I first became aware of this larger phenomenon in the wake of the bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City. In the days and weeks to fol… - Mike Godwin

Leaving aside the issue of whether the comments about Arata and Branham were grounded in hostility toward their gender (rather than hostility toward them as individuals), it seemed clear that what the OCR wants to ban here is not "written conduct" but speech. By classifying it as "conduct," the OCR hoped to bypass the First Amendment's protections.

The decisions we make about the Internet don't affect just the Internet – they are answers to basic questions about the relationship each citizen has to the government and about the extent to which we trust one another with the full range of fundamental rights granted by the Constitution.

It's easy for a senator or a government official to blur the line between speech that's offensive and speech that lacks social value, yet in practice it's often the offensive speech that's the most valuable.