Hate Speech Review

Roy Kronk Defamation Lawsuit

Just in time for the chapters on libel, there is another defamation lawsuit relating to the Casey Anthony case. Meter reader Roy Kronk filed a lawsuit last week. Here is more about the case.

Practice Case Study for Time, Place & Manner

Hello. Below is a case study from Chapters 2-3. While you will not have these long form case studies on the exams, they are another way of studying the material and lead to better critical thinking. We will go over the answers later.

The Cleveland Political Awareness League, a non-profit, nonpartisan community group, scheduled a series of eight talks by regional and national political figures in early 2004. Two talks were held each month at the Paramount Theater, a large auditorium, over a four-month period. The speakers represented a variety of viewpoints and political policies. On the evening of the second speech Art Ferrill, a radical socialist and long time local political agitator, set up a card table on the public sidewalk outside the theater and tried to sell a book he had written, Government and the End of Civilization.

Police outside the theater asked Ferrill to move his table because, they said, it was an impediment to the pedestrians using the sidewalk. He refused and was arrested for violating a city ordinance on street vending. He failed to have a vending permit, police said.

The city’s ordinance requires that any person who seeks to sell any merchandise on a city sidewalk must obtain a permit, which can be issued if the city manager finds that the goods for sale are legitimate, that the seller will not endanger public safety or convenience, and that, in the judgment of the city manager, the sale of the goods is in the “best interest” of the people of Cleveland. The sale of newspapers from street corners to pedestrians and motorists is exempt from the provisions of the ordinance.

Ferrill challenged the time, place and manner ordinance on First Amendment grounds. He argues that the permit process is unconstitutional.

A. What kind of a forum is a city sidewalk?

B. In testing whether a time, place and manner rule is constitutional, what criteria do the courts apply?

C. Does this law meet this test? Why or why not?

Clery Act

The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (20 USC § 1092(f)) is the landmark federal law, originally known as the Campus Security Act, that requires colleges and universities across the United States to disclose information about crime on and around their campuses.

Because the law is tied to participation in federal student financial aid programs it applies to most institutions of higher education both public and private. It is enforced by the U.S. Department of Education.

The "Clery Act" is named in memory of 19 year old university freshman Jeanne Ann Clery (pictured above) who was raped and murdered while asleep in her residence hall room on April 5, 1986.

Jeanne's parents, Connie and Howard, discovered that students hadn't been told about 38 violent crimes on their daughter's campus in the three years before her murder. They joined with other campus crime victims and persuaded Congress to enact this law, which was originally known as the "Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990."

Here is more information about the Cleary Act.

Here is how UCF complies with the Act.

Morse v Frederick ("Bong Hits for Jesus")

In 2007, the Supreme Court made another decision regarding the First Amendment and speech in the public schools: Morse v. Frederick. This is commonly known as the "Bong Hits for Jesus" case.

According to the ruling:
"The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic," Roberts wrote for the majority. "It is no doubt offensive to some, perhaps amusing to others. To still others, it probably means nothing at all. Frederick himself claimed 'that the words were just nonsense meant to attract television cameras.' But Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one.

"The question thus becomes whether a principal may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech at a school event, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use. We hold that she may."

Morse suspended the student, prompting a federal civil rights lawsuit.

The winning side in the case was quick to assert that the decision was not anti-free speech.

In their concurrence, Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy specified that the Court's opinion provides no support for any restriction on speech that goes to political or social issues.

Alito wrote: "The opinion of the Court does not endorse the broad argument advanced by petitioners and the United States that the First Amendment permits public school officials to censor any student speech that interferes with a school's 'educational mission.' This argument can easily be manipulated in dangerous ways, and I would reject it before such abuse occurs."

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in dissent: "In my judgment, the First Amendment protects student speech if the message itself neither violates a permissible rule nor expressly advocates conduct that is illegal and harmful to students. This nonsense banner does neither, and the court does serious violence to the First Amendment in upholding — indeed, lauding — a school's decision to punish Frederick for expressing a view with which it disagreed."


Here is more about the case.

Tinker v Des Moines Schools

Here is the actual Tinker case.

Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier

Here is a link to more information on the Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier case. Here is another good resource.

Be sure to focus on exactly what kind of student expression is central to this case case.