Search

Categories

Total Results

No Record Found

View All Results
DONATE

First Amendment News

High court refuses to hear case banning hymn at high school graduation

donal brown March 22, 2010

The Supreme Court will not consider a lower court ruling backing a Washington state high school’s decision to ban a religious song at graduation. Judge Samuel Alito dissented with the argument that the decision would open the door to censorship of student speech. -db Courthouse News Service March 22, 2010 By Annie Youderian (CN) – The Supreme Court on Monday refused to disturb a 9th Circuit ruling backing a Washington public high school’s decision to

Read More »

Federal court scuttles subpoenas for two years of news coverage of murder investigation and court sessions

donal brown March 22, 2010

A federal judge in North Carolina rejected a request from the defense in a murder trial to force the media to produce public records of news coverage of the case holding that that would shift the burden for the defense from the suspect to the media. -db The Newsroom Law Blog March 18, 2010 By Elizabeth Spainhour North Carolina media organizations won a significant victory in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of

Read More »

Open government gadfly snares $3.5 million for San Francisco

donal brown March 19, 2010

San Francisco’s notable open government advocate is sometimes thought to provide an ordeal for government agencies with his voluminous public record requests, but he compensated them richly recently when he discovered that Morgan Stanley failed to pay the City a transfer tax of $3.5 million. -db San Francisco Bay Guardian March 18, 2010 By Rebecca Bowe Sunshine advocate Kimo Crossman is sometimes counted as a thorn in the side of city government agencies due to

Read More »

Student First Amendment rights get lost in school’s policing of off-campus postings on social media

donal brown March 18, 2010

A blogger from the Citizen Media Law Project argues that school authorities are over reaching in many instances in punishing students for off-campus speech. In many instances the speech has no disruptive effect on the school or falls short of creating a hostile school environment. -db Citizen Media Law Project Commentary March 17, 2010 By Justin Silverman A freshman at Oak Grove High School in Missouri used Facebook last month to vent about another student: “Wow,

Read More »

Federal court blocks District Attorney from prosecuting girls for appearing in racy photos on cellphones

donal brown March 18, 2010

Without resolving all the First Amendment issues in the case over whether girls could be punished for “sexting”, a federal appeals court blocked the District Attorney from initiating criminal charges and requiring the girls to participate in an education program and to write an essay about why their sexting was wrong. -db The New York Times March 17, 2010 By Tamar Lewin In the first federal appeals court opinion dealing with “sexting” — the transmission

Read More »