Firestarter / Lawn dart / Devilish act?

Firestarter. The assassination attempt on former President Trump showed that America is playing with fire and social media hold the matchbooks, asserted Axios co-founders in a commentary.
■ Minutes after the Trump rally shooting, misinformation ran rampant. Here are the facts.

■ Seventh and eighth graders shook up their Pennsylvania school after creating fake TikTok accounts impersonating their teachers with lewd, disparaging videos.
■ A Massachusetts teacher fired for posting controversial TikTok videos in 2021 has lost her First Amendment federal appeals case.

Lawn dart. Folks in a Memphis suburb may not have liked one woman’s “vulgar” political yard sign, but a federal judge has ruled that she had a constitutional right to display it.
■ The ACLU has unveiled a plan to fight any free-speech abuses that Donald Trump is threatening to conduct if he is elected again to the presidency.
■ “Freedom of Speech,” a 1943 painting by Norman Rockwell, has taken on a new life as a social-media meme.

■ Middle Tennessee State University earned a top rating for campus free speech from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
■ Rapper released from prison must submit any new lyrics to federal officials who contend they may be “inconsistent with the goals of rehabilitation.”

AI exam. Despite their misleading nature, deepfakes are protected under the First Amendment as a form of free expression, explained Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.
■ Early Apple tech bloggers have noticed years-old content, aided by AI-generated photos and bios, reappearing on a resurrected domain that was shut down in 2015.
■ A federal judge in Baltimore has thrown out a First Amendment challenge to the law that imposes a tax on internet ads in Maryland.
■ A U.S. Supreme Court ruling may bolster a First Amendment case for convicted North Carolina journalists.

Devilish act? After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law to allow religious chaplains in public schools, state Satanists volunteered to fill those roles amid staffing shortages.
■ Thousands have signed a petition rejecting a state superintendent’s rule requiring the Bible to be taught in Oklahoma public schools.
■ The writings of a Nashville school shooter cannot be released since victims’ families hold the copyright, a judge ruled.
■ NPR is fighting for access to secret Virginia execution recordings and hoping to get a boost from the state Court of Appeals.

Wu-rrisome. Timothy Wu’s column in The New York Times declaring that the First Amendment is “out of control” is a stark reminder that self-interest overrises toleration, contended FIRE’s Ronald K.L. Collins.

■ Activist groups have sued the city of Chicago alleging that the rejection of specific marching permits during the Democratic National Convention is a violation of free speech.

■ New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to ban masks on the subway has sparked backlash from civil liberties groups.
■ America’s best-known sex counselor, Ruth Westheimer, who said things on radio and television that approached being censored, has died at age 96.

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Free to moderate / Oh, zone / Thou shall?

Free to moderate. The U.S. Supreme Court sent cases alleging that Florida and Texas social media laws violate the First Amendment back to lower courts for review, but the decision reaffirmed the First Amendment right of private companies to moderate content.
■ Supreme Court justices rejected a claim that the Biden administration coerced social media companies to remove contentious content.

■ A bill to safeguard kids from potentially addictive social media feeds was signed by New York’s governor.

■ Vermont has agreed to pay $175,000 to settle a First Amendment lawsuit on behalf of a man who gave a state trooper the middle finger during a traffic stop.

Withdrawal reflex. Following a poor debate performance, many U.S. media heavyweights have called on President Joe Biden to quit his reelection bid.
■ The U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes is fighting to maintain its independence and defend its First Amendment rights by getting outdated restrictions removed.
■ A New York Times analysis tracked Julian Assange’s polarizing legacy from hacker to hunted.

■ The takeaway from the U.S. Office for Civil Rights anti-harassment mandate to universities is it could prompt administrators to violate the First Amendment, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reported.

Oh, zone. The plan for designated protest zones for Milwaukee’s upcoming Republican National Convention violates the First Amendment, an ACLU lawsuit contends.
■ The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that an order barring an anti-abortion protester from being close to a Planned Parenthood nurse violated free-speech rights and must be overturned.

■ Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-riot law is no threat to peaceful protesters, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled.

■ Press-freedom groups want criminal charges dropped against a Stanford University student journalist arrested while covering a campus protest.

Chalk talks. A federal court jury has awarded $700,000 to Seattle demonstrators who wrote anti-police graffiti in chalk on a police barricade and were subsequently jailed.
■ Racial-justice groups have joined a legal filing condemning a potential TikTok ban that they say would suppress speech from minority communities.

