“We do it this way on all other campuses. If we cannot do it this way, we’ll leave Amherst.” That was the ultimatum served to me by a representative of MASSPIRG (Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group) fourteen and a half years ago. At the time, I was a member of the five-student strong Amherst College…

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’” “But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question…

When a judge says something is illegal, most people stop doing it and change their ways. Not so with federal agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In recent years, three different federal judges have told the SEC in no uncertain terms that the agency habitually violates the free…

“In nonsense is strength.”[1] These are Kurt Vonnegut’s words, but they also happen to be the message that the U.S. federal government sends to its citizens with each unapologetic justification of its ongoing efforts to censor First Amendment-protected speech.  As we’ve seen from the Twitter Files and cases like Missouri v. Biden and Dressen v. Flaherty, according to the federal government,…

When I decided to spend my summer as an intern at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, I had no idea I’d change my mind about the U.S. Constitution. But conversations with our elders have a way of changing our perspective. U.S. Circuit Judge Pauline Newman convinced me that the Framers got it right when they…

In two recent oral arguments at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, including in NCLA’s case Missouri v. Biden, the issue of government speech rights was raised. In both cases the US Government argued it has speech rights which allow it to put out messaging and communicate to the public. It further argued it is not…