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In a victory for free speech, the rule of law, and common sense, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuitrecently ruledthat a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, could not be forced to use a transgender students preferred pronouns, and that his suit against the university for violation of his First and 14th Amendment rights could proceed.

The courts decision is the first of its kind, and establishes a needed boundary against American cultures new, brutish sexual orthodoxy.

At least within academia, one can no longer be compelled to say things one doesnt believe.

The incident that precipitated this suit occurred in January 2018, when Shawnee State philosophy professor Nicolas Meriwether responded to a male students question during a Socratic dialogue in his political philosophy class by saying, Yes, sir. After class, the student approached Meriwether, stated that he was transgender, and demanded that the professor refer to him as a woman, with feminine titles and pronouns.

Instead, Meriwether offered to use the students last name, or any other name of the students choosing, but politely declined to use the transgender students pronouns. The student became belligerent and promised to get Meriwether fired.

The student then filed a complaint with the university, which launched a formal investigation through the universitys Title IX office. Meriwether again offered various compromises in an attempt to protect his rights of conscience while being respectful to the transgender student, but the university rejected any arrangement other than the use of preferred pronouns, or the elimination of sex-based pronouns altogether (a virtual impossibility in a scholastic setting).

When Meriwether refused, the university formally charged him with a violation of Title IX, claiming he [had] effectively created a hostile environment for the student. The university placed a written warning in Meriwethers personnel file and threatened further corrective actions unless he articulated the universitys groupthink.

Two years prior, in 2016, Meriwether had received a faculty-wide email from Shawnee State leadership, directing all faculty to refer to students by their preferred pronouns. At that time, Meriwether, a devout Christian, had approached his department chair, Jennifer Pauley, with concerns about the policy. Pauley was not only dismissive of Meriwethers concerns,she was patently hostile.

Knowing Meriwether had successfully taught courses on Christian thought for decades, Pauley claimed Christians are primarily motivated out of fear, and should be banned from teaching courses regarding that religion. In her view, even the presence of religion in higher education is counterproductive.

Meriwether was told that even if a professor had moral or religious objections to the use of preferred pronouns, the policy would still apply.

Two years later, Meriwethers spotless record was marred by a disciplinary note, and he was teaching under the threat of further discipline, including suspension without pay or termination, unless he agreed to fall in line with Shawnees pronoun policy.

In November 2018, Meriwether sued the university in Ohio federal court for violation of his rights of free speech and religious liberty under the First Amendment, and violation of his due process and equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment. U.S. District Judge Susan Dlottthrew out Meriwethers lawsuiton Feb. 12, 2020, and among other things, held that a professors speech in the classroom is never protected by First Amendment. Meriwether appealed to the 6th Circuit.

InMeriwether v. Hartop et al., an impatient panel for the 6th Circuit wasted no time with perfunctory legalese or institutional pandering. It cut right to the chase in its frustration with Shawnee States stamping out of debate and open dialogue vis-a-vis its malignant speech policy.

Theopinion, which was written by Judge Amul Thapar and joined by Judge Joan Larsen and Senior Judge David McKeague, begins:

Traditionally, American universities have been beacons of intellectual diversity and academic freedom. They have prided themselves on being forums where controversial ideas are discussed and debated. And they have tried not to stifle debate by picking sides. But Shawnee State chose a different route: It punished a professor for his speech on a hotly contested issue. And it did so despite the constitutional protections afforded by the First Amendment.

The district court dismissed the professors free-speech and free-exercise claims. We see things differently and reverse.

The court went on to clarify that theSupreme Court has recognizedthat the government may not compel a speaker to affirm a belief with which the speaker disagrees. It added that courts haverecognizedthat the free speech clause of the Constitution applies at public universities, and that professors do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the [university] gate.

Thapar, the first South Asian federal judge in American history, and the son of self-made immigrants from India, seemed hard-pressed in containing his displeasure at the universitys looseness with long-standing judicial principles. Its clear he doesnt take kindly to Shawnee States loutish attempts at conformity.

In relaying a dizzying body of precedent, Thapar stressed that the court has rejected as totally unpersuasive the argument that teachers have no First Amendment rights when teaching, or that the government can censor teacher speech without restriction.