■ Apple and Meta officials have discussed a potential AI partnership, the Wall Street Journal reported.
■ The OpenAI co-founder who helped oust Sam Altman has a new start-up that aims to produce Safe Superintelligence.

Thou shall? Belief in the Ten Commandments is strong among many American Christians and Jews but the version of them required by the Louisiana governor to hang in public schools is not.
■ Oklahoma’s plan to use public funds for a religious charter school is unconstitutional, the state’s supreme court has ruled.
■ Pride month and the First Amendment should both be celebrated, explained the editorial board of the Everett (Wash.) Daily Herald.
■ Calling himself a whistleblower, a Texas doctor is accused of taking private transgender documents and sharing them with an activist who then published a story with the confidential information.

■ In Tennessee’s Davidson County, criminal judges are sealing documents and not leaving a public record, the Nashville Banner reported.

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Shape shifts / Book circle / Last laughs?

Shape shifts. A series of federal court cases could change the way the First Amendment functions in the internet era, explained David McCabe in The New York Times.
■ The U.S. Surgeon General has called for warning labels on social media apps he said might damage the mental health of adolescents.

■ A Vanderbilt University law professor has analyzed whether laws restricting speech on race and racism in public schools violate the First Amendment.

■ Alex Jones must liquidate his personal assets to pay for damages assessed in the Sandy Hook conspiracy suit, a federal judge has ruled, but the future of his Infowars platform is uncertain.

■ The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected a California lawyer’s attempt to trademark “Trump Too Small.”

Into the void. Partisan-backed outlets intentionally masquerading as local news sites are now outpacing real local daily newspapers, Axios reported.
■ News/Media Alliance is the latest press-rights organization to join the push for PRESS Act passage.

■ The chair of the House Oversight Committee announced he is launching a probe into the validity of the news-rating system NewsGuard.

■ The publisher and incoming editor of The Washington Post reportedly used fraudulently obtained records in news articles published in London.

■ The NYPD must release misconduct records to a news outlet that requested them two years ago, a New York Supreme Court justice ruled.

Book circle. An author reflected on the irony that his “Ban This Book” book has been banned by a Florida school district in a CBS News interview.
■ The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled that the state cannot authorize local school districts to remove books from library shelves.
■ A media organization will have to present details in a court hearing about The Covenant School shooting records that were leaked even as it continues its lawsuit to make those records public.

■ A Massachusetts middle school that required a student to stop wearing an “only two genders” shirt did not violate free-speech rights, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

MS stakes. The playbook for dismantling a free press in America is wide open in Mississippi, declared editor Adam Ganucheau in a New York Times opinion piece.
■ As many newspapers struggle for survival, journalism behind bars has continued to grow, with one paper publishing continuously since 1887.
■ After spending a year in jail, U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich will stand trial in Russia, accused of doing CIA work.
■ The future of The Epoch Times is uncertain following the arrest of an executive in a money-laundering investigation.

■ Howard Fineman, who lost his battle with cancer at 75, is remembered as a witty, encyclopedic political reporter.

Last laughs? First Amendment scholar Ronald K. L. Collins has examined the art of comedy in the era of cancel culture for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
■ Elon Musk has asked a California court to withdraw his lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman.
■ NewsBreak, the most downloaded U.S. news app with roots in China, writes “fiction” using AI, according to a Reuters report.

■ Soothsaying is protected speech again in Virginia even though psychic mediums were in violation of a 45-year-old law.

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Pressing issue / Clear shot / Trump Tok

Pressing issue. With time running out, the Freedom of the Press Foundation urged Sen. Dick Durbin to advance the PRESS Act and protect journalist-source confidentiality.
■ Layoffs at Media Matters underscored the need to crack down on SLAPPs, declared the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
■ The executive editor of The Washington Post has stepped down after three years at the helm.

■ Comedian Jon Stewart ripped Fox News hosts for insincere rhetoric on issues of free speech.

Clear shot. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the National Rifle Association (NRA) can proceed with its First Amendment claim against a former New York regulator.
■ No matter how you feel about guns, the NRA decision is good for free speech, declared an associate editor at Reason.
■ Investigative journalists filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin to force the release of names, birthdates, and records of every police officer in the state.
■ In Tennessee’s Davidson County criminal courts some public documents disappear without anyone knowing about it, the Nashville Banner reported.

