U.S. Supreme Court building. (Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM) Sometimes a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court seems so unusual that it cries out for some reasonable explanation as to why the court took the case in the first place, what constitutional principle is at stake that the court sought to vindicate, and whether there may have lurked a dramatic backstory to explain the decision. The court’s ruling on March 7th in Uzuegbunam v. Preszewski is that kind of a case, turning a modest college free speech dispute into a pedantic debate over whether the federal judiciary should be forced to decide a lawsuit involving nominal damages of one dollar. Chike Uzuegbunam, an evangelical Christian student at Georgia Gwinnett College, engaged in conversations with interested students at an outdoor plaza and handed out religious literature. A campus police officer informed Uzuegbunam that campus policy prohibited distributing religious materials in that area and ordered him to stop. Uzuegbunam was told that he could speak about his religion and distribute materials only in two designated “free speech expression areas,” which together make up a tiny area of the campus, and only after securing a permit. He applied for and received a permit to […]
