First Amendment Fun

Yesterday we held a mock oral argument of four historic First Amendment precedents, with students from two sections of UNR's media law class arguing both sides.


And in a major rewrite of history, the three judge panel -- consisting of UNR Reynolds School of Journalism Dean Jerry Ceppos, Journalism Professor Emeritus Warren Lerude and Melody Luetkehans, program attorney for the National Judicial College -- held, in a two-to-one decision, that the student team representing the government had the more compelling argument in the Pentagon Papers case (New York Times v. U.S., 403 U.S. 713 (1971)).


The other cases argued by the students were Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931); New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 US 254 (1964); and Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15 (1971).

I organized the event and served as Marshall, which means that I got to recite the court opening mantra.  "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!"

More details on the argument are on the journalism school website.