January 2006

by Robert Jensen

While the great battles fought over the First Amendment's religion and free-speech/-press clauses are some of the most inspiring stories told 'round the legal campfire, the amendment's assembly and petition clauses are mostly a forgotten footnote.

There has been no great legal battle in easy memory over the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." In 1939, the Supreme Court decided a case, Hague v. Congress of Industrial Organizations, that definitively established "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" in public . . .

April 2005

by Robert Jensen

First, a disclaimer: Given all the fussing about dangerous radical professors these days, I should make it clear that while I teach at the University of Texas at Austin, I don't speak for the university. (Not that anyone at this rally would ever imagine that I do.) I repeat: What I'm about to say is not official policy of the University of Texas. In case anyone was confused, the University of Texas is not a radical institution and is not committed to anti-empire politics.

March 2005

by Robert Jensen

Ward Churchill has a right to speak about 9/11.

And Ward Churchill is right about 9/11.

I state that bluntly, even though I disagree with some aspects of the University of Colorado professor's now-infamous essay, because so many (including some on the left) have defended his First Amendment rights while either remaining silent about, or condemning, the article's analysis.