Free Republic

A divided federal appeals court has sided with Michigan school administrators who barred students from wearing shirts with the phrase “Let’s Go Brandon!”, which gained traction as a coded message of opposition to then-President Joe Biden. The 2-1 decision this week by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit provides some important guidance to educators on when they can prohibit speech promoting a “vulgar message” in schools, even if doesn’t contain actual expletives or is political in nature. “The Constitution doesn’t hamstring school administrators when they are trying to limit profanity and vulgarity in the...

Judge Amul Thapar said the Supreme Court should reverse the 1973 Supreme Court decision that said abortion is a constitutional right.(LifeSiteNews) — A federal judge reluctantly voted to block several pro-life laws, but urged the Supreme Court to overturn its landmark 1973 decision Roe v. Wade that imposed abortion on all 50 states. Judge Amul Thapar said in a September 10 Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that as a lower court judge he was “bound by the Supreme Court’s decisions” to strike down Tennessee’s Heartbeat Act. At the same time, he said it is time for Roe to be...

A federal appeals court ruled against Tennessee’s abortion restrictions on Friday, nine days after another pro-life “heartbeat” law went into effect in Texas. In July 2020, Tennessee enacted a law restricting abortions at several stages in pregnancy, including abortions conducted after detection of a fetal heartbeat which can occur as early as six weeks post gestation. The law also prohibited abortions conducted because of the race or sex of the baby, or because of a Down syndrome diagnosis. On Friday, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit ruled against both provisions, upholding a lower court’s ruling that halted them from...

DETROIT (AP) — A Catholic school in Lansing has lost an appeal over a Michigan policy that required masks on young kids earlier in the pandemic. Although the statewide mandate ended, some counties are stepping in and requiring masks in schools when the 2021-22 year starts. Resurrection School and some parents sued in 2020, saying a state mask order violated the free exercise of religion, among other objections. A judge, however, refused to intervene and issue an injunction. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision Monday.

The case shows the judiciary is just as fractured as the rest of America, and leftist judges are defiantly ignoring Supreme Court and circuit precedent.On Friday, in a procedural oddity, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals voted to hear the initial appeal in Bristol v. Slatery as a full court, rather than allowing the case to proceed as normal before a three-judge panel. The case involved abortion, and the takeaways are two-fold: The judiciary is just as fractured as the rest of America, and leftist judges are defiantly ignoring Supreme Court and circuit precedent.To understand the significance of the Sixth...