Constitution
Intriguing–and Disquieting–Analysis of Citizens United
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Constitution on June 7th, 2011
A paper delivered at the Law and Society conference I attended raised some interesting points about the Citizens United decision that I haven’t seen elsewhere. While there has been a lot of criticism of the Court’s classification of corporations as people, this presentation asked a more basic (albeit related) question: what was the “speech” that [...]
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Charlie White, the GOP, and the Rule of Law
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Constitution on April 21st, 2011
After the Republicans in the Statehouse passed House Bill 1242, changing the election law in order to avoid the consequences of having run an ineligible candidate, my husband shook his head. “It’s enough to make you ashamed of ever having been a Republican.” This from a man who worked for the GOP for over fifty [...]
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I Don’t Like This Law So It Must Be Unconstitutional
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Constitution on March 11th, 2011
Yesterday, I spoke to a high school government class, filled with bright high school seniors who have thus far escaped any meaningful encounter with the U.S. Constitution.It came as a surprise to most of them, for example, that the Bill of Rights applies only against government. So we talked a good deal about the limits [...]
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Stop the Presses! ACLU Supports Christian Athletes
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Constitution on February 28th, 2011
One of the great myths promulgated by the Christian Right is that the ACLU is “anti-religion” and “anti-Christian.” Those bent on demonizing the organization conveniently overlook the many cases in which the ACLU represents the rights of religious folks. When I was Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU, it used to irritate me that we got [...]
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Restoring Civic Literacy
Posted by Sheila Kennedy in Constitution on February 18th, 2011
The following text is a speech I recently gave to the Indianapolis Chapter of the League of Women Voters about the abysmal state of historical/constitutional knowledge in America. ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— When I was asked to speak, my “assignment”—or at least my intention—was to discuss one of my recent books, “Distrust, American Style.” In that book, I [...]
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