Topic
Opinion
Wooden blocks spelling "tolerance"

First Amendment Scholar Ron Collins, “We Have No Tolerance For Tolerance.”

In a new essay in Concurring Opinions, Abandoned? The Liberal Flight from the First Amendment, First Amendment scholar, Ron Collins, writes that the cultural wars have wiped away once steadfast liberal ideas of tolerance. "Toleration (that enemy of the self-righteous) has always been at the heart of the First Amendment. But ideology makes its demands and when it does liberty is left wounded. Sensitive to such concerns, the reflections that follow (by an open-minded person with progressive tendencies) are about the liberal abandonment of the First Amendment, or much of it." As First Amendment Watch kicks off a series of online essay debates on the topic, we want to hear from you. What do you think? Is there really no tolerance for tolerance anymore?

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Ballard Spahr: Cosby Case Highlights Role of Public Access to Court Records

  Reprinted with Permission from Ballard Spahr The April 2018 criminal trial of iconic entertainer and “America’s Dad” Bill Cosby has ended with a guilty verdict. Rarely has the importance […]

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Gene Policinski

Gene Policinski Commentary: Sinclair, Next Time Just Put Your Name To The Message

The Newseum Institute’s First Amendment expert, Gene Policinski, originally published this commentary on April 5, 2018, on the Newseum blog, and has given First Amendment Watch permission to reprint.   Sinclair […]

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student protests

Catherine Ross on Student Walkouts: “What is at stake in teaching young people how to live liberty—particularly how to exercise their expressive rights—is nothing less than the future of our democracy.”

Our guest writer and constitutional law scholar, Catherine Ross, speaks out about the student protests rocking the nation from the March 14 walkouts to the March for our Our Lives movement and looking ahead to the next planned protests on April 20th. Her book, Lessons in Censorship: How Schools and Courts Subvert Students' First Amendment Rights, excerpted on FAW looks at important free speech issues relevant to today's movement.

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Gene Policinski

Gene Policinski Commentary: The White House is Wrong. A Free Press Is ‘The People’

The Newseum Institute’s First Amendment expert, Gene Policinski, originally published this commentary on March 8, 2018, in the Austin American-Statesman, and then Newseum blog, and has given First Amendment Watch permission to reprint. […]

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Lata Nott

Lata Nott Podcast: Censoring Student Journalists

The Newseum Institute’s First Amendment expert, Lata Nott, originally published this podcast on the Newseum blog, and has given First Amendment Watch permission to reprint. Does freedom of the press […]

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Knight First Amendment Institute: From the Heckler’s Veto to the Provocateur’s Privilege

Reprinted with Permission From Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University Emerging Threats series invites leading thinkers to identify and grapple with newly arising or intensifying structural threats to the system […]

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Scale of justice

Ballard Spahr: Arizona Court of Appeals Declares Trial Court’s Media Restrictions Unconstitutional

Reprinted with Permission from Ballard Spahr The Arizona Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion late last month reaffirming the strict requirements for limiting the media’s ability to disseminate public information and […]

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