First Amendment Law Prof Blog

Muslim Comics Use Humor to Tackle Bigotry

In an essay this week, Charles Haynes, Director of the First Amendment Center’s Religious Freedom Education Project, identified the prevalence of anti-Muslim bigotry in America as the religion story of the year. In an effort to break down anti-Muslim stereotypes, a group of Muslim comics have been giving free performances as they travel throughout the South. As reported in the Washington Post, this comedy campaign will be part of the forthcoming documentary by Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah, “The Muslims Are Coming!,”a film about Islamophobia in America.

First Amendment Scholarship Update - Religion

Here is this month’s collection of newly available scholarship on religion topics:

1. Dan Weddle (University of Missouri at Kansas City - School of Law), Gaming the Establishment Clause: Intelligent Design in the Public School Classroom. The abstract states:

This article addresses the process by which the typical school board member or legislator has been asked to mandate the inclusion of intelligent design theory and critiques of evolution into the public school curriculum. It posits that as a matter of scientific theory, this debate is taking place before audiences patently unable to make informed scientific judgments. The constitutional problem with this process is that it is an illegitimate debate constructed to evade, not comply with the Establishment Clause. The conclusion is that the strategy employed by intelligent design proponents is especially troublesome because it “games” the Establishment clause in a way that defeats the central purpose of the Clause. Nothing is wrong with citizens pressing government to act in ways that coincide with particular religious beliefs; and nothing is wrong with government’s doing so if valid secular purposes are the true basis of the government’s actions. What ought not to be legitimate is citizens’ achieving religious goals by fooling a government agency into accepting sham secular purposes.

2. Neil A. Malhotra (Georgetown University), Jacob N. Shapiro (Stanford Graduate School of Business) and C. Christine Fair (Princeton University - Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs), A Religion of Peace? Islam and Support for Political Violence. The abstract states:

Discussions of how to deal with terrorism around the world have repeatedly touched on whether Islam contributes to a uniquely virulent strain of non-state violence targeted at civilians. These popular debates almost always conceive of “Islam” in general terms, not clearly defining what is meant by Islamic religious faith. We address this debate by designing and conducting a large-scale public opinion survey in Pakistan. We measure multiple elements of religiosity, allowing us to separately consider the relationship between militancy support and (1) personal piety, (2) support for political Islam, and (3) jihadism, which we define as a particular textual interpretation common to Islamist groups espousing violent political action. Further, we measure support for specific militant organizations using a novel form of an “endorsement experiment” to address the challenges of asking about these sensitive issues in a violent context. We find that neither personal religious piety nor support for political Islam is correlated with support for militant organizations. However, Pakistanis who believe jihad is both an external militarized struggle and that it can be waged by individuals are more supportive of militant groups than those who believe it is an internal struggle for righteousness.

3. Steven D. Jamar (Howard University School of Law), Challenges Presented to Law and Public Norms by Claims of Freedom of Religion Arising in Increasingly Diverse Societies, Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 26, p. 595, 2011. The abstract states:

Because religion is a potent force for many people, it affects the content, structure, and function of law and the law's relationship to ordering society. The complexity and variability from state to state of the relationships of religion to social, governmental, and legal systems is remarkable. This variability and complexity stems from several major influences including in particular: (1) the diversity of religions and of people's understanding of and use of those religions; and (2) the mix of religions within a particular state. As predominantly secular countries become more ethnically and religiously diverse, particularly through immigration from regions religiously different from the host country (e.g., the Muslim emigration into Christian Europe), more free exercise and accommodationist demands are being made by those whose religions are not merely a variant of the dominant religion. These demands bring new challenges and require sensitive balancing of conflicting fundamental rights and liberties. This essay examines three books addressing these topics from various perspectives and uses them as a vehicle for some commentary on the nature of the problems encountered.

4. John William Tobin (Melbourne Law School), Should Discrimination in Victoria's Religious Schools Be Protected? Using the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act to Achieve the Right Balance. The abstract states:

The aim of this paper is to assess whether the capacity for religious schools to discriminate against staff and students on the basis of attributes such as their sexual orientation can be justified under human rights law, specifically the provisions the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006. Two conclusions are offered. First, rather than being perceived as a simple conflict between the right to freedom of religion of schools and the right to non discrimination of adults, a proper human rights analysis also requires that the obligation to protect the best interests of children must also be taken into account. Second, an examination of the factors that must be considered when determining whether an interference with a human right can be justified, reveals that the exemption granted to religious schools under the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act represents not only an unreasonable limitation on the right to equality and non discrimination to be enjoyed by staff and students, it also contributes to an educational environment that is inconsistent with the best interests of children.

5. Aaron J. Saiger (Fordham University - School of Law), Religious Consumers and Institutional Change in American Public Schooling: Cases from Jewish Education, Journal of Law, Religion and State, Vol. 1, 2012. The abstract states:

The paradigm of American K–12 education is shifting as the institution of local educational polities, each responsible for own its 'common schools,' faces competition from programs of school choice. Although charter schools and related reforms are generally studied in terms of quality and equity, the rise of consumer sovereignty as an alternative to political sovereignty as an organizing principle for educational governance has much wider ramifications. Paradigms of choice have already begun dramatically to alter religious education and its relationship to public schooling. Moreover, because these paradigms rely upon consumer preferences and the aggregation of those preferences by markets, the shape of religious activity in state-subsidized schools will be determined increasingly by consumers and producers – parents and schools – rather than by political actors. Government is likely to find its ability to limit and guide religion/school interactions substantially, and increasingly, constrained.

In making this argument, this paper draws primarily upon examples from a small but instructive religious sector in American K–12 education, that of Jewish education. It discusses the direct deployment of the charter-school form to provide Jewish education. It then assesses ways in which shifts in the public framing of education from one of politics to one of markets has transformed public school politics in school districts dominated by Orthodox Jews.

