Prosecutor fired for going to "white preservationist" conference

[Volokh, Eugene]

	Sorry for getting back to this thread so late, but a sick (now
better) baby and two deadlines kept me tied up.  I wanted to briefly
respond to the post below.

	I've often heard the claim that it's unconstitutional for the
state government to endorse racial superiority; but to my knowledge
that's not the actual current rule.  Much less is it a justification, it
seems to me, for restricting speech by citizens, rather than by
governments.  In the one area in which the government *is* barred from
expressing certain ideas -- religious advocacy -- citizens' own speech
is of course fully protected.  The state may not say that the Catholic
religion is superior, but citizens may, and government officials may go
to meetings of organizations that proclaim that the Catholic religion is
superior (in fact, they often do, though I realize that the
proclamations at the meetings are generally put more politely than
that).  So even if there is some limit on government speech as to "white
preservation," that tells us nothing, I think, about any constitutional
differences between communism and white supremacy for purposes of the
Free Speech Clause.

	Eugene

-----Original Message-----
From: Kermit Roosevelt [mailto:krooseve at law.upenn.edu] 
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2006 1:48 PM
To: Volokh, Eugene
Cc: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: Prosecutor fired for going to "white preservationist"
conference


. . .  I do think there's a constitutional difference between communism
and white supremacy in that I see no problem with a state government
saying in some official way "Of course we're going to abide by our
constitutional obligations, but we want people to know that this state's
position is that communism is a superior form of government."  I do see
a problem with that state government saying "Of course we're going to
abide by our constitutional obligations, but we want people to know that
this state's position is that the white race is superior."  Is that not
right? . . .