Simply put, the judge wrote, professors at public universities retain First Amendment protections at least when engaged in core academic functions, such as teaching and scholarship because the need for free exchange of ideas in the college classroom is unlike that of other workplace settings.

In a critical discussion on the use of pronouns themselves, Thapar wrote:

[T]itles and pronouns carry a message. The university recognizes that and wants its professors to use pronouns to communicate a message: People can have a gender identity inconsistent with their sex at birth. But Meriwether does not agree with that message, and he does not want to communicate it to his students.

Thats not a matter of classroom management; thats a matter of academic speech Never before have titles and pronouns been scrutinized as closely as they are today for their power to validateor invalidatesomeones perceived sex or gender identity. Meriwether took a side in that debate. Through his continued refusal to address Doe as a woman, he advanced a viewpoint on gender identity

Shawnee State allegedly flouted [a] core principle of the First Amendment. Taking the allegations as true, we hold that the university violated Meriwethers free-speech rights.

The courts opinion in Meriwether v. Hartop is long overdue comfort to those who refuse to bend the knee on leftist groupthinkthe kind that forces a subjective and manipulable view of one persons self to become a defining reality for everyone else. It is a stake in the ground on behalf of religious dissenters and academic freedom.

Andwith poetic suitability to a Socratic dialoguethe decision reminds us that there are no personal truths, but only truths immemorial: realities that exists independent of our wishes to the contrary.

This piece originally appeared in The Daily Signal.

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The 6th Circuit Reached the Right Conclusion on Preferred Pronouns. Other Courts Should Follow Suit. - Heritage.org

For much of the past four years, psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a professor at Yale University, warned the public about the mental health of then-President Donald Trump. Her statements ended up costing her her job at Yale, and this week, Lee sued Yale for breaking her employment contract.

The survival of human civilization for four years turned on the psychological condition of a man whom Lee believed in her professional opinion was mentally unfit for office.

Some observers, including myself and my law school classmate George T. Conway III, agreed with Lees assessment, publicly expressing concern that Trumps extreme narcissism made him dangerous.

Up until noon this past Jan. 20, Trump had the power to launch a nuclear attack. The survival of human civilization for four years turned on the psychological condition of a man whom Lee believed in her professional opinion was mentally unfit for office.

Many of us urged that Trump be removed under the 25th Amendment, which was ratified in the 1960s to address physical or mental incapacity of a president. Along with Norman Eisen of the Brookings Institution, I co-authored a chapter on the 25th Amendment to Lees book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.

But not everyone agreed with our assessment of Trumps mental health. Dr. Ronny Jackson, the White House physician at that time who later successfully ran for Congress as a Republican believed Trump was fit for office. Law professor Alan Dershowitz, often an apologist for Trump and Trumps lawyer in his first impeachment trial, believed our concerns about Trumps mental condition were overblown. Some psychiatrists agreed with that assessment as well. Who was right?

Nuclear war did not come, so our worst fears never came to be. But Trumps reaction to his election loss in November and his incitement of the Capitol riot of Jan. 6 proved that he could be extremely dangerous. The events of Jan. 6 also proved that agitation can spread easily between a charismatic leader and his followers when egging one another on to do more irrational and more violent things.

The events of Jan. 6 proved that agitation can spread easily between a charismatic leader and his followers.

All of us had the freedom to raise our concerns about Trumps mental health without fear of retribution. The First Amendment gave us that right, and our employers respected our freedom to speak our mind on a matter of great public importance. All of us, that is, except Lee.

Lee continued to question Trumps mental health and point out the danger he posed for our country and the world. Things appeared to come to a head when she also raised questions about Dershowitz in response to a tweet I myself posted after the professor boasted that he had a perfect sex life which, I pointed out, echoed Trumps narcissistic boast in 2019 that he had had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine.

Lee questioned whether Dershowitz and Trump shared the same psychosis. Dershowitz, normally a champion of free speech, wrote Yale and demanded an investigation. In 2020, the university fired Lee, who was on a term contract to teach at the medical school. Yales reason: Her alleged violation of the Goldwater Rule.

The rule was endorsed by the American Psychiatric Association in the 1970s after some psychiatrists expressed concern about 1964 presidential candidate Barry Goldwaters mental fitness to be commander in chief.

