Imus and Free Speech

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 12th, 2007 at 1:32 pm and is filed under First Amendment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Imus and Free Speech”

  1. Mekhong Kurt Says:
    April 6, 2009 at 7:44 am | Reply

    Was Imus gross? Yes.

    Should he be fired — for business reasons? Maybe.

    IS what he said constitutionally protected? Well, that may well *depend.*

    What I mean is that it depends on the constitutional standard applied. If we apply the widely accepted notion of the meaning of free speech, then yes, it is. However, if we think about the countless cases in which it has been ruled that shouting “Fire!” falsely in a public place is *not* constitutionally defended, then it’s probably not.

    Imus’ ignorant utterances might, conceivably, have started a riot somewhere.

    In any case, if his bosses think the only way for him to make any lucre for them is to be offensive, then maybe THEY need a new business model.

    In fairness to them, people who eat that stuff up need to get a life.

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