ACLU in ‘crisis.’ The New York Times reports an organization long devoted unwaveringly to the First Amendment has been riven by an internal debate over that commitment’s conflict with other progressive causes.
■ The New Republic’s Melissa Gira Grant accuses the Times report of creating “a false antagonism.”
■ Times columnist Michelle Goldberg: “The Left Needs the ACLU to Keep Defending Awful Speech.”
■ The ACLU’s legal director responds: “We believe the First Amendment has to protect everyone—and … we remain committed to defending even the rights of those with whom we disagree.”
■ Law360: “As ‘Anti-Riot’ Laws Pass, Legal Challenges Grow.”
■ The Economist: “In some countries, people think they have too much freedom of speech.”
On campus …
■ A Stanford Law student whose flyer satirizing the reactionary Federalist Society triggered a complaint that prompted the school to threaten his graduation is off the hook …
■ … so now he will get his diploma on Saturday.
■ Here’s the flyer that triggered the complaint.
■ Stanford Law’s dean says she would never have approved the university’s two-month investigation.
■ National Review blames “the university’s cowardly, brain-dead complaint system.”
■ An ex-University of Oklahoma volleyball player is suing the school, complaining coaches and teammates labeled her a racist and a homophobe and squeezed her off the court for her politically conservative views.
■ The Forward explains why the Supreme Court case of the cursing cheerleader matters to Jewish students.
■ Iowa’s public universities are developing plans for systematic campus training on First Amendment and free-speech issues.
■ The View host Meghan McCain—daughter of the late Republican Sen. John McCain—says “cancel culture” has prompted her to refuse to speak on college campuses: “There’s not enough money on Planet Earth to get me to … be screamed at for being a conservative, pro-life woman.”
‘F*** Biden.’ A New Jersey woman says the First Amendment protects her display of profane banners condemning the president, but the borough’s code enforcement department disagrees.
■ Police in a Chicago suburb say the First Amendment protects men spotted driving around with cars bearing signs including “Death to Klan” and “Civil Disobedience”—but the cops are also encouraging citizens to file complaints, which could lead to 30 days in jail or fines of up to $1,500.
■ American Thinker: “Did the Framers ever imagine that a powerful, although private, media outlet would claim the power—worse, the authority—to stifle the free expression of a president?”
‘A resounding victory for the First Amendment.’ A spokesman for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz hails a federal appeals court ruling striking down the federal cap on candidates using political contributions to repay personal loans they’ve made to their own campaigns.
■ A gun-rights group is suing Wyoming’s attorney general, complaining that a law requiring organizations to disclose their donors when they engage in electioneering violates the First Amendment.
‘SEX OFFENDER.’ The State of Louisiana is asking the Supreme Court to uphold a law requiring convicted sex offenders to carry a card that identifies them as such—a law that the state Supreme Court says amounts to unconstitutional compelled speech.
■ New York’s attorney general is asking a federal court to reject a lawsuit filed by an out-of-state mental health counselor who contends the state’s licensing law infringes on her free-speech rights.
‘Ham-handed.’ Free Speech Center Director Ken Paulson says The Associated Press clumsily handled the firing of a young reporter over her social-media posts, but he says the AP’s core ethics principles trump any employee’s desire to express herself.
■ A Penn State professor says the case exemplifies journalism’s “Kryptonite”: Its vulnerability to “partisans who cry bias.”