But regardless of whether these psychiatrists were correct about Goldwater a fiery speaker who was nonetheless a model of mental stability compared with Trump the Goldwater Rule is wrong. It was an attempt by the psychiatric profession to prevent its members from participating in one of the most important parts of political discourse, which is assessment of the character of our leaders.

The psychiatric profession needs to repudiate the Goldwater Rule.

The psychiatric profession needs to repudiate the Goldwater Rule. The mental health condition of public officials is not simply a private matter. The public, including psychiatrists themselves, must be free to talk about it. The 25th Amendment recognizes that physical or psychiatric incapacity of a president can be grounds for removal by the Cabinet and Congress. That removal mechanism, as well as the election process to remove a president, is substantially weakened if psychiatrists are not permitted to speak out about the presidents mental health. A free country depends upon free speech, and that includes free speech for Lee.

There is the fact that Yale, as a private university, is not a state actor bound by the First Amendment. Lee was not tenured, so perhaps Yale believed that meant she had less of a right to free speech. But the university has repeatedly committed itself to the principle of academic freedom, including its well known 1974 Woodward Report and statements about freedom of expression in the faculty handbook, and is bound to honor that commitment in its contracts with academic employees including Lee.

This matter should not have to be decided in a court of law. Yale should stand up for the academic freedom of its faculty, which is essential to the core mission of a university. Even if Lees comment about Dershowitz was superfluous, it was well within the scope of her academic freedom.

Her observations about Trump were a critical part of the public conversation about the psychological disposition of a very controversial president. Everyone knew that she had not examined Trump as a patient and that her observations were based on publicly available information.

And her observations, as well as her experience with mental health, are as important in the case of Trump as her opinions are important in the many cases where she has examined patients, including as an expert witness for mental capacity in criminal trials.

Even more important than Lees lawsuit against Yale is that we should examine the role of mental health professionals in our political system. A few have played a pernicious role, including the psychologists who advised the government on how to make the post-9/11 torture program more effective for coercing detainees. Others, such as Lee, have played a constructive and necessary role in warning about the consequences of vesting political power in persons who might abuse it. For that she should not be punished.

Richard W. Painterwas the chief White House ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007, underPresident George W. Bush. He is currently the S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota, and is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.

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Was a Trump critic's 1st Amendment violated by Yale? We're about to find out. - MSNBC

Douglas Storys white supremacist street cred was easy to find. He had a white pride tattoo and a neo-Nazi license plate. In extremist online forums he made ominous, N-word-filled posts about President Obama: If someone puts a 30.06 round into the base of his skull, huh ya think?" The Aryan Nations even booted Story from its website when he sought help for converting his AK-47 rifle into a fully automatic machine gun a federal crime.

But none of that factored into his 2012 sentencing after the FBI arrested him in Virginia for possession of that modified gun. A federal judge blocked prosecutors from discussing Storys white supremacist views, because the First Amendment protects speech, no matter how offensive. Prosecutors could only focus on Storys illegal weapon.

Storys path to a prison cell reveals a common workaround that police and prosecutors use when investigating those who spew white supremacy, far-right or violent anti-government rhetoric. Its easier to send someone to prison for traditional crimes, often involving guns or drugs, than to convince a judge that repulsive hate speech breaks the law.

In the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, federal law enforcement is fending off complaints that it goes easy on white supremacists while monitoring Black and Muslim activists. These frustrations escalated after last months mass shooting in Atlanta that killed six Asian women. Many Democrats, advocates and even some within the ranks of law enforcement have long criticized the FBI and federal prosecutors for not doing more to crack down on white extremists. Some are now pushing again for a law that labels such crimes as domestic terrorism, but civil rights proponents worry that would also increase policing of communities of color.

On Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged the increasing problem with hate crimes and ordered a 30-day review of how the Justice Department combats it.

To understand how white supremacists are policed and punished, The Marshall Project analyzed nearly 700 federal prosecutions from 2012 to 2020 that involved what the FBI calls racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism and hate crimes. Academics at the University of North Carolina mined Justice Department press releases for cases involving extremism. Almost all the cases involved White men.

