The following editorial appeared in the Detroit Free Press on Friday, June 27:

The Supreme Court was disappointing in two decisions on the First Amendment this week, but neither will prove fatal to free speech.

The court punted Thursday on a much anticipated ruling on whether Nike’s corporate ads and statements about conditions in its overseas shops are protected speech. Issue-oriented debate is generally unrestricted in the interest of fostering wide-ranging discussion; corporations, however, are not allowed to use false pitches to peddle their products. This case is pivotal because it blends both forms of speech. It would have been nice for the high court to deem the speech protected, but at least the justices have left room to do so later.

More troubling, the court on Monday said Congress had the right to deny federal funds to public libraries that do not install filters on their computers to protect children from Internet pornography. A noble goal, as the court said in striking down two earlier versions of the law. But there’s still the risk of keeping constitutionally protected-information from adults, which filters do. Cutting off funds may not be outright censorship, but it sure smacks of coercion.

Librarians will still have to turn the filters off for any adult who asks. Libraries should, in fact, routinely volunteer to do so every time an adult signs on. The switch isn’t so easy with current technology; network and filter developers should find a way to make it so.

In other high court rulings:

In the latest skirmish of the neverending partisan warfare over drawing the boundaries of political districts, the court said it could be OK to dilute the minority presence in one district to spread minorities into more districts. The court appeared to be saying that lines should not be drawn to assure that, for example, a black candidate is a “lock” for election. But if not for such lines, minorities would be even more underrepresented in public office. While the effect of this ruling won’t be clear until redistricting is done for the 2012 elections, the court somewhat contradicted its landmark ruling Monday in support of affirmative action.

The court wisely refused to consider yet another case in which the Bush administration wants authority to hold immigrant detainees indefinitely. Attorney General John Ashcroft will just have to give in to due process.