The public house as public forum

Without public spaces for debate and discussion, our ideas and our expressions stay in our private spaces and we don’t have opportunities to engage with each other, argues John Inazu, the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law & Religion.

Inazu, author of the recent book “Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference,” taught a course on advanced topics in the First Amendment that included a consideration of the contemporary public forum. He brought students together at Three Kings, a local St. Louis pub, to discuss the idea of a “public forum” that occurs in a privately owned space.

Here, he talks about the importance of sharing ideas across difference.

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