Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Kevin Cope, Professor of Law, University of Virginia

In an 8-1 decision authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court held on March 31, 2026, that a Colorado law prohibiting licensed counselors from performing “conversion therapy” on minors was likely unconstitutional as applied to talk therapy. Justice Elena Kagan filed a separate concurrence, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

I am a law professor and political scientist who teaches and writes on free expression and discrimination. I see this holding as a potentially important decision at the intersection of free speech and health care.

Colorado’s law defines conversion therapy broadly. It bans practices that attempt not only to “change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity” but also to reduce same-sex attraction. The law allows therapists to provide “acceptance, support, and understanding” of gay or transgender identity. However, they may not help a client suppress those identities. Penalties include fines, probation and loss of license.

Kaley Chiles challenged the law as a violation of her First Amendment free speech rights. As a therapist who only offers talk therapy, Chiles’s objection was limited to her talk therapy. She didn’t contest the ban on what she called “long-abandoned, aversive” conversion practices. And – notably, considering she is an evangelical Christian – Chiles said she never set out to convert her clients. She says she respects her clients’ “fundamental right of self-determination” and determines her therapy approach only after a client identifies his or her own objectives. But she argued that some of her clients wish to “reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions (or) change sexual behaviors,” and the law prevents her from expressing support for any of those goals.

Colorado’s failed ‘professional speech’ argument

Colorado faced a major obstacle in defending the Colorado conversion therapy law. The law was transparently driven by the government’s views about the well-documented inefficacy and harmful effects of conversion therapy. And outside of certain contexts, such as government grants, public employees, advertising and threats, courts have treated such viewpoint-based laws as constitutionally dead on arrival.

Colorado’s best hope in defending the law, then, was to argue that it wasn’t principally a restriction on speech at all. Rather, the state framed the law as a restriction on professional conduct — an area where states have broad regulatory latitude. That framing would mean the law burdened Chiles’ speech only incidentally.

In NIFLA v. Becerra, decided in 2018, the court rejected the argument that professional speech was a less-protected category. But it acknowledged that laws “regulating conduct in ways that incidentally sweep in speech” – particularly where they “fall within the traditional purview of state regulation of professional conduct” – might survive under a lower standard of scrutiny.

Colorado attempted to demonstrate such a tradition here, citing medical licensing laws, informed-consent requirements and malpractice liability.

A divided 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had agreed with Colorado’s argument, as did Jackson in her dissent. But the Supreme Court majority rejected it. Gorsuch wrote that a government cannot evade First Amendment scrutiny by relabeling restricted speech as “conduct,” “treatment” or a “therapeutic modality.” Quoting the dissent of U.S. Circuit Judge Harris Hartz, he called Colorado’s argument a “labeling game.”

For Gorsuch, the key question is whether the law restricts speech in practice. And in Chiles’ case the answer was yes. Colorado was plainly restricting what she wished to tell her clients about their sex and gender issues.

Not just content but viewpoint discrimination

More than that, the majority noted, Colorado’s law doesn’t regulate therapists’ speech based on its content. The law discriminates based on viewpoint, permitting expressions of acceptance and support for a client’s self-identity while forbidding expressions that attempt to change it.

Under 1995’s Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, viewpoint discrimination is an “egregious form” of content regulation. Governments must “nearly always abstain” from it. The court remanded the Colorado case back to the 10th Circuit to resolve the case under this standard.

Jackson’s dissent: Medical treatment, not speech

Jackson’s solo dissent emphasizes that states have long enjoyed broad power to regulate how licensed medical professionals treat patients. To Jackson, the First Amendment should not interfere simply because a treatment is applied through words rather than instruments.

The court’s 2018 NIFLA decision, she argues, distinguished between speech restricted “as speech” and speech restricted “incidentally” as part of a medical treatment the state is otherwise entitled to regulate. According to Jackson, the majority arbitrarily collapses that distinction simply because the treatment is delivered orally. A talk therapy session and a drug infusion are both medical treatments, she argues, and the analysis should not turn on whether the provider uses a syringe or a sentence.

Jackson’s dissent also raises difficult line-drawing problems, such as the validity of less controversial potential prohibitions, such as those on encouraging a patient to smoke or to take their own life.

Implications are broader, narrower than most believe

First, only talk therapy is implicated.

The holding is narrow in this sense. It leaves room for policymakers still hoping to limit the practice of conversion therapy. Because Chiles challenged the statute only as applied to her, the majority’s analysis does not invalidate conversion therapy bans wholesale – neither Colorado’s nor those of more than 20 other states – but applies only to the extent they ban conversion talk therapy.

