First Amendment Day 2011

Throughout the day

Throughout the day

Throughout the day

Throughout the day

9:00 a.m. — 9:30 a.m.

OPENING CEREMONY

Front steps of Carroll Hall

Help us kick off Carolina’s third-annual First Amendment Day! Speakers will be Cathy Packer, the W. Horace Carter Distinguished Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication and co-director of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, and William P. Marshall, the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law at UNC. UNC Study Body President Mary Cooper will read the First Amendment. This event was organized by UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication Associate Professor Michael Hoefges.

11:00 a.m. — 12:00 p.m.

ETHICS TEAM DEBATE

Carroll Hall Room 33

The UNC Ethics Bowl Team will discuss this issue: Under what conditions does a person have a duty to limit public acts of free speech? That issue was raised when Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., promoted an International Burn a Koran Day on 9/11/2010. You can read more about the Terry Jones case here.

The team will demonstrate how the Ethics Bowl operates. There will be two teams of two students each and an alternate and a moderator. The team members are Joshua Burrows, a senior philosophy and economics double major; Jonathan Colgan, a junior philosophy and international studies double major; Sawyer Jinkens, a senior economics and philosophy double major; Matthew Kauffman, a senior philosophy major; and Savannah Sipperly, a senior philosophy and biology double major. Moderating will be Dulce Castillo, a junior philosophy and political science double major.

Come listen to the UNC Ethics Bowl Team debate and join in the discussion afterward!

12:15 p.m. — 12:30 p.m.

Musical Performances by the Loreleis and Cadence

The Pit

The Loreleis and Cadence, two all-female University a cappella groups, will exercise their First Amendment rights by singing controversial music in The Pit. Cadence will perform Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.”  Read more about the Loreleis at http://www.loreleis.com/. Read more about Cadence at http://www.cadenceacappella.com/.

12:30 p.m. — 1:45 p.m.

BANNED BOOK READING

The Pit

Campus leaders, students and others – including Chancellor Holden Thorp – will read from banned books. At the same time, a selection of books that have been banned from libraries will be on display in The Pit. This event is organized by Erica Eisdorfer, manager of the Bulls Head Bookshop.

1:45 p.m. — 2:00 p.m.

Daring to be Daring–The Chapel Hill Pauper Players

The Pit

The Chapel Hill Pauper Players, a campus musical theatre company, will exercise its First Amendment right to sing what it wants to sing by performing songs such as “The Internet is for Porn” from “Avenue Q,” “Totally Fucked” from “Spring Awakening” or “La Vie Boheme” from “Rent.”

The Chapel Hill Pauper Players is an entirely student-run musical theatre company.  Founded in 1989, Pauper Players seeks to establish a venue for Carolina students to organize and perform full-scale musical productions.  Pauper Players produces two full-scale musicals plus a Broadway revue show annually.  Pauper Players got its name from the limited resources with which the company’s founders began.  The group is dedicated to artistic growth and social betterment.

2:00 p.m. — 3:15 p.m.

Football and the First Amendment at Carolina

Carroll Hall Room 33

Parking tickets, FERPA and the football program’s no-tweeting policy for players.  The rights of the media vs. the rights of players and coaches.  All these topics will be discussed as part of a panel discussion of role of the free press in investigating NCAA and Honor Court violations by UNC football players and coaches and possible violations of the rights of players.  Panelists will be former UNC safety Deunta Williams; Daily Tar Heel senior writer (and freelancer for SI.com, The News & Observer and Carolina Blue magazine) Jonathan Jones; News & Observer investigative reporter Dan Kane; and Dr. Ruth Walden, the James Howard and Hallie McLean Parker Distinguished Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication. Moderating will be Sarah Sessoms, an undergraduate journalism and exercise and sport medicine major.  This discussion is being planned by JOMC Associate Professor Andy Bechtel.  We promise there will be ample time for questions from the audience!

4:00 p.m. — 5:15 p.m.

Religious Freedom or Discrimination?

Bingham Hall Room 103

This panel discussion will address the current campus controversy involving the Psalm 100 a cappella group and its decision to remove one of its gay members because of his views on homosexuality.  Panelists will include Joshua Groll, Class of ’11 and former writer for The Carolina Review who self-identifies as a gay-libertarian; Andrew Brown, Class of ’08 and a UNC law student who is married to a former member of Psalm 100; and Jen Fredette, Class of ’13, a committed Catholic and member of Carolina’s gay community. The moderator will be James Heilpern, a senior religious studies major who plans to continue studying First Amendment issues in law school. Heilpern organized this event.

5:00 p.m. — 6:30 p.m.

READINGS FROM UNC’S RARE AND BANNED BOOKS

Pleasants Family Assembly Room in Wilson Library

Celebrate First Amendment Day with readings from original editions of banned and censored books held by the UNC Rare Book Collection. A reception and book display will begin at 5 p.m. The reading will begin at 5:30 p.m. This event is being planned by Claudia Funke, UNC’s curator of rare books. Read more about this event here.

7:00 p.m. — 8:00 p.m.

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: STUDENTS, SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Carroll Hall 111

Mary-Rose Papandrea, an associate professor in the Boston College School of Law, will discuss the new challenges the digital age poses to the First Amendment rights of students and their teachers at public high schools and universities. The Supreme Court has issued a series of decisions in the last few years that are highly protective of First Amendment rights. Among other things, violent video games can be sold to minors, a religious group can say hateful things outside of a funeral, and corporations must be free to make unlimited independent expenditures during political campaigns. But when it comes to students and government employees, the Court has taken a much more limited view of the First Amendment. Professor Papandrea will argue that the Court’s decisions in this area are misguided. A graduate of Yale College and the University of Chicago Law School, Papandrea clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and then spent several years as a litigator at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., where she specialized in First Amendment and media defense litigation. She joined the Boston College faculty in 2004. For more about Papandrea, visit http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/fac-staff/deans-faculty/papandream.html.

8:30 p.m. — 9:30 p.m.

STORY TIME — WITH MILK AND COOKIES

Freedom Forum Conference Center on the third floor of Carroll Hall

The UNC Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Straight Alliance (GLBTSA) will host a reading of children’s books that have been banned from libraries because they have gay and lesbian themes. GLBTSA members will read the stories aloud. Books to be read are “The Sissy Duckling,” “King and King,” “Heather Has Two Mommies,” “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” and “Where Willy Went.” Fruit Bowl, GLBTSA’s social program, will serve milk and cookies. Feel free to wear your pajamas!