Pole result? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s flag-flying is a question of ethics, not freedom of speech, declared a Princeton University politics professor in a U.S. News & World Report commentary.
■ The Washington Post acknowledged that it had the Justice Alito upside-down flag story three years ago but did not publish it.
■ The Supreme Court has declined to hear an InfoWars host’s First Amendment challenge to his Jan. 6 conviction. 

■ Citing a First Amendment right to hire whom it wants, CBS filed a motion to dismiss a script coordinator’s lawsuit challenging the network’s diversity hiring practices.
■ The First Amendment lawsuit by basketball hall of famer John Stockton lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. district judge in Washington state.

Trump Tok. Donald Trump amassed more than 3 million followers after joining TikTok, the short-video social media platform that he tried to ban during his presidency.

■ TikTok is working on a clone of the core algorithm for its 170 million U.S. users to avoid a law that forces a sale or ban of the social media app, Reuters reported.

■ OpenAI has secured a multiyear deal to use news content from News Corp.’s major publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and the New York Post.
■ A high school graduate received her diploma, then handed a copy of one of her school district’s banned books to its superintendent.

Difficult conversations. Spring protests have managed to flip-flop free-speech hypocrisy on college campuses, reasoned associate editor Colin Meyn in The Hill.
■ Harvard University has instituted a new policy where it will no longer take sides on hot-button political issues.
■ A jury affirmed that the First Amendment rights of a campus police officer in Michigan were violated after he spoke to the media about a sensitive case.

■ Civil rights attorneys conclude that a new Louisiana law that limits the filming of police officers violates the First Amendment and hampers racial justice.

■ After a life devoted to social justice, ACLU leader and free-speech advocate John W. Roberts dies at 89 in Massachusetts.

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Suit cases / Totally rad / Left turns

Suit cases. The U.S. Supreme Court is unpacking eight cases this term that could have far-reaching implications for how Americans interact online.

■ OpenAI and Reddit have agreed to bring the social media platform’s content to ChatGPT, the Associated Press reported.
■ Ahead of the presidential election, AI chatbots can easily be manipulated to sow disinformation online, reported The New York Times.
■ Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito declared freedom of speech was under threat and freedom of religion in peril during commencement remarks in Ohio.
■ Louisiana is close to becoming the first state to require the display of the Ten Commandments in schools.

Totally rad. The country needs to build a broad moral consensus around the universal right to dissent, declared Jay Caspian Kang in The New Yorker.
■ The Israel-Hamas conflict has challenged whether college campuses are sacrosanct places for speech and protest.
■ The student-protest policies at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville do not threaten free speech, according to First Amendment experts.
■ The right to protest is at the heart of First Amendment freedoms and it has been beating across college campuses in 2024.

A free suppress? In a ‘‘catch and kill’’ scenario, there may be First Amendment implications in forbidding the purchase of a news story only to suppress it?

■ A London court ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the United States on espionage charges but First Amendment protections are still in question.

■ Environmental journalists are increasingly under attack and facing obstacles to newsgathering, a UNESCO report has revealed.
■ Gannett fired an editor for talking to me, wrote Rick Edmonds, a media analyst for the Poynter Institute, in a recent opinion piece.
■ ProPublica editor Stephen Engelberg has won the Freedom of the Press Career Achievement Award.

Left turns. MSNBC’s leftward tilt has boosted its ratings but has been a source of discomfort for parent company, NBC which strives not to alienate red-state viewers, reported The New York Times.
■ A Georgia judge tossed a First Amendment lawsuit by a state Supreme Court candidate who sought to block an investigation of him for campaign comments about abortion issues.
■ California police have continued to violate the state’s press-freedom law, according to reports compiled by the Freedom of the Press Foundation.
■ Lawsuits by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression have worked to protect public comments at government meetings.

Stay on the grass. An ordinance designed to cut down on lawn signs in a small Pennsylvania town was ruled unconstitutional by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
■ Local newspapers in Illinois would be bolstered by the passage of two state Senate bills.
■ Declaring a divestiture law violates the First Amendment, eight TikTok creators have sued the U.S. government for undermining “the nation’s founding principles.’’

■ Elon Musk recently won a victory for free speech …in Australia.

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Helter shelter / Press on / Distrusted?

Helter shelter. The First Amendment largely offers protections for protestors’ expression, but not illegal actions on college campuses.
■ Citing “unnecessary use of force and encroachments on First Amendment rights,” free-speech organizations criticize Florida university presidents.
■ The American Civil Liberties Union has condemned the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of the Antisemitism Awareness Act as it threatens to censor political free speech on college campuses.
■ Blocking journalists from reporting on a Columbia University demonstration was a “clear infringement of the First Amendment,” declared Mara Gay in a New York Times opinion piece.

