Prof. Michael McConnell, Jeff Rosen, and I on the Court's Recent Free Speech and Religious Freedom Cases

On a Constitution Center podcast:

Last week, the Supreme Court handed down two nearly unanimous decisions in cases involving the First Amendment. One was an 8-1 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts in Ramirez v. Collier, in which the Court sided with a death row inmate who claimed he had the right to have the religious leader of his choice touch him and pray audibly for him in the execution chamber. The other opinion was 9-0 in Houston Community College v. Wilson, where the Court held that a legislative censure issued by a community college board did not violate the free speech rights of the respondent, another trustee on the board, in an opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

First Amendment experts Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School and Eugene Volokh of UCLA Law join host Jeffrey Rosen to discuss the opinions' impact on how we interpret and understand and religious freedom and freedom of speech in America.

Comments

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The community college board one annoys me. From a pure speech point of view, the board should be able to say anything it wants, ditto for the members. But there is something unseemly about the board being able to do anything official against a member, and the same goes for the US Congress. If individual members want to publicly shame one another, that’s fine; if it’s criminal, let the criminal system handle it; if it’s just distasteful, that’s the voters’ problem. I don’t like an institution rebuking the voters’ choice.

[Noscitur a sociis]

And I?

[Drewski]

I did a double-take at that, too, but it scans. Infer the verb: “Mike, James, and I speak on a topic.”

[Krayt]

This is 5he answ3r.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I guess I parse it as something more like “[If you’re interested, you can listen to] Prof. Michael McConnell, Jeff Rosen, and I on the Court’s Recent Free Speech and Religious Freedom Cases”.

[Ignoto Fiorentino]

Agree it should be me not I. Assuming the intended ellipsis was [Here’s a panel consisting of] . . .

[SRG]

Alternatively, “Prof. Michael McConnell, Jeff Rosen, and I discuss the Court’s Recent Free Speech and Religious Freedom Cases” when the nominative is obviously correct.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That was about as good as could be expected from a program limited to Federalist Societeers who support ever-expanding special privilege for the (allegedly) religious, especially when superstition is convenient to old-timey bigotry.

[mydisplayname]

“[H]ow we interpret and understand” is a facet of two posts on this blog today. While seeming to be off-topic, my thoughts are drawn to a question: is there a Russian-language equivalent of “Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit and the briar patch”, a story retold at https://www.abelard.org/brer_fox_brer_rabbit_briar_patch.php ?
[Nicely avoiding any petty “tar baby” controversy.]

“Don’t throw me into the briar patch, or how to get recalcitrant idiots to do what you want,” is an important story in American upbringing and understanding of American laws: the end notes at the cited link even mention an oft-overlooked element of the tale [that the thorns of briars tore the tar out of Brer Rabbit’s fur as he worked himself free of them]. Can Russian-language-speakers and other non-Southerners truly understand the story?