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Cleveland State University

Journal

2011

First amendment

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Anti-Cyber Bullying Statutes: Threat To Student Free Speech, John O. Hayward Jan 2011

Anti-Cyber Bullying Statutes: Threat To Student Free Speech, John O. Hayward

Cleveland State Law Review

On October 17, 2006, Megan Meier, a thirteen-year-old girl in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and depression, committed suicide because of postings on MySpace, an Internet social networking site, saying she was a bad person whom everyone hated and the world would be better off without. As a result, the state revised its harassment and stalking statutes to prohibit using electronic means to knowingly "frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress to another person."' At the time of this writing, twenty-one states have passed similar legislation with others sure to follow. Many of these statutes …


The Myth Of Church-State Separation, David E. Steinberg Jan 2011

The Myth Of Church-State Separation, David E. Steinberg

Cleveland State Law Review

This article asserts that the church-state separation interpretation of Establishment Clause history is simply wrong. The framers were focused on the first five words of the amendment, which read: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .” The original Establishment Clause was a guarantee that the federal government would not interfere in state regulation of religion-whatever form that state regulation took. Rather than enacting the Establishment Clause to mandate a separation of church and state, the framers adopted the clause to protect divergent state practices-including state establishment of …