First Amendment News

A blogger posting an article about a defamation lawsuit against a Charlottesville newspaper never dreamed he would be the target of a subpoena for the names of those posting comments on the article and the IP addresses associated with each viewer. -DB Citizen Media Law Center Jan. 30, 2009 By Sam Bayard In perhaps the most blatant misuse of the subpoena power we’ve seen since the subpoena served on Kathleen Seidel of Neurodiversity last March,

After mistakenly voting for a change in the city’s general plan in January without public notice, the Lakeport City Council revoked the vote, reasserted their commitment to open government and scheduled a public workshop to inform the community about the Brown Act. -DB Clear Lake County Record-Bee Jan. 2, 2009 By Tiffany Revelle LAKEPORT – The Lakeport City Council held a workshop Jan. 2 to inform the public and the council about Brown Act and

Given a history of racially-based violence and harassment in a Missouri high school, the 8th circuit court ruled that the school administrators had met the standards of Tinker v. Des Moines – a reasonable forecast of substantial disruption – in prohibiting students from wearing confederate flag garb. -DB First Amendment Center Feb. 2, 2009 By David L. Hudson Jr. School officials in Farmington, Mo., were justified in suspending students for wearing Confederate flag clothing because

Despite isolated incidents and the expected tensions between the incoming administration and the press, President Obama has ended

The Berkeley community is asking whether a closed meeting about the achievement gap for minority students violates the Brown Act. -DB The Berkeley Daily Planet By Riya Bhattacharjee Jan. 29, 2009 The Berkeley Board of Education, at a public meeting Wednesday, unanimously approved a $50,000 contract with the non-profit Berkeley Alliance to oversee the process of developing a city-wide plan to close the achievement gap for minority students, as outlined by the 2020 Vision, a