1st Amendment

One morning in May 2008, an eighth-grader walked into Janice Hart's office at a Beverly Hills school crying. She was upset and humiliated and couldn't possibly go to class, the girl told the counselor. The night before, a classmate had posted a video on YouTube with a group of other eighth-graders bad-mouthing her, calling her "spoiled," a "brat" and a "slut." Text and instant messages had been flying since. Half the class must have seen it by now, she told Hart. Hart took the problem to the vice principal and principal, who took it to a district administrator, who asked the district's lawyers what they could do about it. In the end, citing "cyber-bullying" concerns, school officials suspended the girl who posted the video for two days.

For people who want to protest government policy, a public appearance by the president is an opportunity to exercise their right to free speech. For the Secret Service, however, demonstrators (and others who crowd around the chief executive) are potential assassins. Reconciling the 1st Amendment and the need to protect the president is a challenge, but over the years the Secret Service and local police have developed ways to allow critics and supporters alike to catch the president's eye or ear without posing a threat to his safety.

In a sharp rebuke of the Bush-era crackdown on foul language on broadcast television and radio, a federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the government's near-zero-tolerance indecency policy as a violation of the 1st Amendment protection of free speech. The ruling is a major victory for the broadcast TV networks, which jointly sued the Federal Communications Commission in 2006. The case was triggered by unscripted expletives uttered by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie on awards shows earlier in the decade, and the court's decision calls into question the FCC's regulation of foul language and other indecent content on the public airwaves.

Hate speech is a form of vandalism. It defaces the environment, and like a broken window, if left untended, signals to other hoodlums that the coast is clear to do more damage. But unlike the proverbial broken window, which urban police departments and criminologists urge us to repair to maintain the aura of social order, nobody seems to be in much of a hurry to nip hate speech in the bud. That's because since the ill-fated attempt by several universities to regulate hate speech in the 1980s and '90s, any discussion of reining in racist taunts inevitably degrades into charges of political correctness and ends abruptly with the invocation of the 1st Amendment.

UC Irvine officials recently recommended a one-year suspension for the Muslim Student Union, the group that appears to have been behind the disruption of a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on the campus in February. It's an apt punishment for what was clearly an inappropriate protest, although it will satisfy neither conservative politicians such as Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine), who wrote a letter to the university's chancellor urging that the group be permanently banned, nor defenders of the Muslim group, who think the students were only exercising their free-speech rights.

A Virginia congressman is seeking the removal of a subway station ad that tells President Obama to "go to hell. "   The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority says the ad for a movie critical of the Obama-backed healthcare overhaul  is protected by the 1st Amendment guarantee of free speech. But Democratic Rep. Jim Moran says the ad is disrespectful of the president. The ad for the movie "Sick and Sicker," produced by Logan Darrow Clements, says: "Barack Obama wants politicians and bureaucrats to control America's entire medical system.

The 1st Amendment was meant to be used, not abused. CARL ROBERTS Simi Valley

Scenario 1: President George W. Bush delivers a speech and two audience members are removed because they came to the event in a car with an anti-Bush bumper sticker. Scenario 2: The Obama White House organizes a rally to celebrate Democratic victories in the 2010 congressional elections and a "tea party" member wearing a "GOP" T-shirt is excluded. The first event actually occurred; the second is obviously hypothetical. But that's not the important difference between the two situations.

A tiny spade, like a black teardrop, is etched on the skin under Johnny Anderson's right eye. It's a tattooed salute to the World War II soldiers of Easy Company who he says wore the symbol on playing cards tucked into their helmets as amulets while fighting to liberate Nazi-occupied France. The spade joins a human canvas of skin-deep statements about Anderson's politics, faith and values. His body is covered with images of snakes, eagles, Christian iconography and assorted Americana, in what he regards as an individual's most ardent and enduring form of expression.

The Supreme Court took almost eight months to render a decision in a case challenging California's law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. The wait was worth it, and not just for the video-game industry. In striking down the law, the court bolstered anew the protections of the 1st Amendment. Although seven justices voted to invalidate the law, it was five led by Antonin Scalia who grounded the decision in a compelling opinion that examined new technology through the prism of the 1st Amendment.

No place like home Re " A prodigy works to aid others in Mexico," March 8 Kudos to Andrew Almazan. He is quoted as saying: "There are many opportunities here in Mexico, in work and in education; we just have to go out and find them. " Almazan just told the world that things aren't as dire in Mexico as many illegal immigrants who are now college-educated in the U.S. would have us believe. You read about the graduates who mow lawns as landscapers because they can't legally get a job in the U.S. doing what they went to college for. Enter Almazan, 17, a director of child psychology, saying that there is plenty of opportunity in Mexico.

The recent exchange between an atheist and a judge in a small courtroom in rural Pennsylvania could have come out of a Dickens novel. Magisterial District Judge Mark Martin was hearing a case in which an irate Muslim stood accused of attacking an atheist, Ernest Perce, because he was wearing a "Zombie Mohammed" costume on Halloween. Although the judge had "no doubt that the incident occurred," he dismissed the charge of criminal harassment against the Muslim and proceeded to browbeat Perce.

Is it fair to lengthen the prison sentence of a convicted defendant because she makes light of her offense and hints that she might commit it again? Or are unrepentant utterances by a lawbreaker - especially those that have a component of political advocacy - entitled to 1st Amendment protection? A federal appeals court in New York is wrestling with that issue in a case involving Lynne Stewart, an activist and former lawyer who was convicted of serving as an intermediary between her client, a convicted Egyptian terrorist, and his followers in the Middle East.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum opened up a fresh line of criticism over Mitt Romney 's conservative beliefs, accusing his GOP rival of lacking the gut instincts to take the conservative line on social questions like government insurance mandates for contraception . Santorum delivered a blistering attack on Romney's stumble Wednesday when he told an Ohio interviewer that he opposed a Senate amendment to roll...

A Virginia congressman is seeking the removal of a subway station ad that tells President Obama to "go to hell. "   The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority says the ad for a movie critical of the Obama-backed healthcare overhaul  is protected by the 1st Amendment guarantee of free speech. But Democratic Rep. Jim Moran says the ad is disrespectful of the president. The ad for the movie "Sick and Sicker," produced by Logan Darrow Clements, says: "Barack Obama wants politicians and bureaucrats to control America's entire medical system.

The Supreme Court justices spoke with disdain about liars who claim to have earned military honors, but they sounded less sure how to handle another group known for shading the truth: politicians. "In the commercial context, we allow a decent amount of lying. It's called puffing. 'You won't buy it cheaper anywhere,' " said Justice Antonin Scalia. "So maybe we allow a certain amount of puffing in political speech as well. Nobody believes all that stuff, right?" The exchange came midway through Wednesday's argument over whether the freedom of speech shields people who falsely claim military honors.

In January, while conservative Christians and GOP presidential candidates were charging that "elites" have launched "a war against religion," a federal court in Rhode Island ordered a public school to remove a prayer mounted on a wall because it imposed a belief on 16-year-old Jessica Ahlquist. The ruling seems particularly fitting because it was consistent not only with the 1st Amendment but with the intent of Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island expressly to provide religious liberty and who called such forced exposure to prayer "spiritual rape.

Faced with a case that pitted religious freedom against the enforcement of anti-discrimination law, the Supreme Court this week made the right decision in holding that the government may not tell churches whom to hire — or fire — as ministers. Speaking for a unanimous court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. deftly upheld the principle of ecclesiastical autonomy rooted in the 1st Amendment without allowing it to serve as a pretext for stripping all employees of religious organizations of job protections.