Just A Hypothetical Question

Jul 22, 2010

By Ken.

Look, I don’t want to open a can of worms. But here’s my question today: should UCLA fire Jonathan Zasloff for advocating government suppression of speech he doesn’t like?

I mean, UCLA is a state school. Does that mean they should fire professors who advocate government suppression of speech, in violation of the First Amendment? Or maybe have them prosecuted? Or flogged? I don’t know these things. I’m just asking questions.

Professor Zasloff’s question was this:

“I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”

Now, maybe that question and its answer are a little more complicated, and legal, than the other questions people Zasloff was hanging out with were asking — like whether Fox is a bumbling propaganda outlet. That one is easier to answer for me.

But shouldn’t it be clear that the government shouldn’t shut down media outlets that criticize it, even if they do so moronically and unfairly? Some would disagree. But not me.

Look, I’m just asking the question of whether a university should fire a professor for stupid, stupid speech. I mean, I’m just a criminal and civil litigator with college and law degrees and a capability of reading. I’m not an attorney specializing in when colleges can fire professors for asking questions. So it’s entirely reasonable of me to ask you, the reading public, these questions to start a dialogue. So if you think there’s something wrong, or even offensive, about that question, it’s totally unreasonable of you to criticize me for it.

Just ask Jonathan Zasloff. He agrees with me completely. I think he learned it from Glenn Beck.

But even if you do strongly disagree, that’s OK. I shouldn’t worry that anyone will spread my question further and use it to suggest that I want to use the mechanism of government to suppress speech I don’t like and political groups I oppose. After all, just as listserv members can reasonably expect that their incendiary comments to a diverse group of politically opinionated journalists and bloggers and activists will remain confidential and kept in context, I never have to worry about you all repeating this or taking it the wrong way. We’re just having a private conversation here, right?

I mean, I’m just asking questions.

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11 Comments

Free Speech

10 Comments

Patrick • Jul 22, 2010 @11:41 am

While we’re asking difficult questions, how many licks DOES it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop?

As for Zasloff, firing for “demonstrated incompetence as a law professor by posing non-hypothetical questions any 2L could answer” is such an ugly term.

Couldn’t his position simply be defunded? I read somewhere on the internet that California has a deficit problem.
Chuck • Jul 22, 2010 @12:03 pm

The correct answer to Zasloff’s question is that the FCC can’t revoke Fox News’ broadcast license because Fox News doesn’t have a license in the first place — it’s a cable network, and thus not regulated by the FCC.

IIRC, we covered that in like the second week of my telecom law class 2L year. So “demonstrated incompetence” it is!
Charles • Jul 22, 2010 @1:22 pm

I think this is all overstated. He’s an environmental law prof so I give him a partial pass on Chuck’s gotcha on FCC jurisdiction. Let’s put that aside and presume that there is – or could be – an analogous governing agency responsible for cable broadcast licenses. (Congress certainly threatens its creation whenever basic cable gets too racy.)

If we turn to his actually question, I thought it was more of a thought experiment about the FCC mandate: if licensees are supposed disseminate news and are instead cash-cow outlets for propaganda distribution, should they be entitled to the “bandwidth.” He didn’t really make any kind of case that Fox was a lying, scheming propaganda machine – it was assumed among Fox-hating friends that this was the case – and it obviously grows out of an anti-conservative political bias. I also don’t think it is a case he can make, given the actual state of cable news across the ideological spectrum.

But if you start from that assumption, and apply it to a hypothetical network that isn’t FOX, the question becomes more interesting.
Jdog • Jul 22, 2010 @3:00 pm

“Well, we could take Woodward and Bernstein out in the woods, strangle them with piano cord, and sodomize their corpses,” Nixon said. “But that would be wrong.”
SPQR • Jul 22, 2010 @3:09 pm

Is there an english language translation of Charles’ comment?
Charles • Jul 22, 2010 @6:47 pm

Probably not, SPQR. You have to work with it in the original Charles.
Contracts • Jul 22, 2010 @9:58 pm

“Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” he said. “I mean that, of course, hypothetically.”
RD • Jul 23, 2010 @12:16 am

I wonder what distemperate thoughts Ken has shared in private, electronic conversations? WE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!!!
Vice Magnet • Jul 24, 2010 @1:17 pm

Fox news is the only media outlet that slants a story? Please tell me you aren’t that myopic.
Ken • Jul 25, 2010 @8:39 am

Of course not. But different networks slant differently. NBC is smug. Fox is defiant and dumb. And so on.