6. Ashgar Ali Ali Muhamed (International Islamic University of Malaysia - Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Laws) and Yusuff Jelili Amuda (Sultan Idris Education University - Faculty of Human Sciences), Crime Against Maids: An Evaluation of Shariah and Civil Law Punishment, OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 2, No. 7, pp. 89-102, 2011. The abstract states:

It is undeniable facts that many maids whom have been abused sexually, physically, mentally, and psychologically by their employers or employer’s family or relative. Therefore, this study examines how Shari’ah punishment can be applied as a deterrent punishment and lesson to others. It is individual rights to work as employee based on his or her class, status, and educational career. Shari’ah is the only law that gives all rights to human being regardless of his or her status, gender, tribe, and religion. The study will apply quantitative and qualitative methods for the analysis. Questionnaire and interviewed would be conducted on subject matter in order to discover undocumented facts. The sample would be conducted in certain universities such as UPSI, IIUM, and UKM in Malaysia. This survey or data will be sampled as an empirical evidence and proof that many maids were sexually abused while some were inflicted with injuries. Globally, maids’ abuse is very serious and complex and it needs deterrent punishment to reduce high percentage of criminal against maids. The study also aims to discover the effectiveness of the Shari’ah to serve as best law to secure maids rights and protect them in working places. Finally, useful solution to outstanding problem and suggestions would be suggested in the findings.

7. Arshi Saleem Hashmi (National Defence University Islamabad), Bangladesh Ban on Religion Based Politics: Reviving the Secular Character of the Constitution. The abstract states:

The decision of Bangladesh Supreme Court to ban religion based politics reflects the ideology of the country’s founding fathers. It ensures secularism as the cornerstone of the Constitution. Thus, carrying out activities of any political party based on religion is a punishable offence. The Election Commission of Bangladesh demanded the religion-based parties in the country to amend their charters as they were in conflict with the supreme law of the land. Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh’s constitution is based on secularism, nationalism, socialism and democracy. Hard secularism rejecting all kinds of religious activities encourages reaction, to eradicate the menace of religious extremism, soft secular approach of protecting and enforcing the equal rights of all religious beliefs and traditions can help instead of preferring one religion over others.

8. Kristen Henrard (Erasmus School of Law), Shifting Visions of Indoctrination and the Margin of Appreciation Left to States, Journal of Religion & Human Rights, pp. 245-251, 2011. The abstract states:

The Lautsi case turns around the question whether having a crucifix in classrooms of state schools violate state duties to respect parents’ religious and philosophical convictions in relation to education and to teaching (article 2, protocol no 1) and the freedom of religion of parents and pupils (article 9). Striking about Lautsi is that it gave rise to two judgments of the European Court on Human Rights, with radically different evaluations and outcomes: the Chamber decided unanimously that the Convention was violated, while 15 out of 17 judges of the Grand Chamber concluded it was not. The following analysis will demonstrate that the different outcome can be explained by a radically different starting point of analysis, which impacts on the interpretation of the relevant criteria and the evaluation of the facts. In the end the two Lautsi judgments signal shifting visions on the margin of appreciation (in the educational sphere). This needs to be explained in the broader framework of the Court’s doctrine of the margin of appreciation (left to the contracting state parties) and its jurisprudence under article 2 of the first additional protocol. Indeed, while the applicants invoke both article 9 and article 2 of protocol 1, the Court focuses its analysis on the latter article, since this constitutes the lex specialis of article 9 for the parent. At the same time it underscores the need for a holistic reading of the Convention and thus to take into account article 9 and the state duties of neutrality and impartiality in religious matters it enshrines.

9 Samuel J. Levine (Touro Law Center), Hosanna-Tabor and Supreme Court Precedent: An Analysis of the Ministerial Exception in the Context of the Supreme Court’s Hands-Off Approach to Religious Doctrine, Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, Vol. 106, 2011. The abstract states:

The United States Supreme Court’s review of the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in the case of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC could lead to a major development in the Court’s Religion Clause jurisprudence. On one level, Hosanna-Tabor presents important questions regarding the interrelationship between employment discrimination laws and the constitutional rights of religious organizations. The narrow issue at the center of the case is the "ministerial exception," a doctrine that precludes courts from adjudicating discrimination claims arising out of disputes between religious institutions and their ministerial employees. This Essay suggests, however, that the real significance of Hosanna-Tabor goes beyond the Court’s application of the ministerial exception to the particular facts of the case. This Essay looks at the ministerial exception through the broader prism of the Supreme Court’s "hands-off" approach to religious doctrine, which prohibits judicial inquiry into a wide range of questions relating to religious practice and belief.

10. Dawinder S. Sidhu (University of New Mexico School of Law), Religious Freedom and Inmate Grooming Standards. The abstract states:

This Article explores the Eleventh Circuit's repeated rejection of challenges, under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA"), to "restrictive" inmate grooming policies (that require inmates to shave or cut their hair) in suits brought by plaintiffs who subscribe to a religion that mandates the growing of facial hair or long hair. It suggests, based on an analysis of case law, states' policies, and recent legal developments, that the Eleventh Circuit's approach in upholding these policies is no longer sustainable.

Today, thirty-nine states, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and D.C., do not have restrictive grooming policies or expressly grant religious exemptions to such policies, leaving only eleven states -- including the three states within the Eleventh Circuit -- that enforce restrictive grooming policies without the availability of a religious exemption. Also of note is the fact that the Department of Justice has intervened recently in two RLUIPA cases on behalf of inmates, arguing that the restrictive grooming policies of California and Alabama must be invalidated unless the state can present evidence that the "specific plaintiffs" in the suit have given rise to a penological concern that justifies the policies. California settled its case and agreed to eliminate its restrictive grooming policy. Against this backdrop, the Eleventh Circuit's routine defense of restrictive grooming policies seems out of step and at least worthy of scrutiny.

Accordingly, I propose the following: assuming that a state's restrictive grooming policy requiring the cutting or shaving of hair substantially burdens a sincere religious practice of an inmate, and that the state’s penological interests undergirding the policies (such as security and order) are compelling, a court must probe the state as to why the existence of medical exemptions does not undermine these proffered interests and why restrictive grooming policies applied to inmates with relevant religious views is necessary given the fact that a vast and growing majority of jurisdictions do not have such policies or affirmatively grant religious exemptions despite sharing the same underlying penological interests as those states with restrictive grooming codes. A state with a restrictive grooming policy may satisfactorily defend these policies only by showing a particularized evidentiary basis for why the specific inmate in question poses an actual or threatened risk to a penological interest that supports the challenged policies.

