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Minimum CompetenceThe idea is that this podcast and newsletter can accompany you on your commute home and will render you minimally competent on the major legal news stories of the day. That's the idea - execution is another matter entirely. Author: Andrew and Gina Leahey
Minimum Competence is your daily companion for legal news, designed to bring you up to speed on the days major legal stories during your commute home. Each episode is short, clear, and informativejust enough to make you minimally competent on the key developments in law, policy, and regulation. Whether youre a lawyer, law student, journalist, or just legal-curious, youll get a smart summary without the fluff. A full transcript of each episode is available via the companion newsletter at www.minimumcomp.com. www.minimumcomp.com Language: en Genres: Daily News, News, Politics Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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A Kentucky Law Professor’s Free-Speech Fight, Big Tech Sues Over California’s Youth Social Media Law & the Battle Over Trump’s Triumphal Arch
Thursday, 5 November, 2026
This Day in Legal History: Susan B. Anthony VotesOn November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony walked into a polling place in Rochester, New York, and cast a ballot in the presidential election, along with fourteen other women from her ward. This was a deliberate legal test. Anthony and other suffragists argued that the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified four years earlier, made women citizens, and that voting was one of the privileges of citizenship that no state could deny.Two weeks later, a deputy federal marshal arrested her at her home for voting illegally. She refused to post bail. At her trial in June 1873, before Justice Ward Hunt of the Supreme Court, sitting as a trial judge, she wasn’t allowed to testify, and at the close of evidence the judge directed the all-male jury to return a guilty verdict, without letting them deliberate. When asked if she had anything to say before sentencing, Anthony delivered a famous speech condemning the proceedings. She was fined $100 and never paid it. Two years later, in Minor v. Happersett, the Supreme Court rejected the argument outright, holding that citizenship didn’t automatically include the right to vote.The significance of November 5, 1872 is that Anthony used the law itself, a vote, an arrest, and a trial, to expose the gap between constitutional promises and how they were applied. It took until 1920 and the Nineteenth Amendment to close it. Her case is a reminder that legal change often begins with someone willing to test the boundaries of what they’re allowed to say and do, and that’s exactly the question in our first story.A federal judge in Kentucky will hold a hearing later this month on whether the University of Kentucky violated the First Amendment by suspending a tenured law professor over his comments about Israel. The professor, Ramsi Woodcock, has made statements describing Israel as a “colonization project” and calling for the world to wage war against it. The university barred him from teaching and opened an investigation, which Woodcock says was driven by political pressure from state lawmakers seeking tougher action against antisemitism. Reports indicate the judge declined to give Woodcock an immediate order returning him to the classroom but set a hearing on his broader request for a preliminary injunction. Reports differ on some details of the procedural history, so I’ll keep this at the level of the legal framework. Here’s how courts analyze this. Woodcock works for a public university, so the First Amendment applies. When a public employer disciplines an employee for speech, courts use a balancing test from Pickering v. Board of Education and later cases. If the employee spoke as a private citizen on a matter of public concern, which commentary on Israel and the war in Gaza plainly is, the court weighs the employee’s free-speech interest against the employer’s interest in running its operations effectively, including avoiding disruption. Speech that’s offensive, even deeply offensive to many people, generally remains protected; the question is whether it caused or was reasonably likely to cause the kind of disruption that justifies discipline. Professors have an additional layer of protection, because courts have long recognized academic freedom as a special concern of the First Amendment. On the other side, universities have obligations under federal civil rights law to address harassment of students, including antisemitic harassment, and statements calling for war can raise questions about whether they cross from advocacy into something else. The judge will have to sort out where Woodcock’s statements fall. This case joins several others around the country, and the answers matter for public universities everywhere.Judge to review US law professor’s suspension in free speech case over Israel remarks | Reuters · Court Cast · AOLGoogle, Meta, and TikTok have each sued to block California’s new law restricting social media features for children under 16. We covered the law when Governor Newsom signed it in September as part of a package of what he called the strongest child-safety tech laws in the nation. The law, Assembly Bill 1709, bars platforms from giving users under 16 “psychologically exploitative” features that can lead to compulsive use, like personalized recommendations and autoplay, and requires deleting children’s accounts that use those features. The three companies filed separately in three federal courts: Google in San Jose, Meta in San Francisco, and TikTok in Los Angeles. They argue the law violates the First Amendment and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, that it forces them to present content the way the state prefers, and that it substitutes the state’s judgment for parents’ choices. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has also criticized the law as a privacy and free-speech problem, partly because enforcing age limits generally requires verifying users’ ages. This was predictable, and the companies have strong arguments. In 2024, in Moody v. NetChoice, the Supreme Court said that when platforms curate and arrange third-party content, they’re engaged in editorial activity protected by the First Amendment, much like a newspaper choosing what to print. A personalized feed is a curation decision. California will argue the law regulates design features and conduct, not speech, and that protecting children’s mental health is a compelling interest. Courts have split on similar laws, blocking several state restrictions on minors’ social media access while allowing some narrower ones. The outcome will likely turn on whether the court sees recommendation algorithms as speech or as product design. Notably, TikTok just agreed in its Alabama settlement to give teens a default non-personalized feed. That was a voluntary deal, but it shows the kind of change states are pushing for, now by statute.Google, Meta, TikTok sue to block California youth social media law | Reuters · Bloomberg Law · Yahoo NewsAnd finally, the President’s planned 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington is close to receiving federal approval, possibly as soon as today, and the government has said construction could begin right after. But a federal judge is weighing whether to block it. Several lawsuits are pending: one by Vietnam War veterans before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who reportedly seemed skeptical of the rush, and others by the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Arlington County. The legal issue is authorization. Building a monument on federal land in the capital isn’t simply up to the executive branch. Congress has long controlled what gets built on the National Mall and surrounding federal parkland, and federal law generally requires congressional authorization for new memorials in the area, along with review by planning and arts commissions. Major federal projects also have to comply with environmental and historic-preservation review laws. The administration’s answer is creative: it says Congress already approved the arch more than a century ago, when it authorized a bridge across the Potomac. The challengers say a century-old bridge authorization can’t plausibly cover a new 250-foot arch. There’s a recent precedent: another federal judge, Richard Leon, blocked construction of the White House ballroom project, reasoning that Congress must authorize it first. Why does the rush matter? Like the felled trees at East Potomac Golf Links we covered last month, construction can create facts on the ground that are hard to undo. That’s exactly why judges consider emergency relief before work begins. There’s one more twist. As we discussed yesterday, Democrats will control Congress in January. If the administration is relying on old congressional authorization, it may be because getting new authorization from this Congress, or the next one, looks unlikely.Trump’s Washington arch poised for approval as judge weighs bid to block construction | Reuters · NPR · Time This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
