Rhetorical hyperbole protects free speech

  Rhetorical hyperbole is a concept important to the protection of free speech under the First Amendment. Many benefit from the principle, including protestors, sportswriters, editorialists and even the President of the United States.

  When the United States Supreme Court created the true threat doctrine in Watts v. United States (1969), the Court emphasized that care must be taken to ensure that in the pursuit of punishing true threats, the government doesn’t infringe on protected speech. The Court determined that a young African-American protestor named Robert Watts engaged in “political hyperbole” when he criticized the draft by saying that “the first person he would put in his scope is L.B.J” referring to President Lyndon Baines Johnson. In other words, the Supreme Court recognized that Mr. Watts engaged in “political hyperbole” rather than uttering a true threat.

Justice Sotomayor expresses concern over Court’s true threat jurisprudence

  U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor agreed with her colleagues that the Court should deny review in a true-threat case out of Florida, involving a man who uttered, while drunk, that he could blow up a liquor store.

  However, Sotomayor wrote a separate concurring opinion denying review in Perez v. Florida (16-6250) to express her concerns about holes in the Court’s current true-threat jurisprudence.

David L. Hudson Jr.: Case of student rapper deserves close examination

  The case of a former high school student from Mississippi punished for a rap song he created off-campus and posted online has the potential to be the most significant K-12 student speech case in several years.

  A divided full panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in Bell v. Itawamba County School Board that school officials were justified because they could reasonably believed that the song would create a substantial disruption at school.