Communication Rights and Law 494 Class Synthesis:

Well, this class has come to a bittersweet close and it has truly been one of the most challenging yet enjoyable courses of my academics here at this University. In our first class we discussed the lack of discourse regarding communication rights in academia, and I soon realized this was an unfortunate truth. Communication rights are applicable when discussing academic dialogue in theory, social organization and the expression of our amendment rights. How can we express our amendment rights when we do not know the length of our freedoms and limitations? I will say with certainty that I will stay tuned to the future of communication rights, specifically in the pending decision of defining terrorism aid and minors rights in the aspects of sexting and legislation protecting LGBTQ students in the public school sector.

In this synthesis I will provide an overview of my past seven postings regarding the dynamics of communication rights. I will analyze my philosophical and doctrinal support in each case and seek if I retained constant theory foundations for every case. My initial though is that I did not remain constant, as I often gravitated toward my personal emotional appeals and personal ethics. I think it is hard to remain constant because of the personal experiences we each have and the biases we carry. This is one of the reasons I believe it would be difficult to perform the duties of a Supreme Court Justice. Justices have to act as representatives of our constitution, and not their personal ethics. We have read many Supreme Court cases, and read multiply majority opinions and dissents. For all cases, the constitution is the “bible” that determines decisions, yet sometimes due to the generality of laws that are being argued for an against court plaintiffs and defendants, supreme court justices find themselves at a liberty to apply their own personal beliefs, which in turn change the course of our nation.

After the wealth of information received in the duration of this course, I will define my current philosophical and doctrinal stance and explain my reasoning. I will also discuss the theories of harm and levels of scrutiny that I would apply in the future, particularly within different contexts or locations. Libel laws in respect to the burden of a speaker will also be discussed. My decisions in the different themes associated throughout this course will be also be outlined in specific to my consistency or lack thereof in my opinions. Lastly, I will be careful to analyze my personal appeals to cases and how this influenced my opinions.


To begin with, my first response in regards to the enduring controversy of my God, your speech, brought surprising results as I wrote my blog because I thought I would have different conclusions as I began the readings. As a Mexican-American Catholic, I adhere to creation science and respect the teachings of the bible and the Catholic Church. Yet, the controversy surrounding Ecce Homo, and Christian leaders denouncing these depictions, did not make me side with these Christian beliefs. Rather, I was accepting of the Ecce Homo images, and made a case to modernize the Ecce Homo views as those that would be supported by Jesus as the LGBTQ community has been and continues to be marginalized and oppressed. I also found that I had a change of heart when protection of speech in the case of the Little Bride and the Jyllands-Posten imagery satirizing Muhammad. In depictions of the Little Bride, I said that I would not protect this speech because I regarded it as hate speech, yet in depictions of the Jyllands-Posten, I would. As I write this, I would change my mind yet again and say that I protect both cases of speech, yet I think my personal bias led me to disagree with the Little Bride in the beginning. Like mentioned above, as a practicing Mexican-American Catholic I am in solidarity with the LGBTQ community, and I am outspoken about my beliefs. Yet, when I see a depictions in a Christian website like the Little Bride cartoons creating religious division and disrespect to the Muslim faith I am embarrassed and outraged because our media and private citizens could associate me with the same beliefs based on our shared Christian faith. Yet, I do not share those beliefs, and would never impose those same beliefs on my Muslim community and friends. While it is difficult to associate freedoms of speech around the world, due to different limitations of speech enacted in every country, I would want to be respectful of laws regarding speech associated with each country. I do believe we are an example in terms of free speech to other countries, yet imposing these beliefs on “developing countries,” is not the correct way to do this. Nothing good has ever come of political enforcement in other nations by a single nation; history is proof of this in terms of religiosity. I believe the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a great way to begin the dialogue of basic human rights to all people, yet while we should be vocal of these rights around the world; we should also be patient for progress to arrive globally.

