donal brown

The Washington state Supreme Court ruled that under state anti-discrimination law florists must provide flower arranging services for same-sex weddings concluding that  flower arranging was not expressive enough to qualify for First Amendment protection. Last year the Supreme Court sent the case back to Washington for review in light of their Masterpiece Cakeshop decision that supported the need to fight LGBTQ discrimination in businesses open to the public but allowed a bakery to refuse to bake a

Law professor Garrett Epps, The Atlantic, June 3, 2019, criticized the recent Supreme Court decision Nieves v. Bartlett, for weakening the free speech rights of ordinary citizens when confronting police officers. Citing the frequency of such encounters and police abuse of citizen rights, Epps says the decision makes it more likely that police can get away with charges of “disorderly conduct” or “failure to obey a lawful order” in retaliation for speech they find egregious. Chief Justice

YouTube plans to to eliminate thousands of videos and channels dedicated to neo-Nazi and white supremacist content. The ban would include kooky videos denying that events like the Sandy Hook Elementary School took place. YouTube said it wanted to prevent its platform from being used to promote “hatred, harassment, discrimination and violence.” YouTube is under fire for allowing hate and racism, and at the same time President Donald Trump and his followers criticize the social

ustice Department prosecutors are refusing to honor a judge’s order to release secret transcripts of conversations between former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak after the Obama administration had slapped sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Federal district judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered the release in a rare request for a secret wiretap of foreign officials. (The New York Times, May 31, 2019, by Adam Goldman)

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a Montana government employee privacy law failed to distinguish between personal information and acts that may be illegal or unethical. The dispute involved an ethics complaint filed by legislator Brad Tschida concerning a alleged misuse of a state-owned airplane in 2014 by Democratic Governor Steve Bullock and an unelected aide, a complaint that Tschidas wanted released to the public. (Courthouse News Service, May 29, 2019, by Mathew Renda)