In a piece for The Federalist, Professor Hadley Arkes criticizes Attorney General Merrick Garland's evasion of his duty to protect Supreme Court justices from ongoing verbal harassment.

Although it is a federal crime to picket outside a justice's residence, protestors continue to congregate around the homes of Justices Alito and Kavanaugh with impunity. AG Garland has reportedly told police officers not to enforce federal law unless as a matter of "last resort to prevent physical harm."

Professor Arkes likens the treatment of the justices to the treatment of conservative speakers at Stanford Law School, Furman University, and other places. "The administrators of both places were either shameless or witless enough to say that all of this is quite compatible with institutions preserving a climate of tolerance and respect for freedom of speech on the campus. Have they really so beclouded their minds?"

As Arkes states, common sense dictates that speech can be a form of assault. But Arkes questions what is truly going on with the lack of treating such speech as assault in these instances. As he concludes:

"The lawyers of the Democratic Party are clear enough on what they are doing: They are withdrawing the protections of the law from conservatives as a not-so-gentle way of marking them unfit for company and their jurisprudence odious. And Americans are regarded as hyperbolic, a bit over the edge, when they venture the thought that we may be in the first, lawfare stage of a civil war."

Read the full piece here.