■ More than a half century after the Kent State tragedy, a law professor examined the limits to our freedoms of speech and protest.

Bark and Byte. The sell-or-be-banned legislation against TikTok’s parent company could face an uphill First Amendment battle in court, The Associated Press has reported.
■ TikTok has reached a new licensing agreement that will restore Universal Music Group artists, which include Taylor Swift, to its social media platform.
■ The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Elon Musk over a settlement that requires him to get approval in advance before sending social media posts about his Tesla company.
■ Missourians have used a massive petition drive to put an abortion-rights measure on the November ballot.

Press on. Eight daily newspapers have filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of using copyrighted content without permission to train their generative products.
■ A lawsuit against Meta Platforms Inc. could determine if Facebook users have the right to control what they see, or do not see, on their personal feeds.
■ Silicon Valley is on edge following closing arguments in Google’s landmark antitrust case against the U.S. Justice Department.
■ Through testimonies and text messages, New York prosecutors have painted a picture of how Donald Trump turned the press into a tool to serve his own ends, declared a former U.S. attorney in an MSNBC opinion piece.

■ Gag-order violations by former president Trump are part of the “classic confrontation of constitutional rights.”

Ban-aid. With books being targeted in U.S. libraries at a growing rate, Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, shares thoughts on what is and is not book banning.
■ State lawmakers in North Carolina have exempted themselves from public-records laws through provisions in the new state budget.
■ For journalists today, growing secrecy at state and local levels is limiting government accountability, explained media expert David Cuillier in The Conversation.
■ Israel’s government raided and shut down operations of the Al Jazeera television network in that country.
■ Political attacks on journalists are growing worldwide with governments failing to protect press freedom, according to a report from Reporters Without Borders.

Distrusted? Americans have serious trust issues with national news outlets heading into the 2024 election season, a new poll from the American Press Institute and the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed.
■ A large majority of American adults specify press freedom as important to society, results of a Pew Research Center survey showed.
■ Organizers for the Democratic National Convention have promised to protect free speech while maintaining order, reported NBC News.
■ Journalists who are publicly critical of their companies have caused headaches for news organizations, according to The Associated Press.

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Trample gamble / Valedictates / NP-argh

Trample gamble. TikTok has warned that a U.S. ban on its app would “trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans.”
■ A recent vote in the U.S. House of Representatives has renewed a threat to TikTok and CNN examined what may lie ahead.
■ The U.S. Senate’s plans to expand surveillance capabilities would threaten press freedom, and everyone else’s too, the Freedom of the Press Foundation contends.
■ The launch of Meta A.I. has reconfigured the information-technology landscape with potential concerns on the horizon.

■ There is a First Amendment-friendly way to clean up social media, surmised author-lawyer Steven Brill in a Politico commentary.

■ High school students in Kansas persuaded a school district to remove their files from the purview of an A.I. surveillance systems, contending it violated First Amendment rights.

See no, hear no. Manhattan courtroom proceedings for Donald Trump’s hush-money case will be conducted without cameras or recording devices, as dictated by New York state law.
■ One America News Network has settled its defamation lawsuit with the voting-technology company that it targeted with unfounded fraud claims tied to the 2020 presidential election.
■ The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed a lawsuit to move forward against a Black Lives Matter activist who organized a Louisiana protest during which a police officer was injured.
■ After recent clashes in Chicago, individual protest rights may be challenged by law enforcement at the Democratic National Convention, activist groups claim.
■ The First Amendment is an honorary winner in a public-speaking lawsuit settlement in a Detroit suburb.

Valedictates. Many schools have continued to silence valedictorians despite the likelihood that the institutions will become the center of a national controversy.
■ USC has cancelled its commencement keynote speaker, Asian filmmaker Jon Chu, just days after disallowing a Muslim student valedictorian to speak.
■ Ivy League college campus pro-Palestinian protests escalate, prompting arrests and moving classes online.

■ A new University of Michigan proposal to curtail demonstrations on campus could quell constitutionally protected protests, free-speech advocates said.
■ Ohio database death records are not open to the public, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
■ Following a two-day hearing, a Nashville judge will decide whether a school shooter’s journals are public records.

