Twitter’s First Amendment threat. Free-speech advocates fear government officials could use experimental new Twitter tools to suppress dissent.
■ A federal judge says the U.S. Postal Service violated the First when its now-defunct custom stamp program rejected as too political an artist’s design that showed Uncle Sam being strangled by a snake shaped like a dollar sign.
■ Texas is suing the Biden administration over federal regulations that it complains would violate the First by forcing businesses to recognize gay and transgender people’s bathroom and pronoun preferences.
‘Metro can’t block PETA’s appeals not to eat birds while running fried chicken ads.’ People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is suing Los Angeles’ transit agency on First Amendment grounds for refusing to run animal-rights ads on buses.
■ A federal appeals court is considering whether a Wisconsin law forbidding people from “photographing, videotaping, audiotaping, … monitoring or recording” hunters violates the First.
On campus …
Freest speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has a new ranking of the nation’s top colleges for free speech and open inquiry …
■ To protest a policy restricting the size of such displays, a University of Virginia (No. 22) student posted a sign on her residence door bearing the full text of the First Amendment—and the university took it down.
■ A federal judge says a computer policy designed to protect students at Virginia Tech (No. 107) from harassment is too vague to be enforced.
■ Colorado State University (No. 77) students and staff are calling for creation of a task force to discern free speech from harassment.
■ A University of Utah (No. 99) First Amendment scholar predicts the Supreme Court ruling in the case of a cheerleader’s profane Snapchat sets the stage for more such suits.
■ The University of Nebraska (No. 92) Thursday hosts an online First Amendment and global free-expression seminar …
■ … for which you can register free here.
‘The First Amendment is not a game setting for the government to toggle off and on.’ A federal judge has ruled against a Wisconsin sheriff who threatened a high school student with jail if she didn’t remove social media posts saying she’d contracted COVID-19.
■ The cops acted after a school administrator condemned her post as “a foolish means to get attention.”
■ Read the ruling: “Labeling censorship societally beneficial does not render it lawful.”
■ The Los Angeles City Council has banned protesters from demonstrating within 300 feet of a target’s home.
■ A Stetson University law professor says Florida’s under-challenge “anti-riot” bill has had a chilling effect on political protest.
How free is free speech? New polling finds Americans mostly united on the First Amendment’s importance—but not so much on its protection of hate speech …
■ … illustrating what the Freedom Forum’s Gene Policinski sees as the challenge of “balancing long-protected freedoms against shortcuts … in the name of combatting society’s ills.”
■ A federal judge says the First protects MTV’s use of the title Floribama Shore from a complaint by the Florida beach bar Flora-Bama.
■ For your next movie night: Films spotlighting the First’s five freedoms of speech, press, petition, assembly and religion.