Journalism’s ‘worst possible scenario.’ That’s CNN reporter Sonia Moghe’s assessment of the Sarah Palin v. New York Times case, now in a jury’s hands …
■ … after a Times editor testified, “This is my fault.”
■ But the judge has ruled out punitive damages for Palin.
■ New York’s Andrew Rice warns: “If Sarah Palin Wins, Fox News Could Lose.”
‘Its mere existence gives states implicit approval to violate our First Amendment rights.’ An editorial in West Virginia’s Dominion Post condemns multiple states’ legislation to forbid boycotts of Israel or punish businesses that refuse to pledge not to join such boycotts.
■ A Republican-backed bill aimed at quashing “woke” lessons in schools has been advancing in Florida’s legislature.
■ Equality Florida considers it one of several “craven attempts … to build political power by targeting and demonizing LGBTQ people.”
■ Also moving ahead in Florida: A bill to set prison time for people who protest outside someone’s residence.
■ New Mexico lawmakers are moving to criminalize threats against judges.
■ The Dispatch senior editor David French warns that “the anti-woke movement is building to a fever pitch,” but that “our nation cannot censor its way back to cultural health.”
Back to school. An $825,000 settlement between the state of Minnesota and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of journalists who were hurt or harassed while covering 2021 protests of police killings will require state police to be trained on First Amendment press-freedom rights and proper treatment of news media.
■ A lawyer with the ACLU: “Providing impartial information to the public about … conflicts between law enforcement and the public is at the heart of journalism, and the right to witness and report must be protected and upheld.”
‘An ongoing war on the First Amendment.’ A professor at a Texas community college says his contract’s at an end because he encouraged the wearing of masks in the pandemic and spoke out about racism.
■ Several academic groups have rallied to his defense.
■ The University of Iowa has concluded faculty members violated the rights of a student when they set a “zero-tolerance” approach for his denunciation of fellow students’ “homosexual conduct.”
‘Sweeping reform.’ A federal court has ordered a college that muzzled student journalists to take steps to safeguard their freedom of speech.
■ A new Knight-Ipsos survey finds almost 6 in 10 U.S. college students see free speech as important—but less secure.
■ The executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter: “Catholic schools should extend free-speech rights to student journalists.”
Not the First Amendment …
■ A federal appeals court says Congress’ exclusion of adult businesses from COVID-based financial relief funding didn’t constitute a violation of their free-speech rights.
■ Indiana’s high court says a state law forbidding non-consensual distribution of intimate images—“revenge-porn”—doesn’t violate the First Amendment.
■ A Tennessee appeals court says a trial court didn’t violate three defendants’ First Amendment rights when it admitted as evidence video of them singing gangsta-rap lyrics.
… but this is. A federal appeals court has struck down under the First Amendment a law forbidding speech that encouraged undocumented immigrants to make themselves at home in the U.S.
