Procedures

• Evaluate this excerpt from Justice Louis D. Brandeis's concurring opinion in the United States Supreme Court case of Whitney v. California:

  “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

  What do you think that means?

• Video Clip: President Trump's response to the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA (4:06) President Trump responds to the Unite the Right white nationalist protests in Charlottesville, VA.

  Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts:

  • What input would you have for the President if he asked you “what are we doing wrong in a country where things like this can happen?” What are the best solutions to those problems? Explain your responses!

  • What action do you believe President Trump hoped to see in response to his remarks? Explain your position!

• Video Clip: President Obama's response to the June 2015 mass shooting in Charleston, SC (4:03) President Obama delivers a eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, a victim of a mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

  Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts:

  • What do you think President Obama meant by the phrase “Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other”? Why?

  • What action do you believe President Obama hoped to see in response to his remarks? Explain your position!

• Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts:

  Both President Trump and President Obama, though they used different specific words, spoke of unity, openness to discussion, kindness and mutual respect.

  • Are those achievable goals in modern America? Explain your position!

  • Is it important for a President to call for these behaviors from Americans? Why or why not?

  • How could the government appropriately promote those behaviors?

  • How do President Trump’s and President Obama’s remarks reflect Justice Brandeis’s Whitney v. California position on speech that contains “falsehoods and fallacies”? Do you agree with Justice Brandeis’s opinion? Why or why not?

• Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts:

  • What are three positive and constructive ways that citizens could use “more speech” to express their feelings and process their opinions about political events and, in your view, also have the power to be highly effective? Explain your choices!

• Discussion Questions/Writing Prompts:

  Throughout American history, our government leaders have struggled to determine where speech crosses the line from protected to unprotected.

  In the case of hate speech (“speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits,” per the American Bar Association), where do you think that line should be drawn (i.e. at what point does that speech, in your view, become unprotected)?

  What challenges exist with attempts to ban or restrict hate speech?