This searching standard, I posit, should replace the more deferential standard that the Eleventh Circuit has applied. If adopted, the Eleventh Circuit would not only maximize the religious freedom of inmates, but prevent states from circumventing liability and restricting religious exercise by merely reciting its penological interests and providing generalized support for its policies. The court would also bring itself in line with what appears to be a shift in the ability of states to meet its penological goals without resorting to restrictions on grooming.

JFB

First Amendment Scholarship Update

Here is this month’s collection of newly available scholarship on speech topics:

1. Stephen M. McJohn (Suffolk University Law School ),Top Tens in 2011: Patent, Trademark, Copyright and Trade Secret Cases, forthcoming in Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property. The abstract states:

This paper discusses notable intellectual property law cases in the United States in 2011. Patent cases addressed such issues as the scope of patent subject matter (the patentability of human genes and methods for testing for genetic links to cancer), the standards for challenges to the validity of patents (such as where technology that was not considered by the patent office is put in evidence), and the breadth of patent protection (especially with respect to the scope of protection for software patents). Other cases tested the borders of trademark protection – distinctiveness, functionality, and the interplay between trademark law and other areas of the law, such as the First Amendment, products liability, and internet domain name ownership. In copyright, significant decisions addressed such issues as the proper procedures to settle a dispute (the Google Books case) affecting almost every author and reader, the scope of fair use, the assignment of rights to enforce alleged online infringement, the copyright holder’s power to control copies it has distributed, the minimal requirements for copyright protection, and liability of websites for users’ infringement. Trade secret cases reflected its interplay with patent law. An inventor may patent the invention (which requires publication of the information) or keep it a trade secret (which requires preventing publication). That boundary, cases show, is porous. The cases also reflect the increasing international flow of goods and information, as well as more attempts to protect “proprietary” information under the computer.

2. Anthony Johnstone (University of Montana School of Law), A Madisonian Case for Disclosure, George Mason Law Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2012. The abstract states:

Notwithstanding its secondary holding that there is “no constitutional impediment” to requiring disclosure of those who fund independent campaign expenditures, the case for campaign finance disclosure is not as clear as Citizens United would suggest. The Supreme Court tends to assume rather than explain the "informational interest" that is cited to support disclosure. Without a clear constitutional justification, that interest does less than it might to define the means and ends of disclosure policy, and to defend that policy against constitutional challenge.

This article excavates the existing constitutional foundations for campaign finance disclosure, and roots the informational interest in a republican idea of corruption as factionalism that predates the narrow transactional conception of corruption dominant in contemporary political speech debates. That idea, explicated by James Madison in the Federalist and embodied in the Constitution, motivates an antifactional informational interest both broader and narrower than is presently conceived. It is broader in the sense that informing voters through disclosure of a wide range of interests in political campaigns is critical to the full function of the Constitution’s antifactional machinery. It is narrower in the sense that the interest is in disclosing interests—factions—and not other information that voters may find valuable for other reasons. Rooted in the broad importance and narrow purpose of antifactionalism, a deeper informational interest may better serve the First Amendment's republican values without violating its libertarian command.

An antifactional reconception of the informational interest may help solve, or at least clarify, several puzzles in the First Amendment doctrine of campaign finance law. First, targeting interests instead of individuals for disclosure relieves the latent tension generated by the Court’s embrace of political anonymity in McIntyre. Second, understanding corporations as factions provides a sounder basis on which to distinguish corporate political actors from others after Citizens United. Third, the republican concern about faction offers a coherent rationale for drawing lines between domestic and foreign political speakers, whether the “foreigners” come from a different district, a different state, or a different country. Fourth, by recognizing corruption as the private benefit of factions at the expense of the general welfare, rather than the personal benefit of an officeholder at the expense of a faction, the antifactional interest calls for at least as robust a disclosure system for issue advocacy as it does for express advocacy of candidates.

3. Jerry Kang (University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law), Bits of Bias, in IMPLICIT BIAS ACROSS THE LAW, Justin Levinson, Robert Smith, eds., Oxford University Press, 2012. The abstract states:

Scientists have demonstrated that implicit biases are pervasive, large in magnitude, and have real-world consequences. What can we do about them? One principal strategy is to decrease the implicit bias in our minds (the other is to disrupt their causal link to behavior). In order to decrease bias, we should understand where they come from in the first place. Put crudely, is it nature nurture? I argue that it’s mostly nurture, and of a specific sort – via vicarious experiences with outgroups mediated by electronic media. These vicarious interactions, fed to us via entertainment, news, social media, and computer mediated-communities, strengthen particular mental associations. If these vicarious experiences are indeed a substantial source of implicit bias, what might policymakers do, in the shadow of the First Amendment?

4. Samantha Barbas (University at Buffalo Law School, SUNY ), How the Movies Became Speech, forthcoming in Rutgers Law Review. The abstract states:

In its 1915 decision in Mutual Film v. Industrial Commission of Ohio, the Supreme Court held that motion pictures were, as a medium, unprotected by freedom of speech and press because they were mere “entertainment” and “spectacles” with a “capacity for evil.” Mutual legitimated an extensive regime of film censorship that existed until the 1950s. It was not until 1952, in Burstyn v. Wilson, that the Court declared motion pictures to be, like the traditional press, an important medium for the communication of ideas protected by the First Amendment. By the middle of the next decade, film censorship in the U.S. had been almost entirely abolished.

Why did the Court go from regarding the cinema as an unprotected medium to part of the constitutionally-protected “press”? The standard explanation for this shift is that civil libertarian developments in free speech jurisprudence in the 1930s and 40s made the changed First Amendment status of the movies and the fall of film censorship inevitable. Challenging this account, I argue that the shift was also the result of a dynamic I describe as the social convergence of mass communications. Social convergence takes place when the functions, practices, and cultures associated with different media come to resemble each other. By the 1950s, movies occupied a role in American culture that increasingly resembled the traditional press. At the same time, print journalism took on styles and functions that were like those historically associated with the movies. The demise of film censorship reflected not only more capacious understandings of freedom of expression, but also convergent communications. The article focuses on the efforts of a nationwide anticensorship movement, between 1915 and the 1950s, to engineer the reversal of Mutual using an argument based on media convergence.

This significant, lost chapter in the history of modern free speech has much to tell us about the ongoing relationship between the First Amendment and new media. It illustrates how courts and the public in an earlier time dealt with a question that is still pressing today: should the medium of communication have significance for free speech law? Illuminating historical patterns of judicial responses to new media, the work offers insights into what we may predict about the regulation of mass media in our own era of media convergence.

