Teacher Guide: The Right to Peacefully Assemble
This teacher guide examines the role peaceful protest has played in United States history, how the law evolved to ensure greater protections for protest, and contemporary threats to assembly rights. It includes information about the civil rights movement, major court cases, and the philosophy of civil disobedience.
Teacher Guide: The Sedition Act of 1798
The Sedition Act of 1798 was the first great test of the First Amendment’s protection for the freedom of speech and press. Under the new law, Americans could face up to $2,000 in fines (nearly $42,000 in 2020 dollars) and two years in prison for criticizing a public official. Passed only seven years after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the Sedition Act forced the young country to decide not just whether it was truly dedicated to freedom of speech, but also what that idea would even mean in a democratic republic.
Federal Judge Temporarily Halts Trump’s WeChat and TikTok Ban
On Sunday, September 20th, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump’s executive order that banned WeChat and TikTok from operating in the U.S. Trump signed the executive order on August 6th, citing national security concerns that the Chinese-owned messaging app and the video app were collecting data on Americans.
Panel on How to Safely and Legally Record the Police
Halima Kazem-Stojanovic, an investigative reporter and Justice Studies professor at San Jose State University and the coordinator of the Human Rights Journalism program at SJSU’s Human Rights Institute, hosted a virtual panel on the right to record police in public.
Federal Judges Rules That Pennsylvania Shutdown Orders Violate First Amendment
On September 14th, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that Governor Tom Wolf’s COVID-19-related orders that forced some businesses to close and prohibited large public gatherings are unconstitutional.
Appeals Court Lifts Temporary Restraining Order on Trump’s Niece’s Tell-All Book
“Unlike Ms. Trump, [Simon & Schuster] has not agreed to surrender or relinquish any of its First Amendment rights,” wrote Judge Alan Scheinkman, the presiding judge of the state’s Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department.
Judge Dismisses Misinformation Suit Brought by Watchdog Group Against Fox News
A Superior Court judge in Seattle has tossed out a lawsuit brought by a watchdog group against Fox News for disseminating false information about COVID-19.
On May 5th, the Knight Foundation and Gallup released the 2020 First Amendment on Campus report, an online survey of more than 3,000 full-time undergraduate students, and a large cohort of students from historically black colleges and universities. The First Amendment survey began in the spring of 2016, and the respondents for the 2020 report were queried in the fall of 2019, well before the COVID-19 pandemic.