The research did not include Black extremist groups because few exist, said Ashley Mattheis, a communications expert at the University of North Carolina who studies violent extremism and propaganda. Its an incredibly small percentage, she said.

Two-thirds of the 671 cases The Marshall Project analyzed involved gun and drug charges against white supremacist gangs that formed in prison and spread to the outside world. Convictions and lengthy prison sentences were common.

But when we dug into the remaining 194 cases, we found that:

A third of the non-prison gang cases involved guns, silencers and bombs. Given the First Amendment complications, prosecutors say they prefer to bring these easier-to-win criminal charges as a workaround. Often these investigations featured lone wolves flagged for advocating ethnic hatred. If they had a criminal past, federal prosecutors slapped them with charges such as a felon in possession of a firearm. "Federal firearm laws are the Achilles heel of white supremacists," said Tom Brandon, recently retired acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A quarter of the cases involved threats made online, in person or on the phone but not carried out. The victims were diverse: Tulsas district attorney and his daughter, who are White, received death threats; a Black city council candidate in Charlottesville, Virginia, was pressured to quit the race after a torrent of racist vitriol; a pair of halal grocers in Florida complained that law enforcement ignored threats to blow up their stores.

In a handful of threat cases, prosecutors resorted to other workarounds, such as accusing people of lying on federal job applications or failing to disclose mental health histories to the military.

Our analysis reflects only a portion of the FBIs work: investigations that ended with charges filed. It doesnt include the untold hours agents spend watching people they think could end up breaking the law.

FBI guidelines prohibit launching any investigative activity solely on the basis of someone's race, religion or identity. The guidelines allow agents to explore publicly available information such as social media posts and to do knock and talks unannounced visits where agents ask people to talk voluntarily.

The FBI doesnt release data on knock and talks and other surveillance activity. Nor does the agency share information about its investigations unless charges are filed in court.

We are not seeing that full picture, said Hugh Handeyside, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is suing the FBI for surveillance files on Black demonstrators.

Activists in the Muslim community and the Black Lives Matter movement say these knock and talks are terrifying and all too common. The Council on American Islamic Relations said the FBI visited more than 100 Pakistani families across the country in 2016 on the grounds agents were investigating threats to the election, said Zahra Billoo, who heads the organizations office in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The bar for prosecutions is much higher. While Black Lives Matter activists and Muslim communities have sued the government over what they say is unfair surveillance, we found that criminal charges for racially motivated extremism which require probable cause, a much higher standard of proof involved almost exclusively White men.

The Justice Department shared an annual tally of people charged with either a federal hate crime, or threatening someone over state lines whether in person, online or by phone. But that tally also includes incidents that dont involve political or racist motives. A spokesperson said the agency didnt have a nationwide breakdown detailing if a suspect had ties to any racist extremists or anti-government groups.

In a recent letter to Congress, the FBI said half its 120 domestic terrorism arrests for the year ending Sept. 30 were linked to racism, with a vast majority involving people who advocate for the superiority of the White race. And 45% were listed as anti-government or anti-authority.

Tom OConnor, a retired FBI agent who specialized in domestic terrorism for 23 years, said the 2012 case he led against Douglas Story in Virginia was a textbook example of the challenges of investigating white supremacists.

Storys vanity license plate, 14CV88, alluded to a white supremacist slogan and a Hitler salute. He hung out on white extremism forums where he vowed to kill police if martial law was ever declared or if a neo-Nazi race war erupted. Story posted that a 30.06 rifle bullet was his preferred way to remove then-Attorney General Eric Holder, the first Black person to hold the office.

Citing such language, the FBI opened a preliminary investigation, but the threats against Obama and Holder were not specific enough to file criminal charges.

Hes not saying hes going to do something, hes not telling someone else to do something, said OConnor. Hes saying that if someone is shot in the head theyre going to die.

The FBI managed to work around the free speech obstacles after Story posted a message on a neo-Nazi website, wanting to convert his AK-47 to a fully automatic machine gun, a felony that could bring up to 10 years in prison.

An FBI agent posing as an underground gunsmith got the job done, leading to Storys arrest.

But when prosecutors detailed Storys hate speech in court documents, his defense lawyer acknowledged it was inflammatory language, but said it had nothing to do with his client owning a machine gun.

