‘Don’t Say Gay’ Day. Florida’s governor has signed a bill outlawing instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity until kids have graduated third grade.
■ One of the state’s largest employers, The Walt Disney Co., which dithered on the measure for weeks, is now calling for its repeal.
■ Expect First Amendment fights to ensue (March 5 link).
Gone books. After interviewing librarians in eight states, The Washington Post reports that schools nationwide have been quietly removing titles from their libraries to avoid controversy.
■ A Texas school superintendent has ordered librarians to yank books on sexuality and transgender people.
■ UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh asks, “Who decides what is taught in government-run K-12 schools?” and concludes, “I don’t see why in principle the state government … shouldn’t have … ultimate control.”
■ A Florida Tech historian: “Book banning has a long history in America.”
■ The author of the children’s book Antiracist Baby thanks Sen. Ted Cruz for condemning it during confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson—helping his titles to the top of Amazon’s bestseller rankings.
■ The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press finds Jackson’s record on freedom of information-related cases is mixed.
‘Carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified for potential clerkships.’ A federal judge is under scrutiny for a mass email to his fellow jurists suggesting they think twice before hiring Yale Law School students who protested a Federalist Society event.
■ A former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a Fox News contributor writes in The Washington Post: “These individuals … should not be at Yale Law School in the first place.”
■ Above the Law: “Banning Law School Protests To Protect Free Speech Marks New Orwellian Heights.”
■ Yale said it had no plans to punish the students.
■ Ruling in a Texas case, a federal judge has concluded that public university officials can be held personally liable for dismissing a faculty member who anonymously criticized campus policy on “microaggressions.”
Architectural setback. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a Florida man’s assertion that the distinctive design he planned for a new home qualified for First Amendment protection.
■ He contended that his constitutional rights were compromised by the Palm Beach Architectural Review Commission’s conclusion that the design differed too radically from surrounding properties.
Censure ≠ Free-speech violation. The Supreme Court has unanimously rejected an elected public official’s complaint that his colleagues’ censure of his political actions against them violated his First Amendment rights.
■ Read the decision: “We expect elected representatives to shoulder a degree of criticism about their public service from their constituents and their peers—and to continue exercising their free speech rights when the criticism comes.”
■ National Review sums it up: “Strap on your big boy pants, you’re a public official.”
‘It feels like being seen.’ A protester subject to what a jury concluded was excessive force used against Denver protests of the police killing of George Floyd two years ago hails jurors’ award of $14 million to the victims.
■ Draft legislation in Georgia would classify some kinds of protest as felonies.
Musk vs. Twitter. Tesla and CEO Elon Musk on Friday posted a poll on Twitter asking whether Twitter “rigorously adheres” to free-speech principles …
■ … a move followed by a surge on Twitter of the phrase “Buy Twitter.”
■ Business Insider: “Despite calling himself a ‘free speech absolutist,’ Elon Musk has a history of retaliation against employees and critics.”
■ The Securities and Exchange Commission says it has legal authority to subpoena Musk about his tweets—including a Nov. 6 query asking his followers whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stake.
■ Post columnist Paul Waldman: “Big Tech has nothing to fear from a Republican Congress.”
‘The nation’s leading journalistic outlet has the First Amendment bass-ackwards.’ This New York Times editorial warning that “Americans are losing hold of … the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned” is, in the opinion of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch, “deeply flawed.”
■ Columnist Leonard Pitts calls the Times’ position “stunningly incomprehensible.”
■ The Bulwark’s Cathy Young celebrates “Our Nasty, Stupid, Frivolous Cancel Culture Fights (That We’re Lucky Enough to Have).”