Steele and brass. Seeking to establish its own “right to free speech,” ESPN management has filed a motion to dismiss sports anchor Sage Steele’s freedom-of-speech lawsuit against the network, which “sidelined” her with pay after potentially insensitive on-air comments.
■ Read more on Steele’s original lawsuit here.
■ Sports Illustrated took heat on Twitter after promoting its story on high school football coach Joe Kennedy and his fight to pray on the field by saying a Supreme Court win would be “an erosion” of the separation between church and state.
■ CBS News tackles the history of the coach’s religious freedom case.
■ Sports Illustrated took heat on Twitter after promoting its story on high school football coach Joe Kennedy and his fight to pray on the field by saying a Supreme Court win would be “an erosion” of the separation between church and state.
■ CBS News tackles the history of the coach’s religious freedom case.
‘We will never stop.’ Driven
by a leaked Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, pro-choice protesters staged
another residential demonstration, this time outside Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s home.
■ The Federalist’s John M. Reeves writes that
individuals who picket outside Supreme Court justices’ residences should be
charged with breaking the law, since attempting to intimidate judges is not allowed under
the law.
■ First
Amendment author and professor Lynn Greenky in Ms. ponders this: “If
sidewalk counseling regarding options to continue a pregnancy is protected political
speech, so too should be counseling options regarding the choice to legally terminate a pregnancy.”
Like it, love it, want more of it. Despite the
criticism and obstacles they face, most journalists would not trade their jobs
for anything else, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.
■ Poynter’s Erin McGroarty examines the
societal shift that has moved journalists covering real-time protests from
observers to targets and the ramifications for press freedom.
‘We should allow people to say what they want.’ The
Guardian says Elon Musk made that comment during a
conference call with employees of Twitter—a company he’s pursuing but doesn’t yet own —a session that morphed into a freedom-of-speech address.
■ HuffPost’s Ryan Grenoble questions how Musk can profess to be a “free speech absolutist” but allow the
termination of employees who penned a letter criticizing him for what the
company called “overreaching activism.”
■ Opinion: Andrew Napolitano, author and former New
Jersey judge, says Twitter is free to suppress or allow any speech or
speaker on its site, “unless it is doing the government’s bidding.”
■ With a $4 million bounty on his head and a mantra
that “free speech should be seen as the air we breathe: self-evident,” author
Salman Rushdie turns 75.
Skirting the issue. After a long legal battle
between a charter school and its students, a North Carolina judge ruled that
gender-specific uniform requirements are unconstitutional.
■ The University of Houston has settled a lawsuit with
a First Amendment rights group that protested a school policy “designed to
chill student speech.”
■ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “anti-WOKE” bill faces a new legal challenge as a union representing college faculty members pushes back.
■ North Carolina law enforcement agencies have agreed to a
$336,000 settlement stemming from a 2020 peaceful rally where marchers were
pepper-sprayed and arrested.
Closed doors. A Tennessee federal judge denied an
editor’s lawsuit complaining that an annual conference of state judges should be open to the
public, ruling that the gathering would not produce any policy decisions.
■ An Arizona Supreme Court vice chief justice, ruling against a Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press challenge to have juror names publicly available, says that “providing them … might even imperil jury integrity.”■ The Detroit News reports that two Republican
gubernatorial hopefuls disqualified from Michigan’s August primary ballot plan to sue the companies that circulated petitions after thousands of
signatures were ruled invalid.
■ A self-proclaimed “rabbi rouser” is suing the
state of Florida over abortion restrictions, claiming they violate religious freedoms of Jewish law.
‘Dark day for press freedom.’ As Wikileaks founder Julian Assange faces the prospect of extradition to the U.S. for espionage charges, Wikileaks defends him as a journalist “being punished for doing his job.”
■ The legal battles to come will pit national security
against fundamental press-freedom rights.
Remembering raised eyebrows. UT-Knoxville media professor Stuart N.
Brotman revisits his role during late comedian George George Carlin’s censorship battle with the FCC in 1973.
■ HBO shines a light on Carlin’s career with a four-hour biography streaming now.
Illegal procedure. Coming to the defense of Washington Commanders defensive coordinator Jack
Del Rio, who told reporters the storming of the U.S. Capitol was a “dust-up,” law professor Jonathan
Turley says the NFL should not “be in the business of fining employees because they
take the wrong side of a public controversy.”
■ Commanders head coach Ron Rivera tells Sports
Illustrated he’s read the First Amendment “over and over” and has a copy in his desk.
