Professor Bhagwat Comments on First Amendment and Student Suspension for KCRA

Professor Ashutosh Bhagwat commented for a news report on Sacramento television station KCRA-3 regarding a Florin High School student who was suspended after she posted to Facebook a video of her principal being slammed to the ground in an altercation with a student.

"Citizens have a right to know what government officials are doing, including a right to record government officials in public," Bhagwat said.  Though school officials would have "broad discretion" to engage in disciplinary action against a student whose actions resulted in safety concerns, it would be "completely illegitimate" to do so in order to suppress knowledge about an incident on campus, he said. "The First Amendment does not permit it."

Professor Bhagwat, a tenured member of UC Hastings' faculty for more than a decade who joined King Hall during the summer of 2011, is an innovative, broad-ranging, and widely published constitutional law scholar.

KCRA

Primary Category

Tags