IJ Defends Free Speech Against One of the Most Powerful Licensing Regimes in the Country—Our Own!
Lawyers, like people in any other field, sometimes use government power to protect themselves from competition. A lot of the “practice of law” in modern America is just talking—providing the kind of ordinary advice that IJ has long fought to protect from censorious licensing boards. The result of unchecked licensing of speech about the law is predictable: For ordinary people, basic information about how to access their legal rights is often simply unaffordable. That is why IJ has teamed up with Upsolve, an innovative nonprofit providing free legal help.
New Law Clears the Way for South Carolinians to Make a Fresh Start in Licensed Jobs
Research shows that a job is one of the best ways to reduce recidivism. A new IJ-supported law in South Carolina removes arbitrary barriers to work for those with criminal records.
Eyebrow Threaders Can Legally Operate Business Following Lawsuit Challenging Oklahoma’s Licensing Regime
An Oklahoma eyebrow threader can legally operate her business, more than two years after she joined forces with IJ to challenge the state’s requirement that all eyebrow threaders obtain a costly, unrelated esthetician license.
Diverse Group of Organizations, Law Professors Call on Supreme Court to Hear Case of Grandmother Arrested for Criticizing Local Government Officials
IJ filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a ruling giving qualified immunity to a mayor and a police chief who threw a 72-year-old grandmother in jail, after she criticized their ally. Now, public interest organizations, renowned advocates, and acclaimed scholars have filed their own briefs asking the Supreme Court to grant review and overturn this grievously wrong decision.
Listing every right that a constitution should protect is hard. That’s why the Founders created the Ninth Amendment, protecting rights that aren’t specifically listed, or enumerated, in the U.S. Constitution. In Baby Ninth Amendments: How Americans Embraced Unenumerated Rights and Why It Matters, IJ's own Anthony Sanders tells how state constitutions came to safeguard unenumerated rights and how judges have fallen down on their job of protecting those rights, which include everything from the right to earn an honest living to the right to feed the homeless. You can learn more, download a free e-book, or order a physical copy here.
IJ attorney Josh Windham seizes the microphone and turns it around on your regular host, Anthony Sanders, to interview Anthony about his new book on unenumerated rights.
Two cases about free speech and cars, including honking at a protest and a towing company that stopped receiving business after criticizing a local politician on Facebook.
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