Free speech, free book. The Free Speech Center is offering teachers a new book to help them teach about the Bill of Rights …
■ … especially on Constitution Day, which rolls around again Friday.
■ Download the book here.
■ The Annenberg Public Policy Center’s annual civics study concludes that the political turmoil of recent months has left Americans much better informed than ever about the three branches of government.
On campus …
‘We are essentially legally prevented from punishing, suspending or expelling students who say or write something many of us find insulting, derogatory and disrespectful.’ Days after contentious campus confrontations between students and preachers making offensive, racist and homophobic statements, Colorado State University pledges that it “will always do what is within the letter of the law to … disavow any speech that does not conform to our Principles of Community.”
■ Above the Law: “Emory Law School Professors Diversify The Slurs They’re Willing To Say In The Classroom.”
■ A law professor who’s written a biography of former American Civil Liberties Union general counsel Morris Ernst concludes that “in the decade before World War II, no one did more … to extend legal protections to literature, art, theater, and movies.”
Jan. 6 and the First. Documents reviewed by CNN detail how the Department of Homeland Security used the First Amendment in the months before the Capitol insurrection to restrict the flow of intelligence reports about “election-related threats.”
■ The Capitol Police chief says fencing is coming back to the Capitol ahead of a Saturday rally for the insurrectionists, but he pledges “to protect everyone’s First Amendment right to peacefully protest.”
‘Satire will always be protected as free speech.’ That’s a satirical website’s response to an Olney, Md., baseball team’s legal complaint about a piece mocking it with an allusion to the porn-centric OnlyFans website.■ The Takoma Torch’s letter to the team ends with “cc: Barbara [sic] Streisand,” a reference to the Streisand Effect—in which an attempt to prevent information from circulating instead draws publicity to it.
■ A Washington State appeals court says the First protects Fox News from lawsuits over its talent’s false statements about the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘This bizarre law violates … the First Amendment.’ A conservative group is going to court against Montana’s “clean campaign” law, requiring candidates be notified of election mailers criticizing them.
■ A federal judge has blocked Florida’s “anti-riot” law, on grounds it allowed criminal charges against people protesting peacefully and others who happen innocently to be in the area of a demonstration turned violent.
■ Prosecutors are seeking to limit any talk of the First Amendment or free speech in the forthcoming trial of a Black Lives Matter protester arrested in Tampa during a 4th of July march last year.’
‘This … forces websites to host obscene, anti-Semitic, racist, hateful, and otherwise awful content.’ Social media organizations are challenging a new Texas law forbidding the largest social media companies from removing users or their posts based on their political viewpoints.
■ Quartz: It clearly violates the First.
‘That does not seem right.’ A UConn Law School professor reacts to a judge’s order that a blogger who frequently criticizes Hartford police turn over his laptop and cellphone in a lieutenant’s effort to ID and sue commenters—allegedly fellow cops—who’ve accused him of racism.
■ CNET warns that a phone that promises to prioritize “free speech and privacy” above anything else smells like a scam.
Thanks to Chris Koenig, who made this edition better.