald Trump’s promise to “totally destroy” the Johnson Amendment, delivered at the National Prayer Breakfast last week, is a totally bad idea, one that compromises the First Amendment.

• 
• 1-8-17
  

  Donald Trump’s Appalling Hypocrisy about Free Speech

  by Robert Cohen  

  He’s no Mario Savio.

• 
• 12-14-14
  

  Every 30 or 40 Years We See Flagrant Attacks on Free Speech. Here We Go Again.

  by Lawrence Davidson

  This time it’s attacks on the critics of Israel.

• 
• SOURCE: Informed Comment blog
  5-3-14
  

  Alabama’s chief justice: Muhammad didn’t create us so 1st Amendment only protects Christians

  “They didn’t bring the Koran over on the pilgrim ship. Let’s get real, let’s go back and learn our history. Let’s stop playing games.”

• SOURCE: Philadelphia Inquirer
  8-6-13
  

  Student's simple stand made history in Abington v. Schempp

  He was a 16-year-old junior at Abington Senior High School, just making a statement, utterly unaware that he was about to make legal history.It was in 1956 that Ellery Schempp staged the classroom protest that yielded Abington v. Schempp, the landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision banning mandatory Bible readings in public schools.When Schempp's homeroom teacher read aloud 10 verses from the New Testament at the start of the day, as required by Pennsylvania law, Schempp brazenly paged through a Quran he had borrowed from a friend.When a student read the Lord's Prayer over the public address system, another daily requirement, Schempp refused to stand.Those actions earned him trips to the principal and guidance counselor, and triggered years of litigation over his belief that such readings were unconstitutional....

• SOURCE: WRAL
  4-2-13
  

  State religion in NC?

  Raleigh, N.C. — A bill filed by Republican lawmakers would allow North Carolina to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide.The bill grew out of a federal lawsuit filed last month by the American Civil Liberties Union against the Rowan County Board of Commissioners. In the lawsuit, the ACLU says the board has opened 97 percent of its meetings since 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers.Overtly Christian prayers at government meetings are not rare in North Carolina. Since the Republican takeover in 2011, the state Senate chaplain has offered an explicitly Christian invocation virtually every day of session, despite the fact that some senators are not Christian....