Kevin W. Saunders
Personal Information
Description
After a distinguished career as a mathematics educator, Professor Saunders turned his attention to the law. He graduated with honors from the University of Michigan Law School in 1984, then clerked for the Honorable Kenneth Starr, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He followed with assistant professorships at the University of Arkansas and the University of Oklahoma. During his 16-year tenure at Oklahoma, he rose through the ranks to become a full professor and to serve on the faculties of the graduate school, the College of Liberal Studies, and Film and Video Studies. He was the recipient of four awards at that institution, including the 2001 Regents' Award for Superior Accomplishment in Research and Creative Activity. He also served as Visiting James Madison Chair and Interim Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Drake University. Professor Saunders is the author of two books —Violence as Obscenity: Limiting the Media's First Amendment Protection and Saving Our Children from the First Amendment. He has authored dozens of book chapters, law review articles, and commentaries in legal and popular periodicals. He teaches a variety of courses and seminars on topics in Constitutional Law. Professor Saunders is a member of the Order of the Coif.
Books
Degradation
Throughout history obscenity has not really been about sex but about degradation. Sexual depictions have been suppressed when they were seen as lowering the status of humans, furthering our distance from the gods or God and moving us toward the animals. In the current era, when we recognize ourselves and both humans and animals, sexual depiction has lost some of its sting. Its degrading role has been replaced by hate speech that distances groups, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, not only from God but from humanity to a subhuman level. In this original study of the relationship between obscenity and hate speech, First Amendment specialist Kevin W. Saunders traces the legal trajectory of degradation as it moved from sexual depiction to hateful speech. Looking closely at hate speech in several arenas, including racist, homophobic, and sexist speech in the workplace, classroom, and other real-life scenarios, Saunders posits that if hate speech is today's conceptual equivalent of obscenity, then the body of law that dictated obscenity might shed some much-needed light on what may or may not qualify as punishable hate speech.