We Meet The Met

After experiencing my first East Coast thunderstorm of the year yesterday night, I woke up to bright sunlight shining through my window. I was excited for the day ahead. Not only were we going to discuss free speech in class, but we also planned to go to the Met after class.

Today during class we discussed three cases having to do with the rights of free speech. These cases emphasized the progression of the law overtime and how wartime affects the freedom of citizens. The three cases, which we discussed, took place during World War I and emphasized the state of panic which man felt due to the treat of communism. In each case, the justices based their rulings of off the idea that speech that will result in harm of others is not protected by free speech. These three cases really illustrated the progression of the law during the early 20^th century.

In the second section of class, our discussion focused on political philosophy and the extent to which speech is protected in the constitution. There are several different rules that decide if speech is protected under the constitution. Furthermore, there are several principles, which have been developed to argue towards or against the protection of speech. For example, under a certain principle any speech regarding science is constitutional because without freedom of speech in science progression of science would be limited.

After class, we had the opportunity to meet up with the head of the Columbia summer programs. We introduced ourselves to him and told him about the wonderful experiences we are having at Columbia. After the brief meeting, we took a picture and then headed to the Met.

After a surprisingly large amount of subway transfers, we arrived at Central Park and entered the Met. Usually I am not much a museum person, but the Met was absolutely amazing. The architecture of the building alone was breath taking, but the art inside was even better. We saw everything from the new Punk Exhibit to the permanent Egyptian art exhibit. The Met was truly spectacular. I can’t wait to see if other museums in New York are just as amazing.