Article that Kagan wrote in 1996 regarding the First Amendment

[AmericaIsGreat]

Someone just sent this to me and claimed it shows Kagan supports government restriction of free speech. They are republican, so it was no surprise to me that I read it completely differently. Unless I am dumb, it's an explanation of how the supreme court analyzes governmental motive to figure out when restriction of speech is legitimate and when it isn't; that looking at only the result is insufficient, and that this process of determining motive is extremely important to the process of determining whether a claim to restrict speech is proper. She cites R.A.V vs St. Paul in which a kid burned a cross on the lawn of a couple and was charged under an ordinance that made it a misdemeanor for someone to display symbols knowing or having reasonable grounds to know that they will cause anger or resentment in someone, and specified some symbols. The supreme court looked at motive and determined St. Paul could not take the action because the ban was on symbols associated with specific viewpoints and that this was not content-neutral.

I would read the first 10 pages and last 10 pages for the crux of it.

http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Private-Speech-Public-Purpose.pdf