State legislatures can define conversion therapy a bit more narrowly, for example, by prohibiting the physical and more coercive techniques that initially gave rise to these bans. States can then leave the regulation of talk therapy to other legal and professional mechanisms, such as malpractice or enforcement of professional ethics.

Second, the standard of scrutiny that the lower court must now apply is not strict scrutiny; it is more demanding. Strict scrutiny is a legal test that validates a law if it is “narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest.” Contrary to what some legal commentators have implied, Gorsuch never directs the lower court to use strict scrutiny.

The opinion emphasizes that the law doesn’t just discriminate against certain types of content – a trigger for strict scrutiny; it discriminates based on viewpoint. The strict scrutiny standard is demanding, but laws sometimes survive it. Viewpoint discrimination, on the other hand, is subject to a near-absolute prohibition: Governments must “nearly always abstain” from it. This language is stronger and more categorical than that for strict scrutiny. The implication is that the law should certainly be invalidated as applied to talk therapy.

Not a clear win for conservatives

Finally, the holding is a double-edged sword for conservatives with traditional views of gender identity. And for those discouraged by the outcome, seeing it only as a victory for religious conservatives, the holding’s logic offers a silver lining.

Kagan’s concurrence makes explicit that a “mirror image” law – one barring talk therapy that affirms gender identity – would raise the same constitutional problems.

The majority makes a similar point. As late as the 1970s, the American Psychiatric Association still classified homosexuality as a mental disorder. Under Colorado’s position, a law from that era prohibiting counselors from affirming gay clients’ identities would have been constitutionally sound.

Today, more than 20 states have moved to restrict gender-affirming care, and the federal government is pressuring state medical boards to adopt skeptical positions on gender transition. It’s not implausible that a legislature would attempt to ban gender-affirming, talk-based therapies. If and when conservative policymakers attempt that move, Chiles will be a formidable obstacle.

Read more of our stories about Colorado.

Kevin Cope does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Supreme Court ruling on Colorado conversion therapy case is not a clear win for conservatives – https://theconversation.com/supreme-court-ruling-on-colorado-conversion-therapy-case-is-not-a-clear-win-for-conservatives-279820

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Ben Pettis, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Communication Studies, University of Richmond

“Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups. He simply pushes the world down.”

“Chuck Norris counted to infinity – twice.”

“Chuck Norris once strangled someone – with a cordless phone”

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Chuck Norris, the 1980s action star, became a tongue-in-cheek model of toughness and masculinity in viral internet memes known as “Chuck Norris Facts.”

Although these memes waned in popularity, they never fully fizzled out. One Facebook group has over 400,000 members, many of whom regularly contribute new jokes about the “Walker, Texas Ranger” star.

But when news of Norris’ death broke on March 19, 2026, those memes returned, and memories resurfaced of their glory days.

In fact, they almost overshadowed remembrances of the movie star’s life.

What does it mean that many memories of Norris are more connected to a meme than his actual life and career? What gets left behind when a person becomes a digital object that we send over the internet? And what can memes tell us about how everyday people relate to celebrities – and to one another?

In the case of Norris, the actor and martial artist’s death forced some people to reconcile the memes with the man.

Macho man

Memes aren’t just memes. They might seem like trivial jokes, but my research has shown that they can shape how people understand and debate bigger cultural questions.

For example, Chuck Norris memes gave people a way to critique over-the-top ideas of masculinity and the pressure to live up to them. Whether it was memes crowing about his ability to slam a revolving door or kill two stones with one bird, only Norris, who stood at the apex of manliness, could pull off such impossible feats.

Other times, Norris’ “memeified” macho persona was deployed to advance misogyny: “Chuck Norris told a woman to CALM DOWN, and she did.” (As internet scholar Whitney Phillips explains, memes and humor have always been close relatives of the more toxic parts of online culture.)

Of course, Norris is hardly the only celebrity to have become memeified, and other celebrity memes routinely tap into the cultural zeitgeist.

When pop star Miley Cyrus released the music video for her song “Wrecking Ball” in 2013, it was quickly parodied and become the subject of countless memes. Many parodied her overt sexuality by swapping her out for someone decidedly less sexy on the wrecking ball. Or they spoofed her performance by playing the song over videos of other forms of destruction.

The man, the myth, the legend

Missing from all the meme nostalgia: Who was the real Chuck Norris?

After Norris’ death, social media users pointed to his past homophobic comments, in which he condemned the Boy Scouts of America’s – now Scouting America – inclusion of gay youth and leaders. There were his right-wing politics, including his friendships with Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush and his 2017 endorsement of Alabama U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore – who, as the state’s chief judge, had ordered Alabama probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples even after same-sex marriage had been legalized nationwide.

