First Amendment Case a Go!
Good news on the free speech front: Today we learned that our ideological exclusion case on behalf of renowned South African scholar Adam Habib will proceed in court. Judge George O'Toole of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts denied the government's motion to dismiss the case, so the case moves forward.
In June, the government argued that it didn't have to explain or justify its decision to bar Professor Habib from attending speaking events in the United States based on vague national security grounds. The government also argued that the court lacked jurisdiction (the power) to hear the case. But Judge O'Toole agreed with the ACLU that the government has to supply a valid justification for barring Professor Habib because his exclusion harms our clients' First Amendment rights. Specifically, their right to hear Professor Habib's ideas and engage him in face-to-face debate (our clients are the American Sociological Association, the American Association of University Professors, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Massachusetts, and the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights – all of whom have invited Professor Habib to speak in the United States).
You can listen to Professor Habib talk about this case in this podcast.
Dec 9th, 2008 at 12:46pm
I've often wondered about cases such as this. How is it that foreign nationals, who do not live in the U.S., are not U.S. citizens, continue to enjoy protections under the Constitution as if they were citizens? No one has ever been able to explain that one to me. Frankly, I highly resent the misuse of my hard-earned taxpayer dollars for having to defend cases such as this.
Dec 10th, 2008 at 11:27am
I second the aforementioned. On what grounds does a non-citizen have any constitutional protections?
Jan 7th, 2009 at 7:34pm
TSALAGIMAN very good point i have wondered the same thing
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