A Crash Course on the First Amendment (The Part About Speech)

Free speech is protected, but you still can’t yell “fire” in a movie theater or say “bomb” on an airplane, right? Wait… can you? Where’s the line, exactly? Is it legal to stand on a street corner and advocate the violent overthrow of the government as long as you don’t hurt anybody? Can people really be fired from their jobs because of a Tweet?

The First Amendment protects speech, but not all speech. This talk is a crash course on the most important First Amendment cases in U.S. legal history, and explores exactly what our legal system says about subversive speech (like advocating the overthrow of the government), slander and libel (laws against lying), symbolic speech (flag burning or kneeling during the national anthem), and cancel culture (being fired because of a Tweet).

All attendees will learn to speak intelligently about the facts, nuances, and competing viewpoints that surround these crucial legal debates. Issues which, unfortunately, are becoming increasingly distorted by the hyper-partisanship of our times.

Dr. Lawrence Cappello is an Assistant Professor of U.S. Legal & Constitutional History at the University of Alabama. He is the author of None of Your Damn Business: Privacy in the United States from the Gilded Age to the Digital Age. His essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Hill, The Economist, and other mainstream publications.