Category Archives: First Amendment

One Thin Dime by Dustin Owens The First Amendment
The First Amendment are: Michael Branch - Bass Nolin McAlister - Alto Sax Matthew Myers - Drums Dustin Owens - Voice, Guitar, and Songwriter.

By: Dustin Owens

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One Thin Dime by Dustin Owens & The First Amendment - Video

Excelente: Champion of the First Amendment

By: kevinv1964

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Excelente: Champion of the First Amendment - Video

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The Newseum Institutes First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., serves as a forum for the study and exploration of free-expression issues through education, information and entertainment.

Founded by John Seigenthaler on Dec. 15, 1991, the 200th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution, the Newseum Institutes First Amendment Center has offices in the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., and at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

The Center provides education and information to the public and groups, including First Amendment scholars and experts, educators, government policy makers, legal experts and students. The Center is nonpartisan and does not lobby, litigate or provide legal advice. It has become one of the most authoritative sources of news, information and commentary in the nation on First Amendment-related developments, as well as detailed reports about U.S. Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment, and commentary, analysis and special reports on free expression, press freedom and religious-liberty issues.

Find First Amendment research articles by topic or keyword.

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First Amendment Center news, commentary, analysis on ...

A City of Charlotte fire investigator is out of a job because of a Facebook post in the aftermath of the Ferguson, Missouri riots. Its the first time a Charlotte city employee has been fired over a posting on social media. An attorney for the investigator says the city overreached.

So what are the First Amendment rights of public employees?

City Manager Ron Carlee says its essential the public is confident that city employees will treat all people with dignity and respect.

He believes Crystal Eschert violated that confidence shortly after police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Eschert is white. She referenced reports of another police shooting near Ferguson that said a white person was the victim. She wrote on her personal Facebook page:

Where is Obama? Where is Holder? Where is Al Sharpton? Where are Trayvon Martin's parents? Where are all the white guy supporters? So WHY is everyone MAKING it a racial issue?!? So tired of hearing its a racial thing. If you are a thug and worthless to society, its not race Youre just a waste no matter what religion, race or sex you are!

Eschert did not identify herself as a Charlotte Fire Department employee, but she was fired in September after someone emailed the post to city officials. Carlee says it was discriminatory and inflammatory.

Guy Charles has a different phrase for it. He co-directs Duke Universitys Center on Law, Race and Politics.

She said something that at best was racially insensitive, but on a public issue on a private page, says Charles. Between the hand that shes holding and the hand that the citys holding, I think Id prefer to have her hand.

If Eschert worked for a private employer, she wouldnt have a free speech case here since the First Amendment only applies to the government. But even though she has that protection, its not absolute.

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Guy-Uriel Charles comments: Firing of Charlotte city employee over Facebook post highlights First Amendment debate

The First Amendment...(Historically Speaking) - Episode #10
A weekly show hosted by Frederick Douglass Dixon.

By: UPTV6

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The First Amendment...(Historically Speaking) - Episode #10 - Video

Sony Sony takes a bold move and exercises its First Amendment rights rights that dont exist in most of the world to make a comedy about an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un. In return, it suffers an outright attack from North Korea no different than if North Korea had fired a missile onto the Sony lot. Make no mistake about it this was a foreign government attack on American soil. And what does America do? Do we rally around and protect the wounded victim of this attack? Do we counterattack the foreign enemy that perpetrated this outrage? Do we defend our freedom of speech rights? Do we fight back, like we have to all other attacks in our history? Do we stand tall, united?

No! We help the enemy by rubbing salt in the wound of the victim. We pick through the detritus left on the streets from the attack and publish private correspondence that was blown into the wind for the world to see like sick voyeurs. We revel in shadenfreude at Sonys distress. We publicly speculate that the injury will be exacerbated by the firing of the very executives that had the courage to make this film in the first place. The theaters all fold to more threats and pull the film until Sony has to give up on the release. We dont counterattack. We do worse than standing idly by and watching the carnage we cower.

The enemy has won. We have just relinquished our freedoms to a two-bit foreign power. It is as though after a terrorist explosion, we gathered up the private papers that fell to the street and published them in the newspapers and laughed at the victims and fired those that survived. And then, instead of counterattacking, we surrendered and gave into the terrorists list of demands.

What next, America? Are we now to be held hostage by a tin-pot prison camp dictator? What are the movies, books, and articles that will never see the light of day now? Who else are we afraid of offending? Do you think it ends after the Sony attack? Are you kidding given the success of that attack, the next one is a certainty. The only issue is who is attacked and who does the attacking. And we will have deserved it based on our shameful response to this one.

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The Response to the Hack of Sony -- Shame on America!

First Amendment Rights Violations in Buffalo, NY

By: Ignite The Youth

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First Amendment Rights Violations in Buffalo, NY - Video

I Think Outside My Box: A Movement for Artistic Expression
Street art may seem like just that, but this community-driven sculpture has become a movement for the First Amendment.

By: Skyler Bouchard

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I Think Outside My Box: A Movement for Artistic Expression - Video

First amendment Interview with Miss Wilkinson

By: marina ruiz

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First amendment Interview with Miss Wilkinson - Video

The First Amendment doesnt stop companies from cracking down on their employees speech. So your boss can ban you from using work e-mail to share funny cat gifs, or organize a bake sale, or mourn the passing of your favorite celebrity. But now your boss cant ban you from using work e-mail to organize a union.

In a party-line 3-2 decision (pdf), the National Labor Relations Board ruled Thursday that employees who use company e-mail to do their jobs can also use it to organize to improve them. That includes trying to form a union as well as other forms of collective action at work. Under the new ruling, companies can still impose some restrictions on the kind of e-mails they allow on their servers (such as no gigantic attachments), and they can still keep tabs on their employees e-mail activities, though they cant single out union activism for scrutiny. But outside of rare exceptions, companies cant prohibit e-mailing your co-workers to try to transform your workplace.

That new decision overturns a precedent from just seven years ago, when Republicans who then had a majority on the labor board wrote (pdf) that it would be kosher to allow e-mail solicitations for the Salvation Army but not for a labor union. The consequences of that error are too serious to permit it to stand, the three Democrats who now hold a majority on the NLRB wrote. Neither the fact that e-mail exists in a virtual (rather than physical) space, nor the fact that it allows conversations to multiply and spread more quickly than face-to-face communication, reduces its centrality to employees discussions, including their [National Labor Relations Act] Section 7-protected discussions about terms and conditions of employment, they argued. If anything, e-mails effectiveness as a mechanism for quickly sharing information and views increases its importance to employee communication.

In siding with employees yesterday, the NLRB rebuffed arguments that allowing pro-union e-mails would increase the risk of computer viruses; that employees dont need to organize over work e-mail because they have Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR); and that forcing companies to let their Internet servers be used to spread pro-union messages they disagree with would violate employers First Amendment rights. E-mail users typically understand that an e-mail message conveys the view of the sender, the majority wrote, not those of the e-mail account provider.

The NLRBs new approach to organizing over work e-mail accounts echoes a series of decisions in recent years that protect workers right to use Facebook and Twitter to talk about how to improve their jobs. For most other speech, companies have free rein to punish their employees for what they say online, even if they do it on their day off. Chatter about banding together and organizing is one of the only things companies are legally prevented from silencingeven if its something they would most like to choke off.

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Your Company E-mail: OK for Union Organizing, Not for Bake Sales