Displaying items by tag: free speech

The average American can be forgiven for assuming that he or she can freely criticize the government and government personnel without fear of being sued by the government for libel or slander.

Prince Harry seems to have been born with few talents aside from putting his foot in his mouth.

In 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, that students don't "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Schools may only prohibit, censor, or punish student speech which would "materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school."

Before they vote to make online impersonation a crime, state senators should chew the fat with Jim Ardis.

Some North Carolina lawmakers want public activism at government meetings to be a high-stakes affair with the threat of arrest hanging in the balance. 

A recent Carolina Journal story detailed Attorney General Josh Stein’s fight for school administrators to retain sweeping powers to regulate and punish North Carolina public school students for disfavored speech that occurs off-campus.

ROCKINGHAM —The Richmond County government may have violated the First Amendment when denying an outspoken animal rights activist a chance to address the commissioners because of perceived threats from 2019.

ROCKINGHAM — A provision in the Richmond County Board of Commissioners’ public appearance policy appears problematic, according to open government and free speech experts.

Last week’s massive social media purges — starting with President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets — was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas. The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense and the process was anything but transparent. Nowhere in President Trump’s two “offending” Tweets, for example, was a call for violence expressed explicitly or implicitly. It was a classic example of sentence first, verdict later.

It’s been more than five months since former University of North Carolina Wilmington professor Mike Adams killed himself after being pushed into early retirement for offensive tweets. My friend David French and my colleague Robert Shibley already wrote powerful articles about it, but I knew eventually I needed to say my piece.