Jack Thompson has taken on the rap group 2 Live Crew in a federal obscenity trial.
He has filed a federal products liability lawsuit on behalf of parents of three students shot and killed by a classmate in a Paducah, Ky., high school in 1997, naming a movie, Internet pornography sites and point-and-shoot video games. He claims a cause-and-effect relationship between those entities and the acts of the high school shooter.
Some would argue that Thompson is actually taking on the First Amendment right of free speech, and the Florida attorney and conservative activist doesn't deny that his efforts focus on that, at least when it comes to commercial speech.
Thompson looked dapper and fit as he slipped comfortably from one setting to the next at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Wednesday. He would end up as the speaker for the annual fall assembly in Berg Gym Wednesday night, but visits to classrooms throughout the day put him face-to-face with students and faculty, some of whom didn't agree with his views and told him so.
Communications professor Roger Bullis asked Thompson how society would draw the line on limiting free speech. "Where do we stop calling free speech a product?" Bullis asked. As an example he cited the Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, or its 20th century adaptation, West Side Story. If a child commits suicide after watching those stories, should the makers and distributors be sued? Bullis asked.
"There are harms that can come from speech but that are not actionable," Thompson responded.
Thompson summed up his viewpoint this way: "If society is to remain free, cannot society balance the rights of those in Hollywood versus the rights of parents?" He's willing to let the courts decide the limits of commercial free speech, Thompson said. His affinity for the judicial branch where he toils doesn't extend to other arms of government. The man who once opposed and lost to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno in a Florida state attorney election took a swing at Reno and the federal government during a press conference when he said, "Waco, in my opinion, is government taken to the final conclusion." He referred to the 1993 shootout at the Branch Dividian compound in Texas.
In the Paducah school shootings case, Thompson takes on the movie "The Basketball Diaries" for its graphic violence, designers and makers of sexually violent Internet pornography sites and the makers and distributors of point-and-shoot video games.
These people and companies, Thompson claimed, are "too smart by half" because they design their products to appeal to minors, issue warnings that they're for adults and then market them to youths.
The issue, said Thompson, is "Can a society hold accountable people who make products like this?"
When asked why he didn't sue the manufacturer of the weapon used in the Paducah shootings, Thompson said a product liability lawsuit wouldn't work because the weapon did what it was supposed to do - fire ammunition.
A conservative Republican, Thompson told a group of students and faculty that school shootings like those at Paducah and Littleton, Colo., had caused both those who favor gun control, generally from the left of the political spectrum, and those who want controls on the entertainment industry, generally from the right, to accelerate their activities.
He stands squarely on the side looking to rein in the entertainment industry. "There has been a recklessness here," he said. "You cannot allow people in every situation to pursue their appetites."
By taking the product liability route, he said he hopes to put those who make and distribute entertainment products on notice. "If you make a product and if it's foreseeable it might be dangerous to third parties, then monies can flow to that person."
In the meantime, Thompson had parlayed his legal work into a successful side business. He has taken his debate and lecture tour to hundreds of U.S. campuses across the country.