Forbidden to wear a t-shirt featuring a plant leaf? Isn’t this the Land of the Free?
A U.S. District Court in Iowa agrees. It recently upheld the First Amendment rights of a student group at Iowa State University after administrators tried to stop them from wearing t-shirts featuring images of marijuana leaves. School officials, according to the ruling judge, tried to block the shirts “due to the messages they expressed” in an effort to “maintain favor with Iowa political figures.” The ruling could prove useful for student groups across the country who are battling with administrators who are hostile to their constitutional rights.
In the video below, University of Illinois Professor Deirdre McCloskey explains the virtue of free speech in the realm of political persuasion. As humans, we use free speech to persuade each other because the alternative is violence. The politics of persuasion or the point of a gun? Sadly, we are increasingly turning to the latter.