S03E14 – Child Labor Laws and Religious Commencement Speeches

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, Ryan and Tom tackle two topics. First, thanks to legislation under consideration in the Florida House and Senate, we discuss rolling back regulations protecting children (really 16 and 17-year-olds) when it comes to the number of hours they can work while school is in session and the tops of jobs they can do. We agree that these laws are problematic and will likely have detrimental effects on young people. We then turn to an incident that happened at Ryan’s university: A faculty member in the College of Business who moonlights as a Christian apologist used her invitation to give the commencement speech at the university to proselytize her specific brand of Christianity. We, again, agreed that, while the talk was inappropriate for the context, we both argue that she should have the right to say what she wants to say, even if it is the promotion of Christianity to a religiously diverse and nonreligious audience.