Daily Archives: February 12, 2014

The IRS Bans Free Speech! Dick Morris TV: Lunch ALERT!
Dick explains.

By: dickmorrisreports

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The IRS Bans Free Speech! Dick Morris TV: Lunch ALERT! - Video

Washington, DC (PRWEB) February 12, 2014

Mary Beth Tinker, a plaintiff in the landmark 1969 students rights case Tinker v Des Moines, launched a crowdsource campaign (http://www.startsomegood.com/tinkertourwest) today to finish her national civics education tour, the Tinker Tour, with visits to at least 12 western states this spring.

This fall, Tinker and student rights attorney Mike Hiestand traveled 16,000 miles across the Eastern half of the country -- from Massachusetts to Michigan to Mississippi -- stopping at nearly 60 schools, colleges, libraries, courts, a student detention facility and several national conventions. Tinker shared her story with more than 20,000 students and teachers while also talking with them about free press, free speech and civics education. More information about the tour is available on the Tinker Tour Web site (http://www.tinkertourusa.org).

The Tinker Tour, which began on Constitution Day in Philadelphia, coincides with the 50th anniversary of a number of major civil rights anniversaries such as the Birmingham Childrens March and Mississippis Freedom Summer, events that Tinker says had a huge effect on her, and even on the Tinker ruling by the Supreme Court.

I was a child growing up during a time much like today, when there was great inequality as well as war. I was only thirteen years old, but I wanted to speak up. When I saw the Birmingham Children on TV in 1963, that helped inspire me.

Then, when three civil rights workers, Chaney, Schwarner and Goodman, were killed in Mississippi in the summer of 1964, Tinkers parents went to Mississippi to volunteer with Freedom Summer. Tinker said that their bravery, as well as the stories her parents brought back about the civil rights workers, like Fannie Lou Hamer, also motivated her.

Tinker learned recently that Freedom Summer influenced her case even more than she realized. In the Tinker ruling, the Supreme Court cited a 1967 Appeals Court ruling that high school students in Mississippi should not have been suspended for wearing buttons to school to protest the killings there in 1964.

This year is huge in civil rights history, said Tinker. And, its so important to pass along these stories that inspire young people, just like they were passed along to me.

In 1965, Tinker, along with her brother, John, and Chris Eckhardt, the other plaintiff, wore black armbands to school to mourn the dead in Vietnam. When they were suspended, the case was argued by the ACLU at the Supreme Court, which ruled that neither students or teachers leave their Constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.

Now, the ruling is cited by liberals and conservatives alike. In November, it was featured by the Liberty Institute at a Supreme Court Historical Society event.

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Free Speech Icon Mary Beth Tinker Launches Crowdsourcing Campaign to Complete Nationwide Civics Education Bus Trip to ...

DELHI: American scholar Wendy Doniger said she was angry and disappointed that all copies of her latest book on Hinduism will be pulped in India after a legal row that has ignited fears about free speech. Her publisher Penguin agreed on Monday to withdraw the 2009 book The Hindus: An Alternative History to settle a court battle with an activist group which took offense to the depiction of the religion. I was of course angry and disappointed to see this happen and I am deeply troubled by what it foretells for free speech in India in the present, and steadily worsening, political climate, she wrote in an e-mail statement sent to AFP on Tuesday. Doniger, 74, wrote in her statement that as a publishers daughter, I particularly wince at the knowledge that the existing books (unless they are bought out quickly by people intrigued by all the brouhaha) will be pulped. The Shiksha Bachao Andolan Committee, a group of Hindu academics, filed civil and criminal suits in a New Delhi court claiming the book contained factual errors and parts of it misrepresented Hindu mythology. Other writers and champions of free speech have widely criticized Penguins decision to cave into pressure and reach a settlement, rather than fight the case and seek to challenge any lower court ruling on appeal. The agreement by the publisher to withdraw it is like putting a contract out on free expression, wrote commentator Pratap Bhanu Mehta in an opinion piece in The Indian Express newspaper. Penguin India has not responded to repeated requests for comment, but Doninger sprang to the defense of the publisher, which is part of the publishing giant Penguin Random House. Penguin India took this book on knowing that it would stir anger in the Hindutva ranks, and they defended it in the courts for four years, both as a civil and as a criminal suit, she wrote. The mutual agreement between the publisher and the activist group does not impose any legal binding on any other Indian publisher that wishes to publish Donigers book in India, lawyers say. Many authors and artists practise self-censorship in religiously diverse India, which is about 80 percent Hindu, due to tough laws against inciting communal violence and a powerful censor.

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American scholar angry after book on Hindus pulped in India