Reach of online speech raises new issues of freedom
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009
The Internet provides the means and opportunity to reach well beyond friends and family, and in doing so increases the potential consequences. And what are the potential consequences for free speakers in an Internet age?
Should schools ban teachers in religious garb?
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, Aug. 1, 2009
We have a crazy quilt of laws and policies across the country, with some states joining Oregon to prohibit religious attire by statute (Pennsylvania and Nebraska) and others with laws expressly allowing teachers to wear religious clothing (Tennessee and Arkansas).
An American midsummer night’s reflection: Freedom
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, July 25, 2009
Pause for just a moment, if you will, to consider America’s freedoms and how fortunate we are even as others struggle or are denied their basic rights – whether or not the day is marked by banners and bunting. And even though, yes, indeed, it’s the middle of summer.
In public schools, which holy days are holidays?
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, July 18, 2009
In considering whether to add Muslim holy days, New York City officials should only look at what’s best for the school system—and for the education of all students.
Insider dinners with news outlets leave the public hungry
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, July 11, 2009
The challenges of operating a successful news business while maintaining an independent First Amendment role are encapsulated in the recent kerfuffle over “salons”—small gatherings of journalists and others—tentatively offered, but now withdrawn, by The Washington Post.
Putting Sikhs to the ‘cruel choice’
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Friday, July 3, 2009
The U.S. Army isn’t the only arena where Sikhs in America face discrimination. In workplaces, schools, airports and elsewhere, Sikhs often encounter ignorance about their religion and resistance to requests for accommodation. And with Sikhism growing in the United States—there are currently some 500,000 Sikh Americans—the level of discrimination is likely to rise unless more is done to address the problem.
Justice Souter: man of few words, including ‘no’
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, June 27, 2009
Even when U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter leaves the Court, any renewed congressional proposals to allow TV coverage of all open Supreme Court sessions aren’t likely to succeed.
Farewell, Justice Souter, defender of Mr. Jefferson’s wall
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, June 20, 2009
Few justices in recent memory have been more vigorous than David H. Souter in defending Thomas Jefferson’s wall against increasingly successful efforts by some on the Court to dismantle it brick by brick.
Pundits should be judged in court of public opinion
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, June 13, 2009
The way free speech—and even cable TV—works is that talkers get to talk, and you aget to pick and choose—whether to watch or listen, and certainly whether to believe or reject. The menu is pretty good and varied, though, admittedly, conservatives seem to have the upper hand on talk radio. The situation is worth noting because of a confluence of seemingly coincidental events and anniversaries.
Use First Amendment freedoms to debate Second Amendment issues
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, June 6, 2009
You and I might consider the idea of armed undergraduates as either inspired or wacky—but that’s not the First Amendment point, which seems to be lost on at least a few college administrators.
Newspaper’s good fortune may not be a good deal for the press
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, May 30, 2009
A loan from the town’s business-development fund will help the Carrboro Citizen, a 2-year-old newspaper in North Carolina, expand its business, hire more staff and even expand its circulation beyond its current 6,000 copies—certainly a laudable set of facts in an industry generally seeing at least sharp reductions in all areas. An Associated Press report quotes Publisher Robert Dickson saying news coverage won’t be affected by the loan: “Newspapers do business with the people they have to report on. It’s a fact of life.”
Sotomayor, religious freedom and the great unknown
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Friday, May 29, 2009
Sotomayor’s long judicial record on the U.S. District Court level and, since 1998, on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tells us next to nothing about how she views the relationship between church and state. On the establishment clause, she is the great unknown.
When praying at graduation, silence is golden
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, May 23, 2009
If school officials want to solemnize the occasion without hiring a lawyer, a neutral moment of silence is the best solution. Religious freedom is all about the right of each person to pray (or not) according to the dictates of his or her own conscience.
Chicago case shines light on need for federal shield law
By GENE POLICINSKI - Saturday, May 16, 2009
The debate continues over whether or not a federal “shield law” for journalists is proper or is even needed — in the Congress, in the courts and even among news professionals themselves.
Around the globe, religious freedom under assault
By CHARLES C. HAYNES - Saturday, May 9, 2009
A new report documents in chilling detail the global assault on freedom of religion and belief, making a powerful case for the need to take religious freedom more seriously in U.S. foreign policy.
