Speech Case Argued

From Religion Clause blog:

 

Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments On Specialty Plates and Free Speech

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday heard oral arguments in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc. (Full transcript of oral arguments).  In the case, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held in a 2-1 decision that messages on state specialty license plates are private speech, not government speech.  The 5th Circuit majority also concluded that Texas engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination when it rejected, as offensive, a specialty plate design that included the Confederate battle flag. (See prior related posting.)  SCOTUSblog reports on the oral arguments, saying in part:

From the moment that a state lawyer stood up in the Supreme Court to argue that messages on license plates are government speech, it seemed that the Justices went forward for the rest of the hour assuming that it was not — at least not always.  A strange hearing thus unfolded on when the First Amendment puts curbs on government regulation of expression, and how tight those curbs can be.

New York Times also reports on the arguments.

Duncan on the Court's Public Forum Doctrine

Here is something I wrote in my article on Locke v. Davey (footnotes omitted):

The Supreme Court has classified government property opened to private expression as fitting into one of three categories of fora: such government property will be classified as either a traditional public forum, a designated public forum, or a nonpublic forum. A traditional public forum is a place, such as a park or a public street, that has “immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, ha[s] been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.” A second category of forum is the designated... public forum. Such a public forum is created when government purposefully opens its property for public expression by part or all of the public. Finally, a nonpublic forum exists when government opens its property for certain communicative purposes, but does not intend to create a designated public forum.

In the case of a designated public forum, government may not exclude “a speaker who falls within the class to which a designated public forum is made generally available,” nor “may it discriminate against speech on the basis of its viewpoint.” In the case of a nonpublic forum, the government may restrict access “as long as the restrictions are reasonable and [are] not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker's view.” Significantly, although the government may exclude speech from even a limited public forum on the basis of subject matter, viewpoint discrimination is prohibited in both public and nonpublic fora.

Prof. McConnell on Hobby Lobby

Volokh blog has it.

RLUIPA Web Site and Justice Department Resources

Here is a link to a great RLUIPA web site, a site that provides pleadings, briefs, cases, and other resources for lawyers litigating RLUIPA claims.

Bookmark this for future reference.

And here are some recent resources from the Obama Justice Department:

Today is the 10^th Anniversary of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).  The Department of Justice today issued a policy statement on the land-use provisions of RLUIPA, with questions and answers, to provide information to individuals, religious assemblies and institutions, and local government officials about the requirements of the law.  This Statement of the Department of Justice on the Land-Use Provisions of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) is available here. 
As we circulated to you yesterday, the Department also has issued a Report on the Tenth Anniversary of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (press release is linked here; Remarks of Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez are linked here).
The Department of Justice’s Justice Blog today also features an article about RLUIPA entitled Ensuring Religious Freedom for All.
For more information about the Civil Rights Division’s efforts to protect religious liberty and combat religious discrimination, please visit http://www.justice.gov/crt/religiousdiscrimination.

Eric Treene

Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination

202.353.8622

Class Schedule

Since the class meets for 90 minutes instead of 75 minutes, will meet 24 times rather than 28 times. Thus, we are required to cancel 4 classes during the semester.

Here are the cancellations:

1. Thurs. Feb. 19 (I will be speaking at Mercer Law on Hobby Lobby)
2. March 20 (per your vote)
2. April 16 & 17 (Thurs & Fri) (Speaking at a conference in Paris on Town of Greece)

Holt v. Hobbs

Notice that I just made a correction to the list of assignments--I had linked to the circuit court opinion by mistake. I have corrected the link and I wish you to read the Supreme Court's opinion in Holt v. Hobbs.

Here is the corrected link

Sorry for the confusion.

Great Speaker Monday March 9 at Noon

Don't miss Prof. Jim Duane's entertaining and informative talk on why even innocent persons should not speak to the police when they are suspected of a crime.

I have seen Jim speak many times, and he is one of the best speakers anywhere on legal issues.

Monday March 9 at Noon! Free lunch!