President Biden’s latest nominee for the federal appeals court that oversees New York and Connecticut has suggested criminalizing speech against “oppressed groups” and led trainings that taught law school graduates about how “microaggressions” can “kill you.”
Maria Araujo Kahn, 58, an associate justice on Connecticut’s Supreme Court since 2017, could be confirmed by the Senate as soon as next week to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which takes cases from two-thirds of the tri-state area as well as Vermont.
In a 2020 opinion first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, Kahn joined with her Connecticut colleagues in upholding the breach of peace conviction of a white man who used a racial slur toward a black parking attendant who gave him a ticket.
Meditating on the so-called “fighting words” exception to the First Amendment — which applies to speech deemed likely to provoke violence — Kahn wrote: “The ultimate inquiry of the fighting words exception is whether a speaker’s words would reasonably result in a violent reaction by its intended recipient.”
Poster Comment:
Mike Rivero: hey are coming for the First Amendment. You cannot have free speech and an offense free world.