5. Elina Tetelbaum (Yale University - Law School), A Sobering Look at Why Sunday Liquor Laws Violate the Sherman Act, Utah Law Review, Vol. 2011, No. 2, 2011. The abstract states:

This Article does not address all Sunday closing laws in effect today, but limits its focus to Sunday closing laws having to do with alcohol-Sunday liquor laws. As states move to modernize blue laws, the laws most difficult to repeal have been those restricting the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Alcohol-related blue laws are particularly relevant statutes, not only because of their staying power, but because they are subject to the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution. The evolution of the Court's jurisprudence as to the intersection of the Commerce Clause and the Twenty-First Amendment has opened the door for a challenge to Sunday laws under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Part II provides a brief history of Sunday closing laws in the United States. Part III discusses failed constitutional challenges to Sunday closing laws, generally under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Part IV describes the Supreme Court's evolving jurisprudence on the intersection of the Commerce Clause and the Twenty-First Amendment and shows how, over time, federal interests have grown in increasing importance relative to state interests. Part V explains the strong anticompetitive effects of Sunday liquor laws. Part VI evaluates the countervailing state interests in Sunday liquor laws, and discusses the lack of empirical literature demonstrating the efficacy of Sunday liquor laws in promoting public health and safety objectives. Part VII concludes that these laws unreasonably restrain trade and might not withstand a challenge under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

6. Renee Newman Knake (Michigan State University - College of Law), Why the Law Needs Music: Revisiting NAACP v. Button Through the Songs of Bob Dylan, Fordham Urban Law Journal, Vol. XXXVIII, 2011. The abstract states:

The law needs music, a truth revealed by revisiting the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in NAACP v. Button through the songs of Bob Dylan and Sandra Seaton’s play Music History. The Court decided Button in 1963, just a few months before the debut of Dylan’s acclaimed album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. In Button, the Court held that the First Amendment protected the NAACP’s legal assistance to individuals for the enforcement of constitutional and civil rights. The decision was a victory for the NAACP, yet success in the courtroom did not translate entirely to success on the ground. Indeed, in the same year, NAACP Mississippi Field Secretary Medgar Evers was assassinated, and the Birmingham Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed. These events serve as reminders of law’s inadequacies, in that the constitutional protection of legal services in Button did little to stop the needless loss of life and violence that was characteristic of racial desegregation efforts. Not only did tragedy persist, but the NAACP’s long-term vision for racial equality has never been completely realized. Playwright Sandra Seaton focuses on the law’s inadequacies in her drama Music History, also set in the turbulence of 1963. Her characters endure the law’s failings firsthand when a University of Illinois student, Walter, the beloved of Etta, is killed during his work on the voter rights campaign in Mississippi.

Music of the 1960s captured the struggle inherent in attempts to achieve equality when the law proved impotent, particularly as evidenced by Bob Dylan’s work in 1963. This Essay, written for the Fordham University School of Law Bob Dylan and the Law Symposium, offers three connections between the law and music using the works of Dylan and Seaton as illustrations. First, music criticizes the existing cultural and legal regime in a manner that empowers social change in the wake of the law’s failure. Second, while the Button legal opinion memorialized the history of the civil rights era, music (and Seaton’s Music History) continue to influence modern culture in a more pervasive way. Third, Button, Dylan, and Seaton remind us about the importance of exercising our free speech rights, whether the speech involves offering legal assistance to minorities shut out from the political process at the ballot box, singing a song silenced by record and television network executives, or recreating history through drama. In short, we see why the law needs Bob Dylan and Music History.

7. Adrienne Stone (Melbourne Law School ), 'Insult and Emotion, Calumny and Invective': Twenty Years of Freedom of Political Communication, forthcoming in University of Queensland Law Journal. The abstract states:

This article was written for a symposium marking twenty years of constitutional protection of freedom of political communication in Australian constitutional law. The protection of political communication under the Australian Constitution is commonly regarded as relatively weak. While I do not as a general matter dispute this characterization of the law, this article will strike a different note. Rather than dwelling on the weaknesses of the doctrine I will draw attention to a strand of reasoning in the High Court’s decisions on freedom of political communication that stands in marked contrast to the general trend. In particular, I will examine Coleman v Power, which appears to establish that the law has no legitimate role in ‘civilising’ public debate. As I have noted previously, moreover, this ‘anti-civility’ stance has some surprising affinities with aspects of the law of the First Amendment. However, in this article however it is suggested that the reasoning of some members of the High Court in Coleman strongly suggests that Australian values inform the freedom of political communication. In this spirit, I close the article by suggesting that Coleman might be read as showing a nascent but peculiarly Australian disregard for civility in political discussion.

8. Ashutosh Avinash Bhagwat (University of California, Davis - School of Law), Sorrell v. IMS Health: Details, Detailing, and the Death of Privacy, forthcoming in Vermont Law Review, 2012. The abstract states:

This article was written for a Symposium, jointly hosted by the University of New Hampshire School of Law and the Vermont Law School, exploring the implications of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in IMS Health v. Sorrell, 131 S. Ct. 2653 (2011). In particular, I consider here an important issue that was raised, discussed, but ultimately avoided in IMS Health: what restrictions does the First Amendment place on the government’s ability to limit or prohibit the disclosure of pure data, in order to protect personal privacy. The issue could be avoided in IMS Health because the specific Vermont statute at issue in that case did not, as it happens, impose a general restriction on data disclosure for privacy reasons, it rather only restricted specific uses of regulated data, in order to advance state interests quite distinct from privacy concerns. The broader question of data regulation, however, is lurking in the wings of this and other litigation, and is likely to pose difficult challenges for courts in coming years, as the spread of the Internet drives legislatures to adopt increasingly stringent privacy laws.

While the IMS Health majority did not decide the data-disclosure issue posed in the case, it did address it in ways that strongly suggest the six justices in the majority would treat such disclosures as fully protected speech. Moreover, the analysis provided in this article demonstrates that the majority’s hints are fully justified by current Supreme Court doctrine. As currently interpreted by the Court, the First Amendment provides full constitutional protection to disclosures of even personal data, and so restrictions on such disclosures must survive strict scrutiny, a standard that has proven almost impossible to satisfy in the First Amendment context. As a consequence, under current law most statutes seeking to protect privacy by prohibiting data disclosure are likely to be invalidated.

