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Join the Jefferson Humanists’ November monthly chapter meeting for the presentation, The 21st Century Speech Environment and Its Implications For Free Speech and Democracy by CU Professor Helen Norton. Online event on Meetup.com
Left unfettered, the twenty-first-century speech environment threatens to undermine critical pieces of the democratic project. Speech operates today in ways unimaginable not only to the First Amendment’s eighteenth-century writers but also to its twentieth-century champions. Key among these changes is that speech is cheaper and more abundant than ever before, and can be exploited — by both government and powerful private actors alike — as a tool for controlling others’ speech and frustrating meaningful public discourse and democratic outcomes. This talk will discuss the threats to public discourse and democracy posed in the twenty-first-century speech environment, along with some possible responses to those threats.
Bio (from CU website – https://lawweb.colorado.edu/profiles/profile.jsp?id=263):
Helen Norton is the Rothgerber Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado School of Law. Her scholarly and teaching interests include constitutional law (especially free speech and equality) and civil rights law. Before entering academia, Professor Norton served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, and as Director of Legal and Public Policy at the National Partnership for Women & Families. She currently serves as Special Counsel on Constitutional and Civil Rights for Colorado’s Attorney General, previously served as leader of President-elect Obama’s transition team charged with reviewing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and is frequently invited to testify before Congress and federal agencies on civil rights law and policy issues. She holds a J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.A. from Stanford University. Cambridge University Press recently published her book, The Government’s Speech and the Constitution, and her work has also appeared in the Duke Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Stanford Law Review Online, and the Supreme Court Review, among other journals.
Join the Jefferson Humanists on Sunday, November 28th at 4:00 pm for this great presentation.
This program is hosted by Jefferson Humanists, a chapter of the American Humanist Association.
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Since we are unable to meet in person for our normal Monthly Chapter Meetings, we are doing virtual meetings on Zoom. Please RSVP on Meetup or by email to [masked] to join this meeting.
Those who RSVP on Meetup will see the link to join the presentation, but you must RSVP before the meeting start time. Those who email for the link will be sent it a few days before the meeting.
For smart devices, get the free Meetup app and RSVP for the link.
Attendance is limited to the first 50 people who RSVP. We hope that you will join us!
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“Although the First Amendment has multiple purposes, I think its primary purpose, when push comes to shove, is to ensure a healthy democracy. This is why the First Amendment protects, for example, political dissent and criticism of government officials.” – Helen Norton
