James Weinstein, Amelia Lewis Professor of Constitutional Law at the College of Law, was quoted in a Feb. 14 ASU State Press article concerning students’ freedom of speech.

The article, “Students tear, cover Voice for Men signs,” written by Dulce Paloma Baltazar Pedraza, reported on a recent incident on the ASU Tempe campus involving several mens’ rights signs that were covered up or taken down by feminist students.

Taking down the fliers is not an exercise of freedom of speech, Weinstein said.

“It’s not their right of free speech to deface somebody else’s poster, if the poster is displayed where it has a right to be,” he said.

“It’s the antithesis of free speech,” he said. “To stop the message because they disagree with it is the opposite of free speech.”

Protesters would be exercising their rights if they displayed their message side by side with the signs they defaced, Weinstein said.

The issue also was covered in the online newsroom of FIRE – the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. In an article, “’Heroic Censor’ Epidemic Reaches Arizona State University,” reporter Peter Bonilla notes that ASU is one of only 16 schools given the “green light” speech rating from FIRE, meaning student speech is given the full protections of the First Amendment by ASU’s policies

“Weinstein's straightforward explanation of the First Amendment principles at stake, aside from providing a necessary education on the basics of freedom of speech to ASU students, captures part of what makes these cases so frustrating: the fact that the student censors could very easily get their messages across without suppressing others' free speech rights,” Bonilla wrote.

To read the FIRE article, click here.

To read the State Press article, click here.

Weinstein’s areas of academic interest are constitutional law, especially free speech, as well as jurisprudence and legal history. He has written numerous articles in law review symposia on a variety of free speech topics, including: free speech theory, obscenity doctrine, institutional review boards, commercial speech, database protection, campaign finance reform, the relationship between free speech and constitutional rights, hate crimes, and campus speech codes.

Article Source: The State Press