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kvining - 12/29/2005 5:23 PM
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Ears - 12/28/2005 6:21 PM
While everyne is decrying what happened as an infringement of his right to free speech, and violation of his civil rights, I have but one question... Was he on private land?
Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins! You come into my house and start speechifying against me and my beliefs, etc and you're gonna face dire consequences. Now, if he was on public land...
Free speech has its limits, whether you think so or not. The framers of our constitution tried to protect us against undue censorship, but their intent was not to allow anyone to say whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted. Maybe you do have the "right " to yell, "c***sucker" in the middle of a church service... That does not make it proper use of free speech. Perhaps you think you have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre? The exercise of free speech comes with consequences, and great responsibility. I encourage anyone to practice it, but realize the responsibility and consequences there of...
I applaud the young Khan for standing his ground; however, I chock it up to the wrong execution of the right idea.
Flame on!
| "George Mason University is Virginia state institution"
From: http://www.gmu.edu/vcenter/history.html
The "limits" to the First Amendment are very, very few my friend. It is the First Amendment for a reason, and a freedom held most dear and precious by all the Founders. The person was on public property. he had every right to say what he had to say, which is why the prosecuters dropped it like a hot potato, knowing full well that if it did, it meant that the University was going to get it's ass sued of by the ACLU. They had no choice. The amendment is simple, absolute, and concise:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There are no IFS ANDS BUTS or MAYBES in there. You may also want to research a little further, and you find out some 70 years of case law has occurred since your quote of Mr. Holmes, whose reasoning has been for the most part shredded. For years porn was banned on the reasoning it caused rape, using Holmes reasoning. Subsequent courts have found that "The Holmes Test" invalid, since it is subjective in the extreme, and makes no sense.
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Hate to dissapoint you but here is an article listing several court cases where freedom of speech was limited by the courts.
7th Circuit Greenlights University Censorship
Censorship is not just for high school students anymore. Still reeling from the Supreme Court's 1998 Hazelwood decision that severely restricted high school journalists' 1st amendment rights, young journalists--particularly young activist journalists--now have another strike against them in the form of the 7th Circuit Court decision, Hosty v. Carter, covered in this week's Village Voice.
It seems the grad and undergrad student journalists of the student newspaper, The Innovator, at Governors State University in Illinois ran afoul of Governors' Dean Patricia Carter who didn't like the paper's critical stories about some of the school's more "lackluster professors," stopped a press run of the paper by the school's printer, and furthermore told the printer that she wanted to "review" each issue of the paper BEFORE it went to press.
The students took their campus to court, and while their rights were upheld in district court, the appelate court has now agreed in a 7-4 decision that college administrators have the right to censor campus publications. It's unclear whether there will be any attempt by student advocates to take the case to the Supreme Court.
One assumes this applies primarily to official campus publications using campus resources, and not an independent campus press outlet that raises its own funds and uses its own printers, but even so, the Hosty decision is a grievous blow freedom of speech on campus at precisely the moment in history when it will likely be most needed.
Here is Massachusetts, with our many, many colleges and universities, student activist journalists should be on the lookout for administrators seeking "prior review" of their publications. College students who feel they are targets of campus censorship should contact the Student Press Law Center, and of course, the former campus journalists here at Massachusetts Global Action