Kagan Is OK with Flag Burning: Are You?

NEW YORK – Elena Kagan, President Obama's pick for the U.S. Supreme Court, argued the government may not ban flag-burning protests.

However, Kagan has advocated silencing other kinds of speech, stating, for example, speech that promotes "racial or gender inequality" could be "disappeared."

Writing in the Spring 1996 edition of the University of Chicago Law Review, Kagan argued that while the government may enact a general ban on fires in public places, it cannot enact legislation to ban flag-burning protests specifically.

She wrote: "The government may stop protesters from burning flags by enacting a general restriction – say, a ban on lighting fires in public places. But the government may not specifically proscribe the burning of flags for purposes of protest."