In the balance of the article, I suggest that this result reflects a serious weakness in current doctrine, which is the failure to recognize that factual speech is distinct from, and requires different constitutional analysis than, the sorts of political and cultural speech that have traditionally been the mainstay of First Amendment litigation. In particular, drawing on a number of areas of developed law, I argue that speech consisting purely of specific factual data regarding individuals should be considered to be fully protected under the First Amendment only if the speech meaningfully contributes to the process of democratic self-governance. Other data should remain protected, but under a lower standard of scrutiny, perhaps an intermediate standard incorporating an element of balancing. I also briefly explore how different kinds of privacy laws might fare under such an approach.

9. Larry Howell (University of Montana School of Law), Once Upon a Time in the West: Citizens United, Caperton, and the War of the Copper Kings, Montana Law Review, Vol. 73, 2012. The abstract states:

This article focuses on Western Tradition Partnership v. Attorney General, currently before the Montana Supreme Court. Western Tradition concerns the viability of Montana’s century-old ban on independent corporate expenditures in campaigns for elected office. A lower court held the statutory ban unconstitutional in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which held a similar federal ban violated corporations' First Amendment rights. The Montana Attorney General appealed the district court ruling, arguing that Montana's notorious history of corrupt elections during the War of the Copper Kings provided a sufficiently compelling interest to find the state's ban on corporate expenditures constitutional even after Citizens United. This article argues that while Citizens United likely requires the Montana Supreme Court to affirm the lower court's ruling in the context of political elections, the Court should uphold the statutory ban on independent expenditures in the context of judicial elections.

This article first traces the history of Montana’s ban on corporate campaign expenditures by examining the corrupt practices of Montana’s copper kings at the turn of the twentieth century as they fought for control of the state's vast mineral wealth and its government. The corruption, which infected all branches of government, including the judiciary, was so open and notorious that President Theodore Roosevelt's administration came to refer to it as the "Montana situation." Ultimately, the corruption also led fed-up Montanans to pass by citizen initiative Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act of 1912, the predecessor to the statute at issue in Western Tradition Partnership.

Within that historical framework, this article next examines the conflict between the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co. and Citizens United. The article then analyzes the inconsistent treatment of large independent expenditures in Caperton, where the Court's majority held they had the potential to corrupt in judicial elections, and Citizens United, where the Court's majority categorically held those same expenditures posed no risk of corruption in any election. The "disconnect" between Caperton and Citizens United provides an opportunity for the Montana Supreme Court, especially in light of Montana's history of corruption, to hold that the state can continue to prohibit independent corporate campaign expenditures in campaigns for judicial office office.

10. James Weinstein (Arizona State University (ASU) - Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law), The Story of Masses Publishing Co. V. Patten: Judge Learned Hand, First Amendment Prophet, published in FIRST AMENDMENT STORIES, Richard Garnett and Andrew Koppelman, eds., Foundation Press, 2011. The abstract states:

This chapter explores the historical, political and legal context of Masses Publishing Co. v. Patten, one of the few decisions that upheld the right to protest America’s involvement in World War I. Issued in the summer of 1917 by Learned Hand, then a young federal district court judge, Masses was quickly and emphatically reversed by the United States Court of Appeals. The chapter begins by examining the political and social conditions that underlay the hysterical reaction to anti-war protests and led to the conviction of over 1,000 anti-war protestors. It then analyzes the defects in the Supreme Court’s free speech doctrine that permitted this massive assault on free speech and democratic self-governance. The chapter concludes by demonstrating how Hand’s masterful opinion, though repudiated at the time, presciently anticipated several key themes in contemporary American free speech doctrine.

11. Chapin Cimino (Drexel University - Earle Mack School of Law ), Campus Citizenship and Associational Freedom: An Aristotelian Take on the Nondiscrimination Puzzle, William & Mary Bill of Rights, Vol. 20, p. 533, 2011. Date Posted: December 22, 2011. The abstract states:

Student expressive association on campus is a thorny thicket. Student affinity groups often choose to organize around a shared principle or characteristic of the groups’ members, which, by definition, makes those students different in some way from their peers. In order to preserve the group’s sense of uniqueness, these groups often then wish to control their own membership and voting policies. They feel, in essence, entitled to discriminate — a right arguably embodied by the First Amendment freedom of expressive association. When campus groups actually exercise this right, however, they run into university anti-discrimination policies, which can cost them official campus recognition. Thus, in the name of one important value, schools trample on another: campus citizenship. Both nondiscrimination and campus citizenship are values of equality.

At this moment, whose notion of equality is to prevail? Is it the university’s, taking the form of a blanket nondiscrimination policy? Or is it the student group’s, taking the form of the desire to maintain both associational freedom and campus citizenship?

Current First Amendment doctrine is ill-equipped to resolve the tension between these competing values, or “ends.” It is ill-equipped because any traditional First Amendment test is written to consider only one “end” — the end of the regulator. This was true prior to the Supreme Court’s June 2010 decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. However, the Court’s opinion in CLS made the situation worse by applying the simplistic and unhelpful “limited public forum” test. The limited public forum test may have been the least common denominator between competing doctrines, but choosing it was a mistake.

This Article takes on several tasks. It explains the notion of campus citizenship, showing how the goal of equality on campus actually has two aspects to it — the equality of the students potentially excluded from a group, and also the equality of the group that is excluded from the campus. It shows how and why current doctrine, but especially the limited public forum doctrine, are not up to the task of resolving the inherent conflict in this dual conception of equality. Finally, it offers a new (and neo-Aristotelian) means-ends analysis courts should use in this context in order to account for the dual ends of these cases: nondiscrimination and expressive association.