If those views and actions conflict with your own values, can you still laugh at Chuck Norris memes?

I certainly think so. Memes are special because there isn’t ever one fixed definition of what they mean, and the humor of a Chuck Norris meme can land even if you know nothing about his real life and career.

At the same time, in life and in death, the meme of Norris will always be connected to the person. The past few weeks have certainly brought these two versions of Norris into contact with one another. It’s up to everyone else to decide which version they remember most.

Democratizing stardom

For me, one of the most interesting aspects of memes is that stardom can happen from the ground up. Regular people decide what a meme is. Fame is no longer largely determined by film studios and mainstream media outlets.

The “Numa Numa Guy” – Gary Brolsma – became a meme after his 2003 video went viral. The “Success Kid” – Sammy Griner – turned into a meme thanks to a photo of him as a toddler clenching his fist in a display of satisfaction.

Why did these people become memes, but countless other YouTubers or kids making funny poses failed to launch? That’s just the unpredictability of the internet and the messiness of online culture.

Memes of existing celebrities also reflect this broader shift in control. No matter how much a studio tries to manage a star’s image, a meme can be created that takes on a life of its own.

Take, for example, Keanu Reeves, who was memeified after a photo of the actor sullenly eating a sandwich went viral. The meme began as a paparazzi photo but took off when everyday people photoshopped Reeves into ridiculous scenarios.

But whether they’re everyday people or famous celebrities, there’s a darker side to reducing people to pixelated, repurposed images: Over time, it can be incredibly difficult to separate the real person from the meme.

Laina Morris, for instance, has tried to move on from the image of her grinning, bug-eyed face that became a popular meme portraying her as an overly protective and clingy girlfriend.

People magazine profiled Morris for an article headlined “Overly Attached Girlfriend Gets Honest About Becoming a Meme,” which explored what it’s like to be constantly recognized as “that girl from that meme.”

Yet the fact that the publication still used “Overly Attached Girlfriend” in its headline shows just how difficult – or even impossible – it is to sever oneself from internet fame.

Chuck Norris, perhaps more than anyone, knew that all too well.

Ben Pettis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The two lives of Chuck Norris – https://theconversation.com/the-two-lives-of-chuck-norris-279430

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By John Haddad, Professor of American Studies, Penn State

A theme park has to have an identity. If you want to know the two things that Hersheypark does especially well, just approach the entrance.

There you will meet a friendly candy mascot – perhaps a Hershey bar, Reese’s Cup or Jolly Rancher. Soon thereafter, you will encounter Candymonium, one of the park’s newest colossal roller coasters. These marvels of engineering elevate riders as high as 210 feet (64 meters), send them through dizzying loops and corkscrews and propel them at speeds as high as 76 mph (122 kilometers per hour).

If you were to reduce the park’s formula for success to basic math, it would look like this: candy theme + thrill rides = fun.

It wasn’t always like this. Hersheypark became a theme park in 1973. If you had visited that year, no 7-foot Hershey bar would have greeted you. Instead, you would have experienced England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, petted farm animals and watched a blacksmith bend metal into a horseshoe inside a barn.

And the only major roller coaster back then, the wooden Comet, had made its debut way back in 1946 and was hardly a marvel of modern engineering.

As a professor of American studies at Penn State Harrisburg who recently wrote a book on Hersheypark, I was surprised to learn in my research that the park has undergone a complete transformation since the 1970s.

An amusement park in decline

Hershey Park dates back to the early 1900s, when company founder Milton Hershey built it as a recreational venue for his chocolate factory workers and their families. The name was changed to Hersheypark, one word, in 1973.

Over the years, it evolved into a major amusement park that thrived in the 1940s and 1950s. On summer days, residents of Hershey and nearby towns would flock to the park to enjoy a day of picnics, carnival rides, band concerts, swimming and dancing. Looking back with nostalgia, many later referred to those decades as the golden era.

It was in the 1960s that the park first encountered problems. The rides had become old and outdated, and there were acts of vandalism. Many families stopped coming. One Hershey executive called it “an iron park with a bunch of clanging rides.”

In 1971, Hershey Estates, which owned the park, faced a momentous decision: renovate the park or close it forever. It chose the former.

Disney raises the bar

Renovating required more than minor touch-ups. That was because the amusement park industry was evolving, thanks to Walt Disney. Actually, “evolving” does not capture the speed and magnitude of the change.