Bans expand. The banning of books in public schools surged in the first half of this school year, a new PEN America study showed.
■ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has backtracked slightly on his 2022 book-challenge law, but his state is responsible for more than 70 percent of pulled books in the country.
■ The country’s ‘‘Big Five’’ publishers have challenged an Iowa state law that bans certain books and limits the teachings on gender identity.

■ A federal judge has blocked a Florida law that barred a transgender teacher from using preferred pronouns.

NP-argh. One NPR editor’s essay over what he perceived as politically biased coverage has created turmoil at the public radio network.
■ Pushing censorship both from the left and the right is crippling free speech, said author Salman Rushdie in a ‘‘60 Minutes’’ interview. 

■ Journalist Terry Anderson, whose 1985 abduction, torturous imprisonment, and eventual release gripped the nation, has died at 76.
■ Citing First Amendment protections, the Walt Disney Co. has filed a motion to dismiss the wrongful termination lawsuit brought by actor Gina Carano.

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Divided we stand? / Finding false / Saving grace

Divided we stand? Though united in our divisions, a new poll shows that Americans still agree on most of the country’s core values, including free speech.
■ Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered Texas colleges to revise their free-speech policies in an effort to curb what he described as a “sharp rise in antisemitic speech.”
■ A Georgia superior court judge rejected Donald Trump’s First Amendment challenge in his election-interference case.

■ Trump publicly declared that it would be “a great honor” to be jailed for violating the gag order in his hush-money trial.
■ The former president’s legal claims about political speech are full of hot air, declared the author of “How to Read the Constitution -- and Why” in a commentary for The Hill.

Nun sense. A multimillion-dollar marketing blitz has engaged Sister Monica Clare and others to preach that TikTok is a force for good.
■ In an apparent show of Republican support for Elon Musk’s X, Missouri’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against progressive watchdog group Media Matters, reported The Guardian.
■ Israel’s prime minister is reportedly using a new national-security law in an attempt to shut down news network Al Jazeera in the country.
■ A federal judge dismissed a First Amendment lawsuit by a Minnesota physician and former GOP candidate for governor against the state medical board.

Finding false. Convinced that viral lies threaten democracy, a cadre of defamation lawyers are working to stem the tide of political disinformation one payout or apology at a time.
■ Despite 15 years of calls for anti-SLAPP legislation in one North Carolina county, the bills never made it out of initial committees.
■ Police have continued to arrest journalists and the Freedom of the Press Foundation continues its push to understand why.
■ A reporter’s arrest on the campus of Vanderbilt University echoed a disgraceful Civil Rights-era incident there, J. Holly McCall asserted in a Tennessee Lookout commentary.

Break the silence. Former CBS News reporters Catherine Herridge and Sharyl Attkisson, whose departures were called into question, are scheduled to speak at an April 11 House Judiciary Committee hearing on protecting journalists and their sources.
■ U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich marked a year in Russian prisons while the Biden administration reported that it continues to push for his release.

■ A college newspaper in Iowa stepped up and purchased two struggling weeklies in a commitment to slow growing news deserts in rural areas of the country.
■ The third lawsuit stemming from an August 2023 raid on a small Kansas newspaper that sparked a widespread outrage has been filed in federal court.

Saving grace. Limiting the number of meals a local church can serve to unhoused residents of Brookings, Ore., was a violation of religious-freedom rights, a federal judge ruled.
■ Opponents of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed into law by Iowa’s governor contended that it opens the door to discrimination.

■ A facial-hair ban for prison guards amounts to religious discrimination, the U.S. Justice Department has declared.
■ A fight to protect the dignity of Michelangelo’s David has raised questions about freedom of expression.

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Ban the 'ban' / Post marks / Kate restraint

Ban the ‘ban.’ U.S. senators have publicly declared they are not calling for a ban on TikTok, only a desire to disarm it.
■ If the question is ‘Can Congress ban TikTok?’ then Judge Andrew Napolitano offered an answer in a recent guest commentary.
■ Federal prosecutors are pursuing a deal to avoid a First Amendment showdown over WikiLeaks, reported Reason’s Matthew Petti.
■ Graphic warning labels on packs of cigarettes do not violate the First Amendment, a judicial panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

Under the influence. A conservative social-media influencer and fervent Donald Trump supporter was arrested for her involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
■ College students are not ardent supporters of free speech, survey data collected by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression suggests.
■ Supreme Court justices refused to intervene in the dispute over a blocked drag show on a Texas university campus.
■ The women’s basketball coach at LSU has threatened to file a defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post over an unpublished story she labeled a “hit piece.”