The judge ordered prosecutors not to talk about Storys white supremacist posts or his vitriol toward Obama at sentencing. The judge gave him one year in prison, a sentence OConnor described as a heartbeat.

Story did not respond to requests for an interview, but in an email denied being an extremist. I wasn't some wild eyed white supremacist, he wrote. My arrest, in my head, anyway, I consider a combination of FBI entrapment plus stupidity and naivete on my part.

Former federal officials say workarounds are inevitable because threat cases are hard to win. They are certainly more legally complicated than a gun case or a drugs case, said David J. Freed, the former U.S. Attorney in central Pennsylvania who left the post in January.

His office generally chose to forgo threat charges if there were more typical crimes involving violence or vandalism, Freed said. Prosecutors want to avoid courtroom debates over whether threats were a crime or protected speech. Any responsible prosecutor will know, you are buying yourself a fight, he said.

The Marshall Projects analysis showed that prosecutors generally pursued the most severe winnable charge, usually those involving guns and drugs. At least in one case, however, the opposite happened.

In 2016, Omar Rabbo, a halal grocer in Fort Myers, Florida, was angry that local police wouldnt arrest James Benjamin Jones, a 35-year-old White man who threatened to blow up Rabbos store, according to court records.

Frustrated, the Palestinian immigrant called the FBI; an agent was at his shop within an hour.

When the FBI went to Jones home, a psychedelic mushroom farm and illegal moonshine distillery were in plain sight. State prosecutors slapped Jones with felony drug and alcohol manufacturing charges. He faced up to 20 years in a Florida prison.

Prosecutors had a sure win with the drug and alcohol charges, according to Jones defense attorney, Christopher H. Brown, who described what happened next as the strangest swaps in history. Instead of pursuing the state felonies, the U.S. attorneys office told county prosecutors to drop the case, as part of a deal that let Jones plead guilty to two federal hate crimes instead which Brown saw as a way for the feds to win a hate crime prosecution.

In my personal opinion, the U.S. attorney saw it as a statistical thing, to say in this district we have a threat conviction involving Muslims, Brown said. I did the best interest for my client.

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A spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Middle District of Florida said the Justice Department is still reviewing facts of the case. The crimes Jones admitted to carried a maximum of 10 years in prison for someone with a long criminal history. That was not the case for Jones, who got probation in the deal.

The plea agreement didnt bother Rabbo, the store owner, who believes Jones was mentally ill and brainwashed by people on the internet. I asked the judge for mercy, he told The Marshall Project.

That was an unusual sentence. Out of the nearly three dozen suspects convicted of federal threat crimes in the eight-year period analyzed, only five were placed on probation. The average prison sentence was 2.5 years, the longest being 10 years.

The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol reignited a debate over how the country should handle domestic terrorism. There is no official tally of domestic terrorism crimes because there is no law that expressly bans Americans from using or threatening violence for political motives.

After the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in 2017, Mary McCord, a Georgetown law professor and former federal prosecutor, began urging Congress to create a new criminal charge without increasing police powers. The new law would plainly label racist or extremist plots and attacks as terrorism, which could help thwart future violence, she argued.

McCord pointed to The Base, a violent neo-Nazi group that was building machine guns to trigger a civil war to create a white ethno-state. Prosecutors charged them with firearm violations and harboring an undocumented resident.

"Having crimes that fit the threat you are trying to thwart drives more resources and provides a more appropriate match between the resources and the crime," McCord said. "A statute would say this is a priority."

Proponents also argue a new law would address the lack of consistent punishment when a white extremist threatens to harm someone even high-profile politicians. In recent years a New York man was sentenced to 46-months for threatening to kill Obama and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters. Yet another New York man got a year in prison for threatening to kill U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who requested mercy in the case.

Civil rights advocates who oppose a new domestic terrorism law argue that it would only increase police surveillance in communities of color.

"The real solution here is certainly not to expand their budgets or their legal authorities, said Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York, referring to law enforcement. Kassem directs the CLEAR project, which provides legal counseling to people targeted by national security investigations.

