September 2021 UA First Amendment Roundtable Discussion

[In September 2021 the University of Alabama School of Law held the below First Amendment Roundtable Discussion (below copied and pasted from https://www.law.ua.edu/blog/2021/page/4/?post_type=news). Last week I sent Professor Tara Grove, the moderator of the Roundtable Discussion, the email that is set out underneath the below description of the Roundtable Discussion.]

Alabama Law Hosts Top Constitutional Law Professors for 

In September, the Alabama Law Program in Constitutional Studies hosted an academic roundtable event to discuss the new book Saving the News: Why the Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech written by Harvard Law Professor, Martha Minow.   

Moderated by Professor Tara Grove, director of the Program in Constitutional Studies at Alabama Law, the roundtable included a strong lineup of scholars including Martha Minow (Harvard Law School), Jack Balkin (Yale Law School), Jane Roberta Bambauer (University of Arizona Law), Leslie Kendrick (University of Virginia School of Law), Genevieve Lakier (University of Chicago Law School), Helen Norton (Colorado Law), Robert Post (Yale Law School), Geoffrey Stone (University of Chicago Law School), Nadine Strossen (New York Law School), Eugene Volokh (UCLA Law), and Jeremy Waldron (NYU School of Law). Dean Mark Brandon (Alabama Law) provided introductory remarks.  

Based on the content in Professor Minow’s book, this group discussed the importance of the First Amendment and what role the government can and should play at a time when our culture has transitioned from relying on traditional fact-checked publications to consuming news through social and online media platforms.  

Civic Engagement: Coming Together Across Ideological Lines   

One of the main purposes of the First Amendment Roundtable was to offer an experience that supports the Program in Constitutional Studies’ larger Civic Engagement Initiative. In this case, the roundtable created a space for a diverse group of legal scholars, who hold differing opinions and come from various backgrounds, the opportunity to work together to discuss the government’s potential role in regulating the private enterprises whose platforms facilitate the spread of information and, in some cases, misinformation. 

According to Professor Grove, “The Civic Engagement Initiative aims to facilitate meaningful conversations across political and ideological lines. That can be more challenging when people disagree about the ‘facts on the ground.’ So, it’s important to think about where people are getting their information. This event was one opportunity to consider the role of the media in our society.”  

Upcoming Events  

The September Roundtable was just one of several Civic Engagement Initiative events the Alabama Law Program in Constitutional Studies plans to host. On January 18, 2022, the Program will be holding a panel featuring free speech experts Nadine Strossen—professor at New York Law School and former president of the ACLU, and Keith Whittington—professor of politics at Princeton University. The panel will be moderated by Professor Bryan Fair of Alabama Law, and the event will be open to the public. Additional details about this event are forthcoming. If you are interested in learning more about this panel or about the Program in Constitutional Studies, please contact Professor Tara Grove (tgrove@law.ua.edu). 

Email to Professor Grove

From: Rob Shattuck <rdshatt@aol.com>
To: tgrove@law.ua.edu <tgrove@law.ua.edu>
Sent: Mon, Apr 25, 2022 6:39 pm
Subject: September 2021 First Amendment Roundtable Discussion

Dear Professor Grove,

I seek to advance the interface between elite Alabamians and regular Alabamians, with a view to improving the politics and governance of Alabama (and America).

Your September 2021 First Amendment Roundtable Discussion dealt with a supremely important subject bearing on America's politics and governance.

Regular Alabamians are implicated in the matter, largely, I think, not in a favorable way.

I believe you and the other roundtable discussion participants are limited in your and their capacity to impart to regular Alabamians the concerns you and they have relative to the roundtable discussion topic. Said concerns are remote from the bread and butter issues which occupy regular Alabamians; such concerns are esoteric for regular Alabamians to appreciate; and I think regular Alabamians are not receptive to trying to understand the concerns and are not receptive to elite Alabamians such as yourself trying to tell them about the concerns.

Currently, regular Alabamians are being fire hosed by asinine TV ads of the candidates for U.S. Senator from Alabama and for governor, which fire hosing worsens the problem that was the subject of your roundtable discussion. I believe there is nothing in the election campaigning environment that mitigates said fire hosing of regular Alabamians.

I have tried hard to resist what is going on. My blog (https://al6thcongdist-ihaveuntiljan13.blogspot.com/) extensively lays out my efforts, which can be easily reviewed by starting at the top blog entry you will see (which is the most recent entry), and scrolling down the blog entries in reverse chronological order.

I thought Joyce White Vance should run for U.S. Senator from Alabama and that her campaigning would inject into the 2022 elections a worthwhile counter to the TV ad fire hosing regular Alabamians are experiencing.

Recently I have tried to draw in UA, UAB, Auburn, Samford and Montevallo professors (including yourself) per my blog entries at  

https://al6thcongdist-ihaveuntiljan13.blogspot.com/2022/04/email-to-ua-uab-auburn-samford.html; https://al6thcongdist-ihaveuntiljan13.blogspot.com/2022/03/al-broadcasters-assoc-and-academics-re.html; and https://al6thcongdist-ihaveuntiljan13.blogspot.com/2021/04/guns-again.html (email to you and other constitutional law professors is at the end of the foregoing blog entry).

Please consider this email as more trying to draw you in based on your being the moderator of the First Amendment Roundtable Discussion.

Thank you for your attention to this email.

Sincerely,