Rice Grad links disapprovingly to this story about an affirmative action protest that was shut down by Southern Methodist Univeristy. He views it as a speech violation, and usually I would agree. But in this case, the protest was a bake sale with different prices for customers of different races. Surely, besides being morally offensive, this behavior offends some trade or commerce law about price discrimination.
What interests me about this is the way we turn so quickly to the First Amendment as a protection for all kinds of behavior, whether it's related to speech or not. I'm not suggesting it's unreasonable in every case - but can you imagine the horrific consequences of protecting commercial activity as speech? What kind of society treats buying and selling as protected expression? Next thing, we'll be arguing it's vital to the democratic process.
MORE: Rice Grad responds.
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