When asked why she requested mercy for the man who threatened her, Omar said white nationalism poses a serious criminal threat. But we must also understand that no matter how odious these acts are, taking a punitive approach will not rehabilitate white supremacists, she wrote in a statement. Instead of treating this as a purely criminal matter, we must stay rooted in respect for justice and of human rights and of civil liberties as we respond.

Steve Kunzweiler, the district attorney in Tulsa whose family received threats, still feels cheated. As his office prepared to charge a Tulsa police officer who fatally shot an unarmed Black man, a Connecticut resident began to post the online threats. The poster vowed to kill the families of Kunzweiler, the police chief and other investigators.

Kunzweiler hoped that the judge would rule in favor of iron bar therapy, referring to a lengthy prison sentence. Instead, the suspect received probation for using the internet to send threats across state lines.

We are in this world of criminal justice reform, and I guess courts can look at that and say well, it was just words, Kunzweiler said. Yes, it was just words, but those words were directed at me and directed at my daughter.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the academic specialty of Ashley Mattheis. She has a doctorate in communications.

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Why It's So Hard to Prosecute White Extremists - The Marshall Project

Jury selection in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, charged with the murder of George Floyd, is complete, opening statements have been made, and the trial is underway. Yet despite the international interest in this prosecution, the courtroom is all but empty of spectators.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the general public is not allowed to attend in person and press access is severely limited. Instead, in a state where televised trials are the exception, not the ruleand over the objection of the prosecutionChauvins trial is being broadcast and streamed live.

The courts near-total prohibition on in-person attendance is unheard of in the history of criminal trials in Americathe First and Sixth Amendments guarantee open trials on the belief that public access safeguards the integrity of the legal process and allows the public to see that criminal defendants are fairly dealt with.

Thus, the proposal that this extremely high-profile and important trial should occur largely behind closed doors was not an idea our media clients were eager to accept.

As trial planning coalesced, however, it became clear the media could challenge the restrictions on in-person access but be left with an open courtroom much too small to accommodate the dozens of journalists hoping to attend the trial, to say nothing of the demand for seats by the public at large. Or, they could acknowledge the exigencies of the pandemic and ensure that people the world over could watch justice unfold in real time. Our clients chose the latter.

A bit of context: Audio-visual coverage is not presumptively allowed in Minnesota courtrooms during the guilt/innocence phase of criminal trials. Rather, under Minnesotas court rules, all parties must consent. So although Chauvin consented to cameras, when the state filed notice that it did not consent, that would have been the last word under ordinary circumstances.

But in a surprising move, the court ordered that, given the pandemic, the only way to comply with the First and Sixth Amendments was to allow the trial to be recorded, broadcast and livestreamed in audio and video.

In a subsequent order, the court specified that the only spectators allowed inside the courtroom would be two media representatives, one technician from Court TV (to provide the live audio and video feed), one member of the Floyd family, and one member of the Chauvin family.

It is an imperfect solution to an extraordinary challenge, but we hope it illustrates the important role cameras play in building, and maintaining, trust and confidence in the judiciaryand in the ultimate verdict, which many fear may unleash the sort of unrest we saw after Floyd died.

With any luck, this trial will encourage Minnesota, and jurisdictions that also do not allow cameras in courtrooms, to rethink their rules once they realize that cameras do not conflict with the goals of an orderly court proceeding.

If, however, these jurisdictions continue to rely on speculative, debunked theories that cameras are disruptive, the courts decision provides useful fodder for future challenges to limits on cameras in courtrooms.

Specifically, in an age of unobtrusive audio and video technology, can limiting the access to only those able to physically sit in a courtroom ever again constitute reasonable accesswhich is what the First Amendment demands, even if there is no per se right to bring a camera to court?

As the court opined when denying the states motion to reconsider its order allowing audio-visual coverage and to instead provide only overflow courtrooms: it begs the question of how many overflow courtrooms would suffice. . . Two? Three? Twenty? Should the [court] pause all courtroom activity for the months of March and April 2021 to allow every courtroom . . . to be used as overflow courtrooms for this trial?

As the court continued, [t]he State merely wants a limited audience. The Court, on the other hand, is concerned that the more the audience is limited, especially in a trial with international interest, the more likely that the constitutional rights associated with a public trial are violated.

