Joel Mathis

KC Star:  A select group of student-athletes at Kansas State have begun circulating a letter on social media that states they will not play in games or participate in any donor or recruiting events for the Wildcats until the university makes changes that address racism on its campus. The letter demands that K-State administrators create a policy that will expel any student who openly displays racism on any platform, such as social media or at school or athletic events. Another demand: The university must deliver “strong consequences” to K-State student Jaden McNeil, who founded the white-supremacist group America First Students in Manhattan and posted an insensitive tweet about George Floyd that sparked a mushroom cloud of outrage from the Wildcats’ Black student-athletes on Friday. I share the rage that K-State students feel about McNeil. I don't know, though, how K-State accommodates their demands without running afoul of the First Amendment. I don't even know if

If Facebook really has biased its feed results against conservative outlets, that truly sucks. But I wonder if my conservative friends think that warrants government intrusion into the company's affairs, and if so: On what basis?

Let's gut the First Amendment forever! That's not precisely what Gary Schmitt says today in The Weekly Standard , but that about covers the gist of it: Congress and the president should enact a statute that straightforwardly makes it illegal to publish or circulate materials that support, praise, or advocate terrorism as long as we are still formally at war with al Qaeda and its allies. Schmitt says such a statute could be "narrowly drawn" so that we don't go back to the bad old days of seditious libel. Maybe. But we still don't know which circumstances would cause the United States Congress to end the "war" authorizations spelled out in the AUMF and various other laws. Given the way our leaders have interpreted that so far, it might be a crime to praise the Muslim Uighurs who have rebelled against the Chinese government, or the Chechnyan Muslims who have revolted against rule from Moscow. More likely it might be used to prosecute Americans who pra

At least, that's what I take away from Paul Sherman's Wall Street Journal piece today . There's a case winding through the courts in which foreign nationals—both residents of New York—are suing to be allowed to make contributions to political campaigns, saying they have the right to do so under the First Amendment. On Dec. 12, the Supreme Court passed up its first opportunity to announce whether it would take the case. Some observers take this as a hint that the court is going to let the D.C. panel's ruling stand. That would be a mistake, and a sharp reversal from the hard line the court has taken recently on speech-squelching campaign-finance laws.  The panel's ruling stemmed from a conviction that "foreigners" are different and that foreign speech poses a unique threat to the American political system. As to the first point, foreigners surely are different—they can be prohibited from voting, holding elective office, or serving in certain roles of gover

Regarding this : I’ve had to make this point a couple of times in the past few days, so I might as well make it here: You don’t have to *like* the Occupy folks to think that abusive policing is bad. There’s an old saying that—in my view at least—once represented the American ideal: “I don’t like what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” That ideal has been replaced, it seems, with the idea that dirty hippies deserve whatever they get. I like the old way better. It does require that I hold myself to the same ideal—that I allow room for people to be (say) bigoted or homophobic or, maybe, just a little too solicitous of the rich and powerful. I should defend their right to speak their minds, and get angry if a cop pepper sprays them for doing so. It’s easy to be gleeful when our opponents are silenced, but it isn't actually right.

I respect Rod Dreher's work on most things, even though I disagree with much of it, because he's thoughtful and eloquent and tries to think outside his own biases. Except when it comes to matters of sexuality: Then turns a bit shrill. So it is today, when he posts the story of a U.K. "housing manager" who received a demotion for criticizing gay marriage—on his own time. Says Dreher: "Move along, nothing to see here. It didn’t really happen, and if it did, this man, History’s Greatest Monster, must have deserved it for his thoughtcrime." This is part of the argument made by Dreher—and anti-marriage conservatives more generally—that allowing gay marriage will necessarily entail a restriction on the rights of Christians to hate gay marriage. There's just one problem with the evidence they marshal in support of the argument: It's almost always from Europe, and Europe has a very different tradition with regards to civil liberties than the United States

The gay-bashing folks of Westboro Baptist Church had their day in the Supreme Court today , contesting a lawsuit that would force them to pay millions of dollars in damages for demonstrating near a military funeral. The church's actions are distasteful in the extreme. But it's important to note that a number of news organizations -- including the New York Times -- have weighed in on the side of the church. Limiting Fred Phelps' ugly free speech, you see, might have real consequences for the speech the rest of us express and hear. Respondents were found liable for millions of dollars in damages for intrusion and intentional infliction of emotional distress based solely on their publication of offensive religious and political opinions -- opinions which the Petitioner encountered not at his son's funeral, but only several hours later by watching news reports, and then weeks later after conducting an online search. Imposing tort liability for such speech will chill the

I really don't want to be in the position of continually defending professional homophobe Fred Phelps . He's an evil man with an evil belief system who has brought added grief to hundreds -- if not thousands -- of people by picketing funerals with his "God Hates Fags" message. But I believe that the First Amendment give Fred Phelps the right express those views -- no matter how odious, no matter how provocative the time and place of his expression. Michael Smerconish, writing in today's Philadelphia Inquirer , disagrees . By picketing Lance Cpl. Snyder's funeral, didn't Westboro Baptist infringe upon family members' First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion? Which on March 10, 2006, took the form of a burial service at St. John's Catholic Church in Westminster, Md. And because the Westboro demonstrators weren't protesting on a street corner or in a public park, it could also follow that they infringed upon the Snyders'