My second posting was in response to my peers postings on a bounded agora: Constructing, a Communication Justice Philosophy and trying to apply it. In all honesty, my initial look at these readings and questions overwhelmed me, and I found it easy to use my “free pass,” and not attend class nor respond to the reading questions. This turned out to be a mistake, as I did not do well on my responses to my peer’s blogs. I found that I did not have the proper foundations for the philosophers presented and the scrutiny levels discussed. I contradicted myself and did not fully understand the different levels of scrutiny, which further muddled my responses. Looking back now, all postings were in reference to the protections applied to the case of Holder vs. The Humanitarian Law Project. I would now say that I protect HLP speech under the first amendment and should therefore not be prohibited because it would violate first amendment rights. I agree with HLP in its argument that the provisions they are being criminalized for against "training”, providing "expert advice or assistance", or providing "service" or "personnel" to terrorist organizations are too vague to be applied to their intended speech. A close look of HLP’s activities should instead be investigated especially in response to the context of their interactions with organizations labeled as terrorists by the United States. I believe philosopher Alexander Meiklejohn should be cited as support for the protection of HLP. Meiklejohn’s philosophy centers binary speech regarding the political and the private. He believes political speech should be generously protected and private speech should be protected under the Fifth Amendment, with regards to due process, thereby limiting ones free speech protection. Due to HLP’s progress in communicating with a cited terrorist organization about their communication rights with our government and the UN, and having been free of physical and violent speech, I believe HLP’s speech would deem protection under Meiklejohn and should be protected, instead of persecuted by our government. I would then sanction our government to apply strict scrutiny. This level of scrutiny would protect the first amendment rights of HLP under the Constitution. Our government would have to provide a strong reason for the non-violent speech that HLP engaged in for their speech to be prohibited.

In my third posting regarding the lecture of “Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Words Will Never Hurt Me,” I gravitated toward an emotional appeal after having read about the genocide that occurred in Rwanda, based on Hutu and Tutsi ethnic war battles. One document citing hatred for the Tutsis, called the Hutu Ten Commandments, deeply disturbed me. I had previously protected speech that was anti-religious and extremely disrespectful towards others like the Little Bride and Jyllands-Posten but I could not and cannot protect the speech of all Hutu’s and Tutsis combined because it created such hateful mentalities that turned deadly for decades. Similar to citing philosopher Zechariah Chafee, I am careful to cite the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire due to the “fighting” word doctrine and tendency to incite a breach of peace, which I believe impede our rights substationally when placed in individual contexts because of the biases and generality that can surround fighting words and the belief of a breach of peace. Yet, in the case of Rwanda’s anti-ethnic genocide, disagreements between the Hutus and the Tutsis were not limited to one or a couple of individual instances, yet were based on constant rebuttals of anti-ethnic speech that called for violence within the Hutus and Tutsis over decades. This is why I chose not to protect the Hutus and Tutsis anti-ethnic speech, and I cited Chafee as support and the doctrines of fighting words and break of peace that jailed Chaplinsky speech decades back.

In reference to my fourth reply postings of “Sticks and Stones May Break.. But Words Will Never Hurt, - Protecting a Right To Defame,” the theme regarded responses to Canada’s and America’s libel protection laws. I cited support for Americas libel laws instead of Canada’s because we follow provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights more closely. In this case, I presented philosopher Robert C. Post, as he believed that a community norm of respect for the individual made possible the concept of a Bill of Rights that protects individuals and minority groups within the community from the normative pressures of that very same community. Due to this, private citizens, especially those that do not adhere to the majority or popular opinion, would be protected. Therefore, in cases pertaining to libel, I would place the burden on the government to provide evidence against the speaker, thereby not persecuting speakers based on political agendas. For example, a speaker can easily lack proper representation and financial support if burden was directed to them, especially when facing larger corporations that are privileged with more financial interest and access to better representation.

The fifth posting regarding the “Perverse” Adult: A Right to Sexually Offensive Speech?” was definitely an intriguing topic. This lecture brought to light many critical issues facing minors and sex speech in our country today. Questions arose regarding the rights of minors associated through communication of popular media sources such as the use of texting and high school yearbooks. Two of the most problematic issues I walked away with this night concerned minors becoming victims and criminals of their own sex speech communication. The other issue concerned homophobia in the public school system. Today, minors are being both victimized and criminalized in regards to the current popular trend of sexting. Pornography laws were established to protect minors, yet current criminalization of minors have occurred due to the will-full distribution of their own semi or nude pictures, which may at times circulate among a group, rather than the one person intended. I believe we should rewrite our laws regarding child pornography so that young teens who willingly distribute photos deemed pornographic do not carry criminal charges for the rest of their lives which may impact their future substantially when applying to volunteer positions, internships, and places employment that involve youth. In the case of the film, “The Tin Drum,” I would separate this sex speech involving youth, from what I believe should be protected speech – sexting among minors. The Tin Drum is extremely disturbing as the depictions of sex acts and imagery is obscene and inappropriate to a young audience. I am even disturbed as an “adult.” The couples engaged in such sex acts and imagery are characters who are depicted as minors, but I differentiate this speech from sexting because it encourages such behavior and normalizes it to make it okay, these young couples are taking the roles of adult relationships, which is wrong. I don’t believe sexting to be portrayed in this manner as more minors are exposed to the current criminalization and are suffering possible repercussions of their sexting. The critical issue of homophobia was presented in a case that involved a young man who had purchased a page of his high school yearbook and included a picture of him kissing his partner. When the school principle found out about this picture, he ordered it to be blocked off, one by one using a dark permanent marker because he believed the picture to be obscene. What is unfortunate about his occurrence is that other pictures were allowed of heterosexual couples kissing, but because this was a same sex partnership, it was not – yet another awful case of homophobia in the public school system. I just read a recent article that would protect youth like this young man as a new bill is being proposed in Congress. U.S. Rep. Jared Polis is introducing this bill in Congress. It would protect students in the queer community and would make it illegal to discriminate against gay and lesbian school students. This bill is not the only one of its kind, and will receive substantial support as it is modeled after similar laws in at least 10 states.

