A professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has taken on the notion, depicted in article after article in major media outlets, that there is a “free speech” crisis and ensuing turmoil roiling American college campuses. In a recent article on Slate.com, Lucas Mann, a professor of English and journalism, points out that most of • Read More »
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (2,234) on Friday, April 29, 2022. A popular myth that animates much of our political life is that the U.S. Supreme Court decides an issue. The justices, in their collective wisdom or ignorance, may make a ruling, but they rarely if ever decide an issue. • Read More »
Chances are, there’s a group in your community that wants to dictate what books you and your children can read. They often do this by telling public libraries what they should not put on the shelves. Most libraries resist this kind of pressure, and the American Library Association keeps track of these challenges. Here is • Read More »
In the immediate aftermath of political campaigns, the winner (and sometimes even the loser) appeals for “unity,” which often means in real-speak, “I want you to agree with me now that I am in power.” Such appeals, possibly well-meant, rarely have much effect on either supporters or opponents. But it sounds good, and it’s expected. • Read More »
Some people spend hours a day on Facebook; others have never seen it and actively avoid it. Some people have strongly partisan views, one way or another, which may color their view of Facebook. In my view, it doesn’t matter whether or not you “like” Facebook, or whether you are red or blue or any • Read More »
Tags: Facebook, Frontline, Mark Zuckerberg, PBS, The Facebook Dilemma
You can shield yourself from ideas that make you uncomfortable or that you disagree with. You may be able, to some extent, to limit the exposure that the young people in your care have to those ideas. But you cannot shield your community from the things you disagree with. That’s called censorship, and in any practical • Read More »
Tags: banned books, Banned Books Week, censorship
That’s what school officials in Duluth, Minnesota (and a few other places, unfortunately) would have you believe. The school system in Duluth is the latest to remove To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the required reading list for ninth graders. The reason they give: the language used in these books • Read More »
Tags: Anne Frank, Duluth, Harper Lee, Mark Twain, Stephen King, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird
This newsletter was sent to everyone on Jim’s email list (4,222) on Friday, February 2, 2018. Hi, I watched a super moon, a blood moon, and a lunar eclipse this week. Not as spectacular as the solar eclipse we saw last summer but still pretty phenomenal. Nature has its moments — many of them, in fact, if we would • Read More »
Tags: Amazon gift card, ancient Rome, Be Our Valentine gift card, blood moon, crimes against English, first century, first non-Jewish description of Christinaity, In the Dark, Jacob Wetterling, lunar eclipse, Madeleine Baran, Mount Vesuvius, painting giveaway, Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Younger beer, podcasts, real crime, redundancies, redundancy, science fiction, scoop, second century, Super Bowl, super moon, true crime podcasts, Ursula Le Guin, watercolor, We’ll need writers who can remember freedom
J.K. Rowling has a point of view: Intolerance of alternative viewpoints is spreading to places that make me, a moderate and a liberal, most uncomfortable. Only last year, we saw an online petition to ban Donald Trump from entry to the U.K. It garnered half a million signatures. Just a moment. I find almost • Read More »
Tags: Donald Trump, Farnham Street, First Amendment, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, J.K. Rowling, offensive speech, The First Amendment
The suffrage ladies may not be done with me. Those were the women who, between 1910 and 1920, affected the most profound change in the make-up of the electorate in the history of the Republic. In 2013, Seeing Suffrage was published by the University of Tennessee Press. The book was about the 1913 Washington suffrage • Read More »
Tags: 1913 Washington Suffrage Parade, Alice Paul, Nashville, protest, Securing Suffrage, Silent Sentinels, suffrage, Woodrow Wilson
The nation seems to be in a state of perpetual war, and during times of crisis, individual freedoms are always in danger. Professor Dwight Teeter of the University of Tennessee discusses the state and strength of First Amendment freedoms today.
Tags: Dwight Teeter, First Amendment, video
University of Tennessee professor Dwight Teeter discusses the case of Luther Baldwin, a New Jersey man who was prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Baldwin became a symbol of Federalist intolerance during the 1800 presidential election.
This video is part of the Tennessee Journalism Series and was produced and edited by Jim Stovall.
Tags: Alien and Sedition Acts, First Amendment, James Madison, John Adams, Library of Congress, Luther Baldwin
In this two-and-a-half minute video, Dr. Dwight Teeter explains some of the political maneuvering that occurred to get the an amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech into the hotly-debated Constitution in the late 1780s. The freedoms protected by the amendment — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — were not foremost in the minds of the Founding Fathers. Discussion questions are included with this video.
Tags: Anti-Federalists, Dwight Teeter, First Amendment, Founding Fathers, James Madison
The First Amendment is one of the most important legal and social documents in American history. Its meaning remains the center of much controversy, debate and litigation even after 200 years.
Tags: Dwight Teeter, The First Amendment
We have seen an erosion of freedom of speech and the press in the last few years, so it might be good to remind ourselves of what one of the Founding Fathers had to say about it. James Madison: • Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise • Read More »