In a recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute, outgoingFederal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt echoed theconcerns of countless policymakers when he asked, "is it [theTelecommunications Act of 1996] working?"
In a recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute, outgoingFederal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt echoed theconcerns of countless policymakers when he asked, "is it [theTelecommunications Act of 1996] working?"
Nicholas Goldberg: The Supreme Court debates the all-powerful F-word
Summary: This time the language wasn’t used to comment on a burning social issue. But isn’t it time we got over our squeamishness?
Written By:
Nicholas Goldberg, Los Angeles Times | 11:00 am, Apr. 26, 2021 ×
Fifty years ago, a 19-year-old L.A. man forced the Supreme Court to consider a provocative four-letter epithet.
(Samuel Corum/Getty Images/TNS)
The F-word will soon be coming to the nation’s most august courtroom again.
This time, it will get there courtesy of B.L., an anonymous young woman who wrote a profanity-filled Snapchat post after she was rejected for her high school’s varsity cheerleading team. Her post and her school’s decision to punish her for it has ignited a free speech case that will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court next week.
The F-word will soon be coming to the nation’s most august courtroom again.
This time, it will get there courtesy of B.L., an anonymous young woman who wrote a profanity-filled Snapchat post after she was rejected for her high school’s varsity cheerleading team. Her post and her school’s decision to punish her for it has ignited a free speech case that will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court next week.
But B.L. was not the first to focus the justices’ attention on the F-word. That distinction belongs to Paul Robert Cohen, whose case 50 years ago resulted in a landmark decision on the 1st Amendment and the regulation of profanity.