Last week, the Supreme Court handed down two nearly unanimous decisions in cases involving the First Amendment. One was an 8-1 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts in Ramirez v. Collier, in which the Court sided with a death row inmate who claimed he had the right to have the religious leader of his choice touch him and pray audibly for him in the execution chamber. The other opinion was 9-0 in Houston Community College v. Wilson, where the Court held that a legislative censure issued by a community college board did not violate the free speech rights of the respondent, another trustee on the board, in an opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch.
First Amendment experts Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School and Eugene Volokh of UCLA Law join host Jeffrey Rosen to discuss the opinions’ impact on how we interpret and understand and religious freedom and freedom of speech in America.
FULL PODCAST
Please subscribe to We the People and Live at the National Constitution Center on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app.
This episode was produced by Melody Rowell engineered by Kevin Kilbourne. Research was provided by Kevin Closs, Ruben Aguirre, Sam Desai, and Lana Ulrich.
Participants
Michael W. McConnell is the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His most recent book is The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power Under the Constitution.
Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA Law School. He is the author of the textbooks The First Amendment and Related Statutes (6th ed. 2016), and Academic Legal Writing (5th ed. 2013), as well as over 90 law review articles. He is the founder and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
-
Interactive Constitution explainers by Michael McConnell: Free Exercise Clause Common Interpretation and “Free Exercise: A Vital Protection for Diversity and Freedom”
-
Interactive Constitution explainers by Eugene Volokh: Free Speech Clause Common Interpretation and “Frontiers for Free Speech”
-
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Ramirez v. Collier
-
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Houson Community College v. Wilson
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
SUPPORT THE PODCAST WITH MATCH OPPORTUNITY!
The National Constitution Center relies on support from listeners like you to provide nonpartisan constitutional education to Americans of all ages. In honor of the 234th anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, every dollar you give to support the We the People podcast campaign will be doubled with a generous 1:1 match up to a total of $234,000, made possible by the John Templeton Foundation!
Stay Connected and Learn More
Questions or comments about the show? Email us at [email protected].
Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.
Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.
