I woke up at 8:58 this morning feeling completely serene and relaxed, ready to take on the new day. This time of relaxation was ended a minute later, after I had received text from Ms. Thrift saying that she had arrived on campus. I had forgotten that today was Tuesday, a.k.a. cohort meeting day. I immediately rushed out of bed and prepared to meet my cohort downstairs.
I walked into my Constitutional Law class to the sound of the 2000's hit "Oops I Did It Again" from my fellow classmates. I mustered all the strength I had within me to prevent myself from singing along. (Britney Spears songs were my jams.)
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| Con-Law life |
In our class discussion today, we discussed the matter of incitement in Freedom of Expression. In the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, I learned about Charles Brandenburg, the leader of the KKK, and his intentions of vengeance toward the American government. In my opinion, this guy was pretty nuts. I mean, who else goes around in hoods burning crosses and blaming the government for the "suppression" of the Caucasian race. This is also the man who believed that "the n***** should be returned to Africa, and the Jews returned to Israel". The amount of prejudice from him is exorbitant; and people wonder why he got convicted. As concurred by Justice Douglas, it was in this rare instance that speech is immune from protection.
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| Yankee Stadium |
After class, my cohort and I headed towards the Bronx to Yankee Stadium, where we got to experience our very first Yankee game! The stadium was rather grandiose, and from what I heard from Deborah and Izabel, was much nicer than the A's stadium. We had some really great seats to the left of home plate, with a great aerial view of the game. This was actually my first professional sporting event; I was mainly amazed by how neat the grass looked. (It just looked so flawless!) The ironic thing about today was that they were playing my home team: the Oakland A's!
Our travels back to Columbia were quite an adventure. We went backwards, and forwards, and backwards again all thanks to misinformation on a subway flier. However, we eventually made it back safely to Columbia, an hour before curfew.
One of the most difficult things about freedom of speech is that it protects speech that some of us find really offensive--like racist speech. It crosses the line, however, when it promotes violence and that is something the KKK has embraced.
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