Lodging a First Amendment challenge against camera restrictions would, no doubt, be an uphill climb. No court has recognized a First Amendment right to cameras in the courtroom, and many courts have found no such right exists.

But with non-invasive cameras that are virtually invisible to trial participants, is it really reasonable to say that the public has access if a trial is only visible by the 20, 40 or even 100 people sitting in the courtroom?

Perhaps not. As an appellate court of appeals held in 1917, allowing only 25 members of the public to attend a trial when the courtroom could hold 100 people constituted a reversible error. Similarly, perhaps it is not reasonable to allow only 100 peopleor even 500 peopleto observe the administration of justice when we can reasonably allow anyone with a television, internet connection, or data plan to do so.

Given the opportunity, we know that people will tune in: As of September 2020, almost 2 million people had listened to recordings of the Supreme Courts Spring oral arguments. Similarly, the Minneapolis Star Tribunes YouTube channelone of several places to watch the Chauvin trial livegarnered nearly 300,000 views in the first week of jury selection and the number of people watching at the same time hovered consistently at around 2,000. The newspaper expects many more to tune in for the trial.

Although courts should not move to audio-visual access in lieu of in-person access, perhaps it is time to decide that the digital courtroom of the 21st century is akin the 100-person courtroom of the 20th century. We should embrace todays technology, not reject it, and let the world watch. A commitment to transparencyand perhaps even the U.S. Constitutiondemand it.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.

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Leita Walker is a partner in Ballard Spahrs Minneapolis office and Emmy Parsons is an associate in the firms Washington, D.C., office. Both are members of the firms Media & Entertainment Group and together represented a coalition of media and open-government organizations that intervened on several occasions in the prosecutions arising from the death of George Floyd. On behalf of the coalition, they also filed a brief supporting the courts access plan.

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Chauvin Trial Shows Why Cameras Need to Be in Court - Bloomberg Law

Here is a status report on some bills being considered by Iowa lawmakers

Boost next fiscal years state K-12 education funding by $36.5 million (SF269*)

Require K-12 schools offer in-person classroom instruction option (SF160*)

Revamp early-voting/absentee-balloting election laws (SF413*)

Appropriate $21 million in state supplement to finance Workday contract (SF284*)

Exempt business PPP loans/federal jobless benefits from state taxation (SF364)

Accelerate income tax triggers/phase out inheritance tax (SF576)

Revamp mental health financing/cut property taxes (SF587)

Enact permit-less constitutional carry gun laws (HF756)

Ban hand-held electronic devices while driving (SF330/HF392)

Amend Iowa Constitution to clarify no right to abortion (SJR2)

Amend Iowa Constitution with gun rights protection (SJR7)

Halt high-tech state incentives due to social-media censorship (SF580/HF633)

Add new method for creating charter schools (HF813)

Enact back the blue police protections/enhanced crime penalties (SF534)

Supplement K-12 schools for COVID-19 costs (SF532)

Governors ethanol expansion proposal (SF481/HSB185)

Governors plan to expand broadband grant program (SF390/HF848)

Governors plan to expand affordable housing options (SSB1142/HF178)

Bar interference with transportation of agricultural animal (HF655/SF421)

Require amusement ride attendants be at least age 16 (SF114/HF558)

Create crime for assisted reproduction fraud (SF529)

Cap medical malpractice/trucking mishap awards at $1 million (SF537/HF772)

Crack down on businesses selling glass/metal pipes used to smoke meth (SF363)

Allow parental request for child to retake grade due to COVID-19 progress concerns (SF90)

Provide legal immunity for firearms makers/dealers (HF621)

Make multiple traffic changes/shield police liability in vehicle pursuits (SF333)

Allow licensed cosmetologists/barbers to work at wedding venues (HF760)

Toughen criminal penalties for drivers causing death/injury due to excessive speed (HF753)

Create crime for failing to assist someone in imminent danger of death (SF243)

Designate county flood mitigation as an essential purpose (HF523)

Criminalize sexual exploitation of a minor by adult providing training/instruction (SF562)

Create crime for defrauding employment drug/alcohol test using synthetic urine (SF329/HSB22)

Change number of children allowed at day care centers (HF260)

Bar cities/counties from regulating sale of natural gas/propane (HF555)