Post marks. The U.S. Supreme Court seemed to side with the Biden administration over efforts to combat questionable social media posts.
■ Supreme Court justices appeared receptive to the National Rifle Association’s free-speech lawsuit against a former New York state official.
■ A small-town Texas ex-council member has brought her First Amendment-related retaliation claim before the Supreme Court.

■ A federal judge in California has rejected a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s X against a hate-speech watchdog group.

Kate restraint. British tabloids took a rare, reserved approach in the news frenzy over the Princess of Wales’s health, but it did not slow the flow of wild speculation.

■ Chuck Todd of “Meet the Press” fame blasted NBC for its decision to hire former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst.

■ Gannett and McClatchy news chains announced they would cease using content by The Associated Press, a service used for decades.
■ Jon Stewart has returned to The Daily Show to push professional journalists to get Americans closer to the truth.

■ A new publisher has allowed Sports Illustrated operations to continue print and digital products.

Devil in the details? Satanic Temple representatives filed a lawsuit against Memphis-Shelby County Schools for blocking an afterschool club, labeling it a violation of the organization’s First Amendment rights.
■ Lawmakers in mostly conservative states have called for greater efforts to place chaplains in U.S. public schools.
■ Wendell Bird contends in a new book that most First Amendment freedoms received greater impetus from religiously motivated individuals than from philosophical thinkers, according to a review by Middle Tennessee State University political science professor John R. Vile.
■ The board chair at Middle Tennessee State University has pushed legislation to close official meetings for dealing with “sensitive” matters.

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Sin waggin' / Dangerous game / Walk, can't run

Sin waggin.’ Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE Act’ restricting business diversity training infringes on free-speech rights, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
■ Texas college students have asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency ruling to allow them to host a charity drag show on campus.
■ A Buffalo man who cursed a police officer in 2016 has continued his winding free-speech battle that has reached the upper echelons of federal courts.

■ Americans believe that free speech is heading “in the wrong direction” when it comes to expressing views, a national survey has found.

■ Nashville’s Metro Council vowed to keep fighting a free-speech lawsuit brought by a firefighter demoted over “racially inflammatory” social media posts.

Dangerous game. Tech founders Elon Musk and Sam Altman are poised for an AI legal battle where everyone loses, a Reuters commentary declared.
■ Lawmakers, with the support of House Speaker Mike Johnson, advance a bill that could make TikTok unavailable in the United States.

■ The Princess of Wales has issued an apology for editing an official photograph of her and her children after concerns were raised by news agencies. 
■ Sunshine Week is an annual reminder of the importance of keeping public records and meetings open to the public, proclaimed Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

■ The Freedom of the Press Foundation has joined a legal brief filed in San Diego arguing that journalists must be able to cover this country’s incarcerated.

Crushing change. The challenges of top educators in teaching journalism during times of harsh economic realities plaguing news companies was examined in an NPR perspective piece.
■ With the belief that solving the country’s local-news crisis requires reinventing community journalism at the grassroots level, entrepreneurs will have to lead the way.

■ A commitment to free speech makes the United States vulnerable to disinformation campaigns, claimed MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade.

■ An Oklahoma law has teachers fearful of teaching a book that is the foundation of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” an Oscar-nominated film about the true story of white settlers who murdered members of the Osage tribe in the 1920s.

■ A Tennessee high schooler has launched a free-speech club to fight back against library book bans.

Walk, can’t run. The First Amendment does not protect Oregon lawmakers who walked out in protest and now cannot seek re-election, a judicial panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed.
■ Facing charges that he joined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, a conservative media writer has surrendered to federal authorities.
■ A union of immigration judges that regularly advocates in interviews and public forums has now been ordered to get Department of Justice approval before speaking publicly.

■ New Jersey legislation that would represent the most significant change ever to the Open Public Records Act may hinge on governor’s signature.

Swift response. Attorney Lynn Greenky in an analysis warned the college student tracking Taylor Swift’s flight information that the First Amendment protects free speech but not stalking.
■ A federal judge held veteran journalist Catherine Herridge in civil contempt for refusing to divulge a confidential source.

■ The publishing of an investigative story about Hamas’ use of sexual violence in the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel has divided The New York Times newsroom.

■ The pivotal Times v. Sullivan libel case turns 60 this month and News/Media Alliance has re-examined the watershed Supreme Court ruling.

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