February 24, 2009

POS 359--The Current Supreme Court Term
In class today, Tuesday 2/24, I began by going over the oral arguments in the Court yesterday. I then talked about a case in which the Supreme Court granted cert. that involves the placement of a cross on government property. We began our discussion of the Caperton briefs, and we will continue that discussion on Thursday. The assignment for Thursday 2/26 is to watch a program on the internet that told the story of a 1954 Supreme Court decision that extended the protection of the 14th Amendment to Mexican-Americans. The program can be accessed at
www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/class/
(or, in case of any trouble,just go to pbs.org and follow the trail to American Experience and then to this program, "A Class Apart")

CMJ 375--Mass Media Law
In class today, Tuesday 2/24, we continued with the anti-SLAPP case of Schelling v. Lindell, and discussed how broadly the case might affect defamation law. We then went over cyberspace liability, and I discussed the Maine case of Fitch v. Doe. Going on to Chapter 5 of the text, I went over the Maine case of Estate of Bertiaume v Pratt. we will pick up with the privacy torts on Thursday. The assignment for Thursday 2/26 is to read in the casebook the Hoffman case (p. 96) the McNamara case (p. 99) and the Diaz case (p. 105).