128 people attended Constitution Week on Tuesday evening when Brian Blumenfeld spoke about “The Killdozer and the Constitution: Zoning, Property Rights, and the History of Land Use in the U.S. Supreme Court.” The crowd was focused and engaged, posing several follow-up questions to the speaker after he concluded his 75-minute presentation.

Events continue through Sunday morning with a keynote address from Dr. John Turley at noon on Saturday following the parade. Turley is a law professor who has testified before Congress over one hundred times, including during the impeachments of Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA TODAY, and appeared on CBS, NBC, BBC and Fox. 

He recently published “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in the Age of Rage” which explores the modern threats to our most fundamental entitlement: our birthright to free speech.

“We could not have a more appropriate speaker this week,” said Constitution Week president Marc Auville. “Obviously, we didn’t know Charlie Kirk was going to get murdered. But in the shadow of this assassination, we have the most credentialed free speech expert in the nation to be our keynote speaker.

“No American should be targeted for exercising their First Amendment rights and freedom of speech. Yet, it’s also important that after this murder, we don’t start censoring each other. That’s a slippery slope. One side censors the other and when the shoe’s on the other foot, it goes the other way. In the end, our First Amendment rights get eviscerated.

“We are emphasizing the common ground held among all Americans. We need to take a deep breath, lower the rhetoric and talk about the importance of free speech as all this rage is happening.”