12. Robert Sprague (University of Wyoming - College of Business) and Mary Ellen Wells (Alvernia University), The Supreme Court as Prometheus: Breathing Life into the Corporate Supercitizen , American Business Law Journal, Vol. 49, No. 3, 2012. The abstract states:

This article examines the legal status of the corporation in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations have political free speech rights equivalent to natural persons. In Citizens United, Justice Kennedy wrote that corporations were disadvantaged persons because the government had intruded upon their freedom of speech. The Citizens United majority portrays a misleading image of corporations. It is true most corporations are owned by small groups of individuals, managed by their owners, and limited in size and revenues. But what the Citizens United majority conveniently ignores is one particular attribute which has existed for at least one hundred years — that exceptionally large corporations, controlled by a handful of individuals, have amassed great quantities of wealth and power which dwarf the resources of the individual electorate, as well as the corporations’ own minority shareholders, ultimately diluting individuals’ political voice. We conclude that with its newly acquired constitutional rights, the corporation is perhaps now ready to dominate not just commerce, but the political system as well.

JFB

Strategic Restraint Marks Response of Some Police Depts. To Occupiers

Although notable incidents across the U.S. have drawn attention to police misuse of force, including the use of pepper spray, at Occupy protests (see prior post), a report on NPR examines how some police departments have exercised restraint in dealing with protesters, maintaining lines of communication and using social media to analyze and manage responses to protest conditions.

JFB

Police Use of Force Against Occupy Protesters Prompts Suits

Citing concerns about sanitation and crime, city officials in New York, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Oakland, Philadelphia, and Portland have cleared protest encampments, sometimes using force against the Occupiers. According to an AP report in the Washington Post, suits filed in Oakland and Berkeley have challenged such tactics, emphasizing the chilling effect of such treatment. Lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild, ACLU chapters, and other civil liberties advocates around the country are now reviewing the use of force incidents as well as restrictive responses to the Occupy protests, such as the “ banning” of over 100 Occupy protesters from the Austin, Texas City Hall based on criminal trespass notices issued for what police labeled “unreasonably disruptive” behavior.

 

Protests Surge in Moscow

Yesterday in Moscow thousands rallied to protest irregularities in the recent parliamentary election and to oppose the imminent campaign of Vladimir Putin to regain the Russian presidency. According to the NY Times, the estimated number of protesters ranged from the police’s figure of 30,000 to the demonstration organizers’ count of nearly 120,000. A recent Christian Science Monitor piece examined governmental tactics, such as pre-emptive arrests and wiretaps, being used to squelch the protests. However, as recounted in the Monitor and the Times, Alexei Navalny, a blogger whose criticism of corruption and deception in the current government has helped to galvanize the protest movement, was released last week from fifteen days in jail and is rumored to be considering challenging Putin in the presidential election.

 

New Pew Report: Religiously Active People Show More Civic Engagement

The Pew Research Center Project on the Internet and American Life has just released a new report examining how religious activity affects engagement with the broader society. The study’s Overview presents this summary of findings:

Some 40% of Americans are active in a church, religious, or spiritual organization. Compared with those who are not involved with such organizations, religiously active Americans are more trusting of others, are more optimistic about their impact on their community, think more highly of their community, are more involved in more organizations of all kinds, and devote more time to the groups to which they are active.

When it comes to their technology profile, Americans who are members of religious groups are just as likely as others to use the internet, have broadband at home, use cell phones, use text messaging, and use social networking sites and Twitter.

“Some analysts have been concerned that those who have active spiritual lives might not be as engaged with the secular world,” noted Jim Jansen, author of the report. “We see the opposite. Those who are religiously active are more likely to participate in all kinds of groups and more likely to feel good about their communities. Those who are active in religious groups seem to be joiners. They also are active users of technology.”

Religious Freedom At Risk in U.S.?

Today’s in its Room for Debate feature, the New York Times explores whether religious freedom is under threat in the United States. The following brief essays are presented:

Religion in the Public Square by Tim Shah and Tom Farr, Georgetown University

Liberty Is Elusive for Sikh Americans by Rajdeep Singh, Sikh Coalition

As American as Religious Persecution by Noah Feldman, Harvard Law School

A Campaign Against Patriotic Muslims by Salam Al-Marayati, Muslim Public Affairs Council

Human Rights vs. Religious Freedom? by Helen M. Alvaré, George Mason University

Federal Law, at Least, Is on Our Side by Hamza Yusuf, Zaytuna College

A Risk Even for the Majority by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, SUNY Buffalo Law School

Falling Short of Our Ideals by Michael W. McConnell, Stanford Law School.

JFB

Responding to Media Complaints,NYPD Offers New Training on Press Rights at Protests

Capital New York reports that the NYPD has initiated an expanded training program as part of the Department’s response to a November 21 letter from the New York Times and twelve other news organizations presenting complaints about NYPD treatment of journalists attempting to cover Occupy Wall Street events. The letter expressed particular concern about the use of force against journalists covering the Occupy protesters and the arrests of some reporters.

Although the Department maintained that it already had an ongoing relevant training program, Police Commissioner Kelly reissued a "non-interference" order, which states: "Members of the service who unreasonably interfere with media access to incidents or who intentionally prevent or obstruct the photographing or videotaping of news in public places will be subject to disciplinary action." In other steps taken in response to the media complaints, Deputy Inspector Kim Royster convened meetings with commanding officers to go over guidelines for treatment of the media at demonstrations. A guidelines summary was also disseminated to officers assigned to protest sites. The summary states in part:

Information, assistance, or access should be rendered to whatever extent possible, when it does not: Pose undue risk to personal safety; Interfere with police operations; Adversely effects the rights of an accused or the investigation or prosecution of a crime.

Members of the service will not interfere with the videotaping or photographing of incidents in public places. Intentional interference constitutes censorship. Media access to demonstrations on private property will not be impeded by the Department unless an owner or representative indicates press is not permitted. The media will be given access as close to the activity as possible with a clear line of site and within hearing range of the incident.

As Capital New York notes, complaints about police treatment of journalists have been lodged in a number of other cities, prompting calls for improved efforts to educate officers about how First Amendment protections apply as protests unfold.

JFB

Tarek Mehanna Found Guilty of Conspiring to Support Al-Qaeda

Yesterday a Boston jury quickly found Tarek Mehanna guilty on all seven counts of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to kill U.S. soldiers abroad, and lying in a federal terrorism investigation. The charges stem from Mehanna’s blogging activities. (See prior post.) Mehanna now faces a life sentence. His attorneys plan to pursue a First Amendment challenge on appeal. WBUR and the Boston Globe provide reports on the verdict.

