Judge Pryor Loves Free Speech!!!

Some folks often point out that Judge Pryor seems to be a very very very conservative jurist.  Whether that criticism comes from his facial expressions (some might call smirks) when confronted with a liberal thought or argument, or the general tenor of his body of work, it may be time to rethink the position.

In Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, judge Pryor wasn't satisfied with just affirming a trial court's denial of a requested injunction to prevent Augusta State University from discriminating against a potential enrolee because she had expressed homophobic sentiment and wanted to be a multicultural counselor, so he specially concurred to let everybody know just how much he loves free speech:

"But we have never ruled that a public university can discriminate against student speech based on the concern that the student might, in a variety of other circumstances, express views at odds with the preferred viewpoints of the university. Our precedents roundly reject prior restraints in the public school setting.
...

"A few decades ago, the prevailing view of the psychiatric profession maintained that homosexuality was a treatable mental disorder. See American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2d ed. 1968). As this record makes plain, the prevailing view changed. This shift in psychiatric orthodoxy occurred largely because professionals who had been taught that homosexuality was a disease of the mind, but who rejected that view, argued successfully that the psychiatric diagnostic criteria should be amended. See Herb Kutchins & Stuart A. Kirk, Making Us Crazy 55–77 (1997) (describing professional efforts to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSMII).

This change in opinion would have taken much longer if public universities had been able to expel students who rejected the prevailing view and intended to argue that homosexuality was not a mental disease. As the First Amendment protected the professionals who successfully advocated against the then-prevailing view of the psychiatric profession, so too does it protect Keeton should she decide to advocate that those professionals got it wrong."

I wholly agree with the opinion and argument.  But something makes me suspicious of Judge Pryor's desire to make his position so crystal clear...I am not sure why, but if I may take a moment to speculate as to what Judge Pryor may have intended the concurrence to mean, I may be able to get my thoughts in order:

'Dear Newt:

Should you be elected President in a conservative tidal wave, please do not be offended by my opinion in Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, et al..  In fact, I am happy to be subpoenaed before Congress to explain under the escort of US Marshals (an idea of yours that I fully support) that I specially concurred so I could make clear that people who hate homosexuality, evilution, the environment and puppies, are all free to use whatever academic exertions they choose to convince those tree hugging homo liberals otherwise, and if need be, obtain degrees so that they can provide a scientific basis for what we all know is true.

Yours Truly,

J.P.

P.S., when you nominate me for the Supreme Court and I am appointed, I promise not to wear silly gold stripes on my robe.

xoxo

P.P.S.

F the liberals.