In 1955, Disneyland exploded on the scene as the nation’s first theme park. Theme parks differ from the old amusement parks in several ways. Enclosed behind a barrier, a theme park is immaculately clean and features fancy landscaping and roving mascots who pose for photos and spread positive vibes. The price of admission grants visitors access to all rides and attractions, which are, of course, themed.

Disneyland’s massive popularity sparked a theme park-building craze across the country in the 1960s that put pressure on traditional amusement parks, like Hershey Park, which suddenly seemed old-fashioned and behind the times.

In 1971, Hershey Estates hired the top firm in theme park design, Randall Duell and Associates, to convert Hershey Park into a Disneyland of the Northeast. They enclosed the park in fencing, charged a single price for admission and themed the whole place.

But what theme would work best? The answer seems like a no-brainer: Hershey’s famous candy brands, of course. But the brands were the property of Hershey Foods, which was separate from Hershey Estates. Hershey Foods, viewing Hersheypark as new and untested, did not want to risk visitors associating its brands with what could be a failing theme park.

Designers opted instead for a historical theme.

A quaint makeover

If you were to visit Hersheypark in the 1970s, you would be taken back in time to experience Tudor England, the German Rhineland from the 18th century, the agrarian culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch, small-town America of yesteryear and the coal mining districts of Pennsylvania’s past.

The strategy was twofold. The local population could relish seeing their own history recreated, from the early migrations from Europe to the present day. At the same time, tourists from New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore could enjoy escaping their hectic urban lifestyles by traveling back to what was portrayed as simpler times.

In 1974, the park added mascots. It took a page out of Disney’s playbook and introduced the Furry Tales, a trio of woodland animals: Dutch the bear, Chip the chipmunk and Violet the skunk. The Furry Tales were Hersheypark’s answer to Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck.

The person hired to fabricate these cute animal costumes was Bill Scollon. One day, Scollon asked Bruce McKinney, a Hershey executive, if he had considered candy-themed characters. After McKinney explained the unfortunate roadblock with Hershey Foods, Scollon had a hunch. When he acted on it, he would change Hersheypark forever.

Chocolatizing the park

Scollon suspected that Hershey Foods had failed to recognize the magic of product characters because they could not see and touch one. So he constructed a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup suit, which he showed to McKinney. Impressed, McKinney escorted Scollon, in costume, to places where Hershey Foods executives would be. They too were delighted, and their resistance promptly melted away.

Once product characters strolled into the park in 1974, the floodgates opened. “We started to chocolatize Hersheypark,” McKinney recalled. “We Hersheyized everything.”

Hersheypark now had chocolate theming, but not thrill rides. Randall Duell’s firm discouraged parks from investing in costly roller coasters that appealed to teenagers but not other age demographics. Hersheypark reversed course in 1976, and this time McKinney was the catalyst.

That year, he was flipping through an industry trade journal when he happened upon a photograph of the Revolution, the first looping roller coaster of the modern era, under construction in West Germany. Later that year, the Revolution attracted huge crowds when it opened in Magic Mountain, a California theme park.

“I harbored all of these feelings,” McKinney recalled, “of what it would be like to have that thing in Hershey.”

The price tag was steep: US$3 million, which was a staggering amount at the time. But McKinney secured his prize. Hersheypark commissioned the company responsible for the Revolution to design a similar looping coaster for Hershey. In 1977, visitors streamed into Hersheypark all summer to experience the sensational sooperdooperLooper – and many then purchased an “I survived” T-shirt.

This spectacular success kindled a desire in Hersheypark officials to invest heavily in thrill rides. Today, the skyline in Hershey is dominated by roller coasters

What happened to those 1970s attractions? The Furry Tales coexisted with candy characters for about a decade before quietly vanishing in the 1980s. As for the history-themed areas, the thrill rides effectively pushed them to the background. Though some have been torn down and replaced by new and more exciting attractions, others have survived. That is because Hersheypark makes a conscious effort to preserve its colorful past. So if you look carefully as you stroll about the park, you will still witness remnants of this bygone era.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

John Haddad does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The costume maker who convinced Hersheypark to embrace candy mascots and ‘chocolatize’ their old-timey theme park – https://theconversation.com/the-costume-maker-who-convinced-hersheypark-to-embrace-candy-mascots-and-chocolatize-their-old-timey-theme-park-269780

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College

After President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on April 2, 2026, news reports suggested that she fell from grace, not for being too independent, but for not being effective enough at defending him and prosecuting his political enemies.

As The New York Times reported the previous day, Trump was disappointed with “Ms. Bondi’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which has become a political liability for Mr. Trump among his supporters. He has also complained about her shortcomings as a communicator and vented about what he sees as the Department of Justice’s lack of aggressiveness in going after his foes.”