Establish lifetime trout fishing license for seniors (HF234)

Allocate state money to K-12 schools to offset cost of COVID-19 in-person learning (HF439)

Clarify deceptive/unfair rental car practices (HF730)

Phase out state tax gambling casinos pay on marketing promotions (SF169)

Establish liability Immunity for agricultural tourism (SF356)

Expand child care opportunities for Iowa families (HF301/HF302)

Allow grocery stores to opt out of bottle-deposit law (SF470)

Bar businesses from requiring employee microchip implants (HF259)

Eliminate diversity plans affecting open enrollment in five school districts (HF282)

Allow 5-year-olds to participate in voluntary preschool for a two-year period (HF318)

Regulate low-speed electric bikes (HF493)

Remove preference for Iowa coal (SF468)

Set Iowa residency requirements at UI medical/dental schools (HF468)

Allow expungement of some non-violent Class D felony convictions (HF831)

Create unauthorized sampling criminal offense for trespassers (HF775)

Allow home-schooling parents to teach drivers education (SF546)

Expand Teach Iowa scholars program (SF547)

Change regulations for highway billboards (SF548)

Enhance penalties for drivers who leave accident scene (HF524)

Enhance penalty for caretakers involved in dependent adult death (SF450)

Exempt legislative pages from some educational requirements (SF517)

Ban sexist/racist stereotyping in diversity training (HF802)

Require regents universities to protect First Amendment rights (HF744)

Ban city ordinances preventing landlords from rejecting federal housing vouchers (SF252)

Allow counties to collect drivers license fees (HF419)

Modify lighting devices on snow plows (HF654)

Create public safety equipment fund (HF708/SF489)

Create civil remedy when sexually explicit images disclosed without consent (SF324/HSB31)

Grant liability immunity for veterinarians aiding authorities in a civil/criminal case (HF746/SF340)

Beef up criminal/civil enforcement of massage therapy activities (SF388/HF452)

Implements process for collection/tracking of sexual abuse evidence collection kits (HF426/SF451)

Create Department of Public Safety cold case investigation unit (HF312/SF561)

Create sexual assault forensic examiner program (HF603/SF570)

Bar harassment by filing false police report (HF821)

Add crimes of assault/financial exploitation of older Iowans (SF522)

Provide state-funded students first scholarships to private-school families (SF159)

Allow student-athletes to profit from use of name/image/likeness (SF245)

Prohibit/remove most automated traffic enforcement cameras (SF516)

Bar employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations (SF555)

Establish daylight saving time as the eventual official time in Iowa (SF335)

End faculty tenure at regent universities (HF490/SF41)

Legalize e-sports wagering (HSB200)

Reduce penalty for first offense marijuana possession conviction (SF533)

Restore voting rights for eligible felons (HF818)

Post information on medication abortions at medical facilities (HF383)

Eliminate statute of limitation on criminal actions involving sexual abuse of minors (SF572)

Cut off state funds for cities/counties that defund police (SF479)

Create offense for slower drivers who camp in divided highway left lane (HF494)

Allow smoking at Iowa Veterans Home under certain circumstances (SF257)

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Instruct Department of Transportation to install adult changing stations in highway rest stops (HF492)

Create Department of Human Services asset/identity verification system for public assistance (SF389)

Bar employers from noncompete agreements with low-wage employees (SF496)

Place four-year limit on term of Iowa Veterans Home commandant (SSB1097)

Bar loaded firearm when operating electric scooter (HF738)

Amend Iowa Constitution guaranteeing right to hunt/fish/enjoy resources (HJR8)

Change front license plate requirement for some vehicles (SF419)

Expand protections for mobile-home owners (SF469)

Establish new remote worker grant fund/program (SF491)

Require in-person regent university graduation ceremonies (HSB246)

Amend state constitution to clarify lieutenant governor line of succession (SJR2003)

Bar employers from knowingly hiring unauthorized aliens (SF339)

Pare back state board appointees/commissioners subject to Senate confirmation (SF423)

Halt privileges to hunt/fish/camp for up to a year for Iowa convicted of littering (SF465)

Amend state constitution to restore felon voting rights (HJR11)

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Here is what's alive and dead in the Iowa Legislature - The Gazette