Hello there. It's Eric Erickson here. The second hour of the Eric Erickson show. Glad you're with me. The phone number 877-973-725. If you would like to be a part of this year program, you're more than welcome to. In fact, I want to start with a phone call. Out of the gate. Tim, I'm going to go to you up next. Welcome.

Hey, Harry. How are you?

I'm good. How about yourself? Doing good. Listening to you in the first hour, talking about the freedom of speech and the First Amendment. Now, it applies to government, but not so much

private enterprise, but with the schools itself receiving government

funding, did they fall under the entitlement or the First Amendment?

They do. Public schools, public universities fall under the First Amendment. Now, you should know

that there's a history of Supreme Court cases that restrict to a degree, the First Amendment in elementary and secondary schools, but generally no restrictions in higher education.

So, for example, a student on a campus of a public university should be able to protest, should be able to speak their mind,

and should be able to do so without fear of punishment or anything.

And as a result, the Supreme Court has taken a really, really tough standard on universities that try to restrict their speech.

Now, at the secondary level, that's high school level, there are more restrictions that can be imposed.

However, the Supreme Court in the past has said that you can't force teachers to violate their conscience,

which is something David French or the dispatch has said is probably going to help the teacher in Kansas who doesn't want to call the boy with he doesn't want to use female pronouns to address a boy in her class.

The boy claims he's transitioning.

That should be able to help that.

At elementary levels, however, there are real restrictions on the First Amendment the Supreme Court has found and how you say things and what you say at an elementary school level given the sensitivities there.

So there are graduated standards within education for the First Amendment.

And as a general rule of thumb, though, once you reach the capacity of an adult, which is college, you get the full on

First Amendment, even in education settings.

Now, I didn't want to leave Tim on hold talking about that from the first hour.

I do want to move on to something else.

And to set the stage here, I got to play you a clip.

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