The president has long indicated that whoever served as attorney general in his administration should see themselves as his lawyer rather than as someone representing the U.S. government.

During his first presidential term, Trump was gravely disappointed with Jeff Sessions, his first attorney general, who recused himself from the investigation into alleged political interference in the 2016 election. He replaced Sessions with William Barr, who abandoned Trump when the president did not accept the results of the 2020 election.

Having learned from those mistakes, Trump set out to find a political ally and loyalist to take the helm at the Justice Department in his second administration.

As a scholar of law and politics, and someone who has written about the role of the attorney general, I think Trump’s desire has a familiar ring to it. It is not unusual for presidents to put people who share their views and policy preferences into the role. But Trump has gone far beyond what is usually done.

Bondi’s ascent

Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz was Trump’s first choice for attorney general during the president’s second term. Many commentators viewed Gaetz as a firebrand who was temperamentally unsuited for that position. Some criticized him for calling the president an “inspirational leader of a loving and patriotic movement” in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. In the face of growing opposition generated in part by allegations of his misconduct, Gaetz withdrew.

Trump turned to Bondi a few hours later. She had served as Florida’s attorney general and drawn praise from across the political spectrum for her professionalism.

A bipartisan group of former state attorneys general wrote a letter attesting to their “firsthand knowledge of her fitness for the office” and her “wealth of prosecutorial experience and commitment to public service.”

In addition, as PBS noted at the time of her appointment, Bondi was “a longtime Trump ally and was one of his lawyers during his first impeachment trial, when he was accused — but not convicted — of abusing his power as he tried to condition U.S. military assistance to Ukraine on that country investigating then-former Vice President Joe Biden.”

She also showed her loyalty by attending Trump’s New York trial for paying hush money to porn actor Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had an affair.

At the time of her nomination, Bondi seemed to have the attributes of an attorney general. She had the credentials to take on the job of running the DOJ and the confidence of the president who appointed her.

From confirmation to downfall

During her confirmation hearings, Bondi promised to safeguard the Justice Department’s independence and bolster its transparency. She also vowed to not serve as the president’s personal attorney.

And in response to a question from Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, she pledged in January 2025 that “there will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice.”

But she also showed her willingness to joust with Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She hewed to the MAGA script by refusing to say that the president had lost the 2020 election. And she mounted a spirited attack on the Biden Justice Department, which she claimed had been “weaponized for years and years and years.”

Once in office, Bondi took on the difficult task of leading the Justice Department while also pleasing the president. She stood by when Trump used an appearance at the department to give, according to The New York Times, a “grievance-filled attack on the very people who have worked in the building and others like them.” The Times added: “He appeared to offer his own vision of justice in America, one defined by personal vengeance rather than by institutional principles.”

Bondi apparently did not do enough to deliver on that version of justice.

Last year, Trump had to urge Bondi to take action against his political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey, California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Leticia James.

“They’re all guilty as hell,” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, “but nothing is going to be done. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he added. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Bondi took her marching orders and launched investigations of those the president named. However, she was not able to secure any convictions. NBC News quoted a former official in the Trump White House who said that failing to secure indictments “is a problem for job security with the president.”

If that wasn’t enough, Trump was also reportedly frustrated with the way Bondi had handled the release of the Epstein files, first promising full disclosure and then botching the rollout of the files.

Contending visions of the attorney general’s job

Bondi’s tenure illustrates the conflicting visions of what an attorney general should do that animate today’s American politics.

The questions Democrats asked her during her confirmation were designed to get her to commit to their view of what the attorney general should do. Those questions signaled their belief that anyone occupying that office should maintain their distance from the president and uphold the Justice Department’s independence.

But right from the start of the republic, presidents have chosen close political allies to serve as attorney general.

It’s common for presidents to appoint their friends and supporters to be attorneys general. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, many presidents have chosen their campaign manager or their party’s national chairperson to be attorney general of the United States.

But even compared with this history, Trump and his allies have a radically different vision, seeing the attorney general as just another Cabinet member whose responsibility is to carry out the president’s policies and implement his directions. As Trump put it in a 2017 interview with The New York Times, he has the “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.”

In the end, it seems that Bondi was fired for her failure to be effective in the political role assigned to her. It is likely that the president will want to replace her with someone even more political than she was, who promises to deliver more of the results he wants.

Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Pam Bondi’s extreme political loyalty to Trump wasn’t enough to save her job – https://theconversation.com/pam-bondis-extreme-political-loyalty-to-trump-wasnt-enough-to-save-her-job-279926