Yesterday, Congress approved a measure to dramatically expand the existing federal hate crimes law, by adding it to an unrelated defense appropriations bill.  The measure would expand current law to cover virtually all hate crimes already covered by state law (both by adding gender, sexual orientation, disability, and transgender characteristics to a law originally designed to protect racial minorities, and by getting rid of the requirement that a hate crime effect federally-protected activities to be prosecuted in federal rather than state court.)

The…

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Hate crimes are irrational, and what sets them off is often unpredictable. The hate-criminal whose sentence was upheld in Wisconsin v. Mitchell by a unanimous Supreme Court attacked a young white boy because of the outrage he felt after watching the movie Mississippi Burning, which depicted racism against black people in the Deep South. To him, two wrongs made a right.

If the victim had attempted to sue the makers of Mississippi Burning for inciting the hate-crime, the lawsuit would have been…

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ACORN is now suing the whistleblowers who allegedly filmed it promoting illegal sexual activities for $2 million! And not just them, but also the conservative web site that made the video public! ACORN seeks an injunction to silence them — a classic example of an unconstitutional prior restraint.

That’s a flagrant violation of the First Amendment, but the lawsuit was filed in state court in Baltimore, where the judges are very liberal, so who knows if ACORN’s lawsuit will be dismissed. Even if it…

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In this morning’s Washington Post, columnist George Will brings to light a particularly egregious example of politically-connected developers abusing the legal system to silence their land-grab critics:

When Kelo was decided, H. Walker Royall, a Dallas developer, already had designs on some property that for more than a decade has belonged to the Gore family shrimping business in coastal Freeport. In 2003, Royall signed an agreement with that city’s government to build a yacht marina, hotel and condominiums using property the city…

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Remember what people on the left used to say about questioning the policies of the occupant of the White House? Going back several years and ending only a few months ago, I seem to remember a lot of people talking about how “dissent is patriotic.” After all, wasn’t it lefty saint Howard Zinn himself who went so far as to declare that “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism”? Even politicians like the current U.S. Secretary of State, sick and tired…

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Today marks the 274th anniversary of one of the most important cases in the history of the protection of free speech in America: the acquittal of New York newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger. Zenger had been charged with libel against New York Governor William Crosby, after the New York Weekly Journal, of which Zenger was publisher, published several articles highly critical of Crosby.  The German-born Zenger was tried, and, on August 4, 1735, was found “not guilty” by a jury. The…

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Can you sue your employer because your co-workers listen to raunchy radio programs?

A federal appeals court is reconsidering its 2008 ruling that you can. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Reeves v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide said you could do so, under the dubious theory that it is “sexual harassment” that’s “based on” your sex. But on May 29, it voted to rehear that case.

U.C.L.A. Law Professor Eugene Volokh criticized the decision on First Amendment grounds, while I criticized the…

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Under a recently-introduced bill, H.R. 1966, bloggers would face up to two years in prison if they “harass” public figures by criticizing them in a “severe, repeated, and hostile” manner, and thereby cause them “substantial emotional distress.”

U.C.L.A. Law Professor Eugene Volokh, the author of a First Amendment treatise, has concluded that the bill is unconstitutional. I agree, as I explain here. As a federal appeals court noted in DeJohn v. Temple University (2008), “there is no harassment exception to the First Amendment’s…

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“The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, responsible for ensuring that the nation’s workers are treated fairly, has itself willfully violated the Fair Labor Standards Act on a nationwide basis with its own employees, an arbitrator has ruled.”

The EEOC has a much worse record of labor and civil-rights violations than most corporations and agencies with a similar-size workforce.

The EEOC was found guilty of systematic, illegal, reverse discrimination (discrimination against white males) in Jurgens v. Thomas, 29 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1561, 1982…

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Eric Holder, Obama’s choice for attorney general, is hostile to civil liberties. He has previously expressed veiled support for using the misnamed “Fairness Doctrine” to squelch “conservative critiques” and “conservative media,” such as Fox News (which Holder believes is anything but “Fair and Balanced,” contrary to its slogan). The “Fairness Doctrine” is designed to shut down conservative Talk Radio.

Holder also has advocated hate-crimes legislation to prosecute people whom state prosecutors refuse to prosecute because of a lack of evidence. To justify…

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It’s not a good thing for a lawyer when you argue in the Supreme Court and the Justices are confused about your position. But that happened on December 2 in the case of Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, where Justices and court reporters alike were confused about what a school system’s lawyer was arguing in her oral argument. That’s too bad, because the lawyer’s argument on behalf of the school board was basically correct.

Fitzgerald is a sexual harassment case alleging…

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There’s an interesting case pending in the Supreme Court, Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, that could make Title IX irrelevant in many cases, by creating a vast new constitutional tort of sexual harassment, if the plaintiffs have their way. And amazingly enough, the Massachusetts school board that’s the defendant seems inclined to let the plaintiffs have their way. (Massachusetts’ bizarre state laws provide a possible explanation for this mystery). [UPDATE: THE SCHOOL BOARD LATER CONTESTED SUCH AN EXPANSION OF LIABILITY…

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Ithaca: Where the 1960s Never Ended.

Ithaca, New York, home to my noble alma mater, has long been considered a place where the 1960s never ended. Now, via William Jacobson in The American Thinker we find that the Ithaca Common Council has voted to make Ithaca a “sanctuary city” for anti-war protesters–who, frankly, don’t need sanctuary anyway. But the Common Council hasn’t seen it fit to apply the same standard to those who might support the Iraq war. When a member of the…

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A stealth assault is being mounted on the Constitution’s state-action doctrine in a case pending before the Supreme Court, Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee.

The Supreme Court has long made clear in cases like Moose Lodge v. Irvis, 407 U.S. 163 (1972) and United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598 (2000) that the government isn’t liable for private discrimination by one person against another, even if, as in the Irvis case, the person discriminating is subject to government regulation and control (like someone with a scarce liquor…

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