■ Issues raised by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campus crusade to make changes to course content have been blown way out of proportion, contends a Penn State University professor in a new book.
■ The 10 worst colleges for free speech on large and small campuses have been “named and shamed” by FIRE.
Social calendar. Many legal dockets show 2023 as the year when the U.S. justice system will tackle complicated free-speech cases that should determine the bounds of free expression on the internet.
■ If the U.S. Supreme Court defends the editorial rights of social media entities, it is defending the First Amendment, argues former law professor Clay Calvert.
■ Free-speech advocates need to root for Google, concludes Center for Business and Human Rights deputy director Paul Barrett.
■ Alan Dershowitz, a defender of the First Amendment, is doing an about-face in suggesting that the government go after journalists, asserts a former New York prosecutor.
Pants on fire. Everyone seems to be screaming “liar, liar” at first-time U.S. congressman George Santos, but the bulk of his misrepresentations may be protected by the First Amendment.
■ Laredo citizen journalist Priscilla Villarreal has asked a federal appeals court to revive her lawsuit against officers and prosecutors who arrested her after she posted a story and video of police actions on Facebook.
■ Republican legislators in Arizona identified a legal loophole in state law and voted to exempt themselves from open-records rules.
■ Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey ordered state agencies to follow new procedures meant to strengthen a weak open-records law in her state.
■ Last year was a deadly one for journalists as killings worldwide jumped by 50 percent over 2021.
Fighting words. Public libraries are becoming First Amendment battlefields, where printed ideas bound in rows on shelves are under attack by ever-growing book censors.
■ The cancellation of a 13-page Stanford University “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative,” where IT-committee authors proposed the elimination of 161 words and phrases, prompted cheers from columnist Pamela Paul in The New York Times.
■ During Black History Month, the Free Speech Center’s David L. Hudson Jr. reflects on how the First Amendment proved to be a crucial tool for the Civil Rights Movement.
Higher order. A Madison, Wis., ordinance that limited digital billboards does not violate the First Amendment, a federal appeals