Citing Bio-terrorism Fears, Govt. Advisory Board Asks Science Journals to Hold Back Flu Study Details

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity has asked the journals Science and Nature to hold back full descriptions of NIH funded experiments conducted by U.S. and Dutch scientists in which genetic mutation techniques were used to create a highly transmissible strain of flu virus that would be deadly to humans. The panel fears that the information could facilitate bio-terrorism. In a NY Times article on the government’s unprecedented action, Bruce Alberts, editor of Science, indicated that the journal would likely withhold descriptions of some elements of the research as long as the government simultaneously creates an access protocol for scientists presenting a legitimate reason for reviewing experiment details. Given that Dutch researchers presented their findings at a virology conference in Malta in September, there is some skepticism about how the information can controlled. An earlier NPR report offers more details on the research now at the center of this controversy.

JFB

League of Women Voters Suit Charges FL. Voter Registration Restrictions Violate First Amendment

Last week in Florida the League of Women Voters, Rock the Vote, and Florida PIRG filed suit in federal court charging that the state’s restrictions on voter registration efforts impose an unconstitutional burden on the groups’ rights of expression and association as they try to “encourage civic engagement and democratic participation by assisting Florida citizens in registering to vote and exercising their fundamental right to vote.” The suit charges that the registration restrictions lack any compelling or even legitimate justification but instead were enacted, as statements in the legislative history demonstrate, to make voting more difficult, especially for low income citizens. In addition to these First Amendment violations, the plaintiffs allege that the registration restrictions and attendant criminal penalties violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The complaint presents this statement of its central allegations:

[T]he Law improperly requires all “third-party voter registration organizations”—broadly defined as “any person, entity, or organization” that “solict[s] or collect[s] voter registration applications,” Fla. Stat. § 97.021(37)—to (i) to pre-register with the State and satisfy cumbersome disclosure requirements “[b]efore engaging in any voter registration activities” and to continually submit electronic updates about their organizational status, including any changes to their volunteer base; (ii) track, inventory, and report every voter registration form they handle on a monthly basis regardless of whether that form is distributed or completed; (iii) deliver to State election officials all completed voter registration forms within an arbitrarily narrow and vague 48-hour window; (iv) submit all mandated forms electronically, without regard for the limited resources of many community-based voter registration groups; and (v) incur potentially strict liability for fines ranging from $50 to $1,000 for the untimely delivery of any completed voter registration applications, be subject to undefined and potentially limitless civil penalties for any violations of the Law, and face criminal misdemeanor liability for any violation of the Law for which a penalty is not otherwise provided.

Unless the Law is enjoined, Plaintiffs’ constitutionally protected political speech and activity will continue to be chilled. Plaintiffs, as well as many other individuals and groups, will be forced to communicate fewer civic and nonpartisan political messages and to refrain from engaging in associational activity important to advancing their missions and beliefs. The public will receive less information about how to participate in the democratic process and will have fewer opportunities to associate with Plaintiffs in meaningful civic activities.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York
University School of Law, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Florida, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, and Coffey Burlington.

JFB

Animal Rights Activists Charge Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act Violates First Amendment

In a complaint filed in Boston, five animal rights activists assert that Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (“AETA”),18 U.S.C. § 43 (2006), violates the First Amendment by deterring lawful protest activities. Describing the central claims of the suit, the complaint states:

The AETA fails to define key terms, but its plain language criminalizes core political
advocacy and speech that are protected by the First Amendment. For example, it punishes otherwise lawful and innocuous speech or advocacy that causes a business that uses or sells animal products to lose profit, even where that lost profit comes from a decrease in sales in reaction to public advocacy. Thus, AETA effectively criminalizes the very purpose of the First Amendment – changing people’s minds. It would also criminalize individuals who plan a peaceful protest, if an entity undertakes the routine business decision hire a security guard.

The law is also uncommonly broad, insofar as it defines an “animal enterprise” to include almost any business that buys or sells animal products. As such, it insulates a large number of businesses from the types of criticism that are deeply rooted in our constitutional tradition. For example, labor picketers, who seek to affect the bottom line of an employer engaged in unfair labor practices (that happens to sell animal products) are subject to prosecution under the act if their peaceful, lawful picket “causes the loss of any…personal property,” including profits.

While all kinds of activists and protestors may be chilled from undertaking constitutionally protected activity as a result of this overbroad statute, the specific target of the AETA is clear: animal rights activists whose demonstrations have caused large businesses to lose profits. Previous prosecutions under the AETA and its precursor statute, the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (the AEPA), along with the AETA’s legislative history, support this interpretation.

In an AP report on the suit, plaintiffs’ counsel Rachel Meeropol of the Center for Constitutional Rights described the statute’s chilling effect: "Some of my clients want to engage in simple public protests - perhaps in front of a fur store - to change public opinion about fur. But they feel restricted from engaging in that clearly lawful activity because under the plain language of the law, if that protest is successful in convincing consumers not to shop at that fur store, they could be charged as terrorists." In addition, one plaintiff, Ryan Shapiro, asserted that fear of prosecution under AETA has led him to abandon undercover filming of factory farms in an effort to educate the public about cruelty in such operations. Such filming has also been the target of so-called ag-gag bills proposed in a number of states, including Iowa, Florida, and Minnesota, this year.

Activist Behind Campaign Against TLC’s “All-American Muslim” Previously Fought Against Gay Rights

In a column in today’s New York Times, Samuel Freedman examines David Caton’s history as an activist. Using arguments likely culled from the writings of anti-Muslim bloggers, Caton, head of the Florida Family Association, an organization with one paid employee (Caton), managed to convince Lowe’s to pull its advertising from the TLC series “All-American Muslim.” Caton recently refocused his advocacy on an alleged Islamic takeover of America after learning of a Tampa court ruling that would have consulted Sharia law to address the enforceability of an arbitration award in a dispute about the ousting of a local mosque’s trustees. As noted on the Religion Clause Blog, the judge in that case rescinded the controversial ruling this week, deciding that the case had to be dismissed as it called for the resolution of a dispute about the governance of a religious organization.

Caton had previously campaigned against homosexuality, taking aim since the mid-1990’s at the formation of a Gay Straight Alliance in a Tampa high school, same sex marriage, the enactment of local gay rights provisions, and the hiring of an openly gay lawyer in the state AG's office. As Freedman observes, Caton’s campaign against the TLC series may well have the same unintended consequences as his anti-gay efforts, mobilizing community support for the victims of bigotry.

