Search

Categories

Total Results

No Record Found

View All Results
DONATE

donal brown

Support grows for free speech for pop lyrics

donal brown July 18, 2011

With popular songs becoming even more racier, it would be expected for the public to favor restricting the lyrics, but a poll by the First Amendment Center revealed that 67 percent of those polled said performers have the right to sing lyrics others might find offensive. This is in sharp contrast to the 55 percent supporting performers in 1994. Speculation about the reasons for the support include the ideas that with the music industry fragmented

Read More »

Oregon medical pot case raises First Amendment concerns

donal brown July 18, 2011

The 9th Circuit federal court of appeals heard  plaintiffs argue that the sheriff retaliated against them because they petitioned Douglas County to return the legal marijuana taken among a seizure of 117 lbs of marijuana. They claimed the sheriff persuaded federal authorities to become involved,  in violation of their First Amendment right to petition the government to return property. The plaintiffs said the sheriff harbored some animosity toward the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act which requires

Read More »

Minnesota court invokes Tinker in upholding punishment of student for off-campus speech

donal brown July 18, 2011

In one of the first cases concerning off-campus speech of college students, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that the University of Minnesota was justified in disciplining a former student in the mortuary program for her Facebooks posts in 2009. The university claimed the student violated the student code of conduct and gave her a failing grade in her anatomy-laboratory class and put her on academic probation for the rest of her undergraduate years. In

Read More »

L.A. Times editorial: Punish Murdoch, not the press

donal brown July 17, 2011

The British government is considering legislation to curtail the press after the phone-hacking scandal perpetrated by the News of the World including monitoring contacts between national newspapers and politicians. An editorial in the Los Angeles Times argues: “No one, journalists included, should defend the hackers. Their behavior — including the now-infamous deletion of messages from the cellphone of a missing 13-year-old girl — was unforgivable, unethical and most likely illegal. But, even where the tabloid

Read More »

California: Glendale councilman claims council violated open meetings law

donal brown July 17, 2011

Glendale city councilman Rafi Manoukian has alleged that the council violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, when they held a closed meeting on the topic of the city manager’s impending retirement. Although Manoukian would not say what his allegation entailed, the closed session on the city manager was posted as “Performance Evaluation – City Manager”. Since the city manager told the council he wanted to retire, it could be that issues other

Read More »