Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia has filed a lawsuit against Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, seeking to bar her from ordering city residents to wear face coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The lawsuit comes days after Kemp issued an executive order prohibiting municipalities from mandating that residents utilize…
Articles Posted in Free Speech
A Las Vegas resident has filed a lawsuit against the City of Sacramento, California regarding a section of the city code that requires people to stand when the national anthem is played. He alleges that he plans to attend at least one Sacramento Kings NBA game in the foreseeable future,…
Two plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit against the City of Cincinnati, alleging violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments arising from the curfew the City recently imposed in light of ongoing protests against police violence and systemic racism. The plaintiffs state that they wanted to participate in the protests, but…
Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the organizers of a 2017 white power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia are seeking to invoke a Civil War-era statute in utilizing the defendants' online statements to prove that they engaged in an illegal conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence. Defendants insist that their actions are…
The National Labor Relations Board ordered Google to remind employees that they have the right to talk about politics and other issues at work.
On Friday, August 30, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit rejected lawyer Arnold Fleck's challenge to the State Bar Association of North Dakota's collection of mandatory bar association dues. Fleck v. Wetch, No. 16-4564 (8th Cir. 2019), was remanded to the Eighth Circuit from the…
On Friday, August 16, 2019, Judge Brian C. Wimes of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri ruled that Mike Campbell was deprived of his constitutional right to free speech when Missouri Representative Cheri Toalson Reisch blocked Campbell from her Twitter page after Campbell retweeted a comment…
On Tuesday, July 9, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that President Donald J. Trump engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment, by blocking certain users' access to his Twitter account based on those users' speech on Twitter. The Knight…
On Monday, June 24, 2019, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision in Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), holding that the Lanham Act's bar on registration of immoral or scandalous trademarks violates the First Amendment. At issue in the case is the trademark FUCT, pronounced as four…
The ruling stemmed from the arrest of a man who had yelled "f--- you" out of his car window at an Arkansas state trooper.