JFB

Federal Judge: Occupy Protesters Can Remain on S.C. Statehouse Grounds Until State Properly Promulgates Use Regulations

On November 16, S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley ordered Occupy Columbia protesters to leave the Statehouse grounds, saying they could return during daylight hours. Nineteen protesters who refused to leave after 6 p.m. were arrested for trespassing. As reported in The State newspaper, seven of those arrested sued the governor and other state officials in state court, alleging that the eviction order and arrests violated the First Amendment. The state Public Safety Director later advised protesters that they could stay on the grounds as long as they did not camp, and the local prosecutor declined to press charges against those arrested, concluding that they had broken no applicable law. The state trial court issued a TRO that allowed Occupiers to conduct their round the clock protest vigil and permitted them to use sleeping bags and tents.

The governor then sought removal of the case to federal court and argued that the protesters were trying to establish a domicile on public property and were effectively “squatters on public land." The governor presented a proposed stipulation that would have allowed the protesters to remain on the grounds on a 24 hour basis but prohibited any camping, the use of tents, sleeping bags etc. Surprisingly, the state had no existing set of regulations regarding the use of the Statehouse grounds, a site which had been the focus of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229 (1963). In Edwards, the Court found that the breach of the peace prosecution of 187 black high school and college students gathered to protest racial discrimination violated the First Amendment.

After a hearing on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie granted an injunction that prohibits the state from removing the protesters until properly promulgated use regulations provide the basis for such action. Here is an excerpt presenting the core of Judge Currie’s ruling:

Plaintiffs maintain that their 24-hour, continuous occupation of the State House grounds, including camping and sleeping, is expression protected under the First Amendment, and that Defendants’ policies infringe on their expression. Plaintiffs argue that the State Budget and Control Board has the authority to restrict the use of the State House grounds only through the promulgation of regulations pursuant to S.C. Code Ann. § 10-1-30, and not through the creation of informal policies. Further, they argue that the State Budget and Control Board’s unpublished, informal policies, which require permission to hold events on the grounds after 6:00 p.m. and purport to prohibit camping and sleeping on the grounds, are not valid time, place, and manner restrictions on First Amendment expression on the State House grounds.

Defendants respond that the State Budget and Control Board has the authority to create
restrictions without engaging in the formal rulemaking process required to promulgate a regulation. They argue that the restrictions they have created do not violate Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.

Defendant Governor Haley describes the issue in this case as “whether the State may prevent individuals from becoming permanent squatters on public land.” The court disagrees with this characterization and concludes the issue is more accurately expressed as whether the State may prohibit continuous protesting and camping on the State House grounds when no law, regulation, or valid restriction prohibits that expressive conduct.

The court finds that, although camping and sleeping are not speech in the traditional sense, the First Amendment protects Occupy Columbia’s 24-hour occupation of the State House grounds as symbolic conduct.

The court, however, recognizes that the State may properly regulate conduct on the State
House grounds, including prohibiting camping and sleeping. In fact, there is a statute that
specifically authorizes the State Budget and Control Board to promulgate regulations to restrict the use of the State House grounds. Twenty-two years ago, the Board advised this court that it was enacting regulations pursuant to this statute. Grass Roots Organizing Workshop (GROW) v. Campbell, 704 F. Supp. 650 (D.S.C. 1989). However, the Board never promulgated any regulations or created reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions establishing a curfew on the State House grounds and certainly none that address camping or sleeping. What does exist is an internal document entitled “Conditions for Use of South Carolina State House and Grounds” (“Conditions”). These Conditions serve only as guidelines for a reservation system for events after 6:00 p.m. and do not expressly address camping or sleeping.

Although Plaintiffs have been sleeping on the State House grounds since October 15, 2011, there is no indication that the State has promulgated proper time, place, and manner regulations or restrictions to limit camping or sleeping on the grounds. If it seeks to limit or prohibit such conduct, the State must create regulations or valid restrictions of which the public will have notice and which will be applied consistently as to all individuals and groups. That is, the regulations or restrictions must be content neutral both on their face and in practice. The court concludes that the informal, unwritten policies prohibiting camping and sleeping, as well as the policy prohibiting events after 6:00 p.m. without permission, are not valid time, place, and manner restrictions. These policies have been applied inconsistently and, as illustrated by the conflicting positions of Governor Haley and the Board Defendants, may continue to be applied inconsistently against Plaintiffs pending the final outcome of litigation in the absence of injunctive relief.

This outcome is similar to the resolution of earlier litigation involving Occupy Nashville’s use the Tennessee legislative plaza. The Tennessee governor has stated that the state is now in the process of promulgating use regulations for the area.

JFB

Religion Newswriters Identify Top Ten Religion News Events from 2011

This year’s survey of the Religion Newswriters Association yielded the following list of top religion stories:

1. The death of Osama bin Laden spurs discussions among people of faith on issues of forgiveness, peace, justice and retribution.
2. Lively congressional hearings are held on the civil rights of American Muslims. In the House hearings focus on alleged radicalism and in the Senate on crimes reported against Muslims.
3. Catholic Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City. Mo. is charged with failure to report the suspected abuse of a child, becoming the first active bishop in the country to face criminal prosecution in such a case.
4. The Catholic Church introduces a new translation of the Roman Missal throughout the English–speaking world, making the first significant change to a liturgy since 1973.
5. Presbyterian Church (USA) allows local option on ordination of partnered gay people. Church defections over the issue continue among mainline Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Episcopalians.
6. Pope John Paul II is beatified—the last step before sainthood—in a May ceremony attended by more than million people in Rome.
7. California evangelist Harold Camping attracts attention with his predictions that the world would end in May and again in October.
8. A book by Michigan megachurch pastor Rob Bell, "Love Wins," presenting a much less harsh picture of hell than is traditional, stirs discussion in evangelical circles. Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention rebut it.
9. The Personhood Initiative, designed to outlaw abortion by declaring a fetus a person, fails on Election Day in Mississippi, but advocates plan to try in other states. Meanwhile, reports show the number of restrictions adopted throughout the country against abortion during the year are far more than in any previous year.
10. Bible translations make news, with celebrations of the 400th anniversary of the King James Version; criticism, notably by Southern Baptists, about gender usage in the newest New International Version; and completion of the Common English Bible.

JFB