The topic of The “Perverse” Child: A Right to Sexually Offensive Speech in my sixth posting was the most disturbing topic to engage in our final discussion. This is because I had never heard or seen “crush videos,” and as loving pet owner for years, I could not grasp my mind around such cruel animal abuse. I’ve tried to be cautious when citing my support of the Philosopher Zechariah Chafee, as I do not support his binary beliefs regarding worthwhile and worthless speech because they limit our individual rights as public citizens. Yet, in this case I had to cite his philosophy because animal cruelty triggered an emotional appeal. Many homes are filled with animals that are loving pets that are held dear to our hearts. Many times, as in our case, families regard their pets as additional family members. Yet, our extended family members as are being perpetuated in such hateful images of animal cruelty. I had to cite Chafee in order to get the urgency across that such cruelty of animals is wrong and should not be protected and therefore be regarded as worthless speech. An image of animal abuse is speech that does not add value to our society in scientific, literary means, artistic or political means. In addition, animal violence can have a lasting effect as I cited the cycle of violence that occurs when young children partake in animal cruelty and later on partake in other forms of criminal activity in their adult years. I wished that the dissenting opinions of the judges linking child pornography to depictions of animal cruelty had been a majority opinion, as those were my beliefs. Yet, I still have some hope that in the future, our government will change the law that Congress passed in 1999, by upholding the same foundation for animal protections, but including the criminalization of the possession and non-commercial distribution of imagery that lacks positive relationships with our nations pets. I will definitely lobby for this and use my voice and vote to have these new measures passed.


My decisions in the different themes associated throughout this course cite philosopher Alexander Chaffe the most in relation to other philosophers. Like stated in the beginning, I believe this is due to my personal convictions. While I wouldn’t particularly adhere to a binary philosophy of worthwhile and worthless speech, I am inclined to, due to the current controversies regarding communication rights. During these times of political and economic turmoil, I would be inclined to follow the philosophy of Alexander Meiklejohn. His protections of the political spectrum protect speech in all facts of modern virtual life, via twitter and facebook updates, blogging, article commenting and email correspondence. I cited Meiklejohn in support of the Humanitarian Law Project, and I will be monitoring the Supreme Courts deliberation and decision in excitement.

I am most comfortable with citing the citizen respect theory as the theory I would adhere to and that I would expect others to adhere to. I think mutual respect is of vital importance regarding interfaith and cross-cultural communication. The cases we studied regarding Jyllands-Posten and the Hutu Ten Commandments had irreversible damages in terms of lives lost and countless harmed mentally and physically. While I said that I would protect this speech, had the authors believe and acted upon the citizen respect theory, then perhaps such depictions would have been edited and introduced differently, or not produced at all, our of respect for others. I certainly believe in the power of the harm theory and the repercussions that can occur if not followed. Especially in the harm theory for bad tendency which if not respected could eventually lead to potential harm and a breach of peace. In addition to the citizen respect theory applied above for Jyllands-Posten and the Hutu Ten Commandments, the harm theory for bad tendency could have been applied prior to the distribution of both documents, which if analyzed by outside sources involved in the images, could have had different results, perhaps not so devastating as to what has occurred.

In terms of the Miller test, which determines whether a work is obscene, I would feel comfortable upholding it, as I believe it is a fair representation of works being judged. The Miller test is fair because it is not limited to one subjective manner, but rather in order to be labeled obscene must be met by 3 different standards that can be argued comprehensively if in question, by both the speaker and the government. Something I struggled with the most was the different levels of scrutiny. At first I found them confusing in their application and the result that would favor a private citizen or government interests. Yet, I also felt that minimal, intermediate and strict levels of scrutiny were levels I could manipulate to my favor in order to support my opinions, yet this manipulation was sometimes unrealistic in projected outcomes or judgments by the government. My intention was not to stay consistent in my choice of philosophies or doctrines, but to let myself be influenced by arguments presented for and against the suppression of speech. At times, this allowed me to be selfish and stay biased by siding with an issue and finding philosophical and doctrinal support. I also relied on research many times. I am inclined to believe in something that provides strong statistical reports, so citing such reports in my posts and responses allowed my arguments to support my claims with academic research.