This article originally appeared on WND.com
Guest by post by Bob Unruh
‘We rely on people to decide who they want to listen to’
A retiree in North Carolina has a constitutional right to speak about math, in public, according to a ruling from a federal judge, Richard Myers.
His opinion held that the North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors violated the First Amendment when it ordered Wayne Nutt not to speak about engineering issues.
They demanded he have a state license in order to speak.
According to the Institute for Justice, it sued after the state officials “sent him a series of threatening letters ordering him to stop publicly offering opinions about engineering without a license, on pain of potential criminal punishment.”
Nutt, in fact, is a trained engineer, but under the various licensing rules, he was not required to hold his own license as he worked in a corporate environment for his entire career.
“State licensing boards nationwide increasingly act as if they are boards of censors, deciding who may or may not speak about the topics they regulate,” charged IJ attorney Joe Gay. “Today’s ruling is a powerful reminder that in this country we rely on people to decide who they want to listen to. We don’t rely on government boards to decide who gets to speak.”
The judge’s ruling concluded that the state board was in violation of the First Amendment with the speech restrictions it demanded.
The case erupted when the board discovered he was using his decades of experience as a working engineer to offer opinions about the designs of public works.
State officials claimed he could be found guilty of a misdemeanor unless he obtained his own engineer’s license from the state.
“At its core, this case concerns the extent to which a law-abiding citizen may use his technical expertise to offer a dissenting perspective against the government,” the judge said. “Stating that dissent required the speaker to use his expertise in several ways. He had to do some math. He had to apply recognized methodologies. He even had to write a report memorializing his work. Some of that work may plausibly be considered conduct. But it ends up providing him the basis to speak his mind.”
“The First Amendment protects everyone’s right to speak their minds, whether they’re talking about politics or talking about math,” explained IJ Deputy Director of Litigation Robert McNamara. “Regulators often seem to forget that basic fact, but we always stand ready to remind them.”
WND reported the case exploded when he offered comment on a piping system that reportedly flooded a couple of homes.
The IJ pointed out that the board is known for such antics, and it previously sued a photographer who was using drones to take informational photographs, which he sold.
The board accused him of performing surveying work without a license.
Copyright 2023 WND News Center
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