Recent editorials from Tennessee newspapers:
May 15
The Knoxville (Tenn.) News Sentinel on free speech on campus:
The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn., on the 2012 Tennessee General Assembly:
A panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th District has rejected a Tennessee Technological University policy restricting outside speakers on campus as being unreasonable and in violation of the First Amendment.
The decision, filed April 23, properly supports free speech rights of visitors to Tech's Cookeville, Tenn., campus. The three-judge panel reversed Tech's initial victory in U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee and ordered the district judge to reconsider the case in light of the appellate court decision.
The Tennessee Board of Regents has already adopted new guidelines for public speaking on its campuses. Other institutions in the Sixth Circuit might do likewise as a result of the ruling.
The case stems from an April 2009 incident when a Kentuckian named John McGlone and a friend, Shawn Holes, visited the Tech campus to share their Christian beliefs with students. A Tech official told them the school has a policy that requires registration in writing 14 business days prior to speaking on campus. To register, a person or organization must list the name of the speaker and the topic. ...
The trial judge dismissed the case on a number of grounds, but the appeals court panel reversed the decision on all points.
The appeals court panel ruled Tech's policy violates the First Amendment because it "is not narrowly tailored to any legitimate interest." The 14-day notice was tossed out because it is too long. Even Tech's counsel agreed it is unreasonable. Demanding the identity of the speaker and the topic of discussion is unconstitutional, the panel wrote.
The new Board of Regents guidelines reduce the waiting period to five days for Tech and its 45 other colleges and universities statewide. A Regents spokeswoman told the Tennessean the guidelines were developed over a year and approved in September, long before the appeals court decision.
The appeals court judges got it right.
Government entities must prove they have sufficient reason for any prior restraint on speech, a test Tech's policy failed. The two-week waiting period was onerous, and anonymous speech is protected under the First Amendment. Speech, especially on the campus of a public institution of higher education that is open to the public, should be as free of restraint as possible.
Online:
http://www.knoxnews.com
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May 11
The Citizen Tribune, Morristown, Tenn., on Evelyn Bryan Johnson:
We have words we keep back like the good china. We only want to use them on special occasions.
Then the time comes to finally use them and we find they are ill-suited for the task at hand. After all, they are still only words. How can they possibly be expected to convey all the emotions, respect, honor and love someone like Evelyn Bryan Johnson deserves?
Legend. Heroine. Pioneer.
Evelyn Bryan Johnson was all of these and so much more. How can mere words describe the massive impact this woman had?
She was our Amelia Earhart.
She was our Charles Lindbergh.
But maybe we do her a disservice by comparing her to golden age fliers. Maybe we should look to another 1930s icon. There was more Lou Gehrig than Lucky Lindy about our famous flier because unlike other, albeit-more famous, aviators, Evelyn Bryan Johnson didn't earn her accolades with a few acts of daring.
She wasn't the first to cross the Atlantic or to solo around the world. No, she built her legend in a more mundane fashion: She did her job so long and so well that eventually the world of aviation had no choice but to stand up and pay attention.
She simply went to work and by the time she finished doing her job, she'd logged more than 56,000 hours in the air, landed in the Guinness Book of World Records and earned a place among the most famous fliers in history in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio.
And maybe that is why the words we have cleaned, shaped and polished for special occasions fall so short when we talk about Mama Bird. How do you explain the passion that drives a person to go to work every day decade after decade, long after others her age have retired into a well-earned and contented grandmotherhood?
How do you sum up a career that surpasses all others and does so out of a love for the work that is all encompassing?
Over the decades of her career, Evelyn Bryan Johnson touched the lives of countless others. She shared her love of flying with anyone willing to take a lesson and when she found someone with a similar light in their eye, she nurtured it, protected it and taught the new flier to respect aviation the right way, her way.
By the time age and failing health robbed her of her ability to fly and a car accident took her leg, Evelyn Bryan Johnson had long since become a legend, a hero and a pioneer. So great was her impact that by simply living here and plying her craft she made the city of Morristown famous in aviation circles.
But the fact is that at the age of 102, Evelyn Bryan Johnson had been grounded for too long.
Today she is flying again. Thank God.
Soar, Mama Bird, soar.
Online:
http://www.citizentribune.com
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May 13
The Tennessean, Nashville, on municipal annexation:
It's a battle that you don't hear much about, even though it couldn't be closer to home.
It inspires a lot of anger and frustration, though it's unclear how deep the resentment goes.
And lately, it's gotten tangled up with the politics of conspiracy theorists, though in the most unlikely of places.
It's municipal annexation, a practice that is growing more frequent and raising the hackles of rural Tennesseans. The process, whereby a city can widen its boundaries, pulling homes, businesses and privately owned land into its pool of taxpayers, has fewer restrictions on it than all but a handful of states.
Because of the imbalance of power between local governments and rural property owners, parts of Middle Tennessee on the urban outskirts are seeing tempers flare. In Tennessee, a city can decide to annex an area based on its "urban growth boundaries" — not actual city limits, but limits that the city essentially wishes for in the future based on growth projections.
So long as the city government follows the letter of the law and obtains approval of the county government, residents and property owners in the area to be annexed have no say in the matter. And that is an advantage that is shared only by municipal officials in Idaho, Indiana and North Carolina. In 36 states, residents have some recourse if they choose to fight annexation.
This lack of individual protection is a poor fit for Tennessee, a state whose residents pride themselves on keeping their tax burden low. ...
When it suits a city's purposes in Tennessee, annexation is a cakewalk. ...
The bottom line, which cannot be seen on any map, is the importance of property rights in this country. If a rural homeowner wanted to live in the city, they would have bought a home in that city. They already are answerable to the county, state and federal governments, or they would have moved to another country, state or country.
Individuals should have the right to challenge a city's ability to suddenly start collecting taxes from them, through public
Online: hearings, petitions and when appropriate, referenda. That's a common-sense principle that should become a part of Tennessee law.
http://www.tennessean.com