In May, I collaborated with Clay Calvert and Charis Kubrin on an op-ed for Forbes, urging the Supreme Court to hear the case of Anthony Elonis, a man who was sent to prison for posting to Facebook menacing rap lyrics directed at his wife and an FBI agent.  The Court agrees to hear arguments in only a tiny fraction of the cases submitted for consideration, so we were both surprised and excited when it agreed to hear Elonis v. U.S.

The case will focus on true threats jurisprudence–what criteria are required for speech to be considered a genuine threat–but Charis Kubrin and I just wrote an op-ed for CNN in which we argue that the Court should also use this case as an opportunity to address the growing, and disturbing, prosecution of rap lyrics.  As we ask in the op-ed, if throwing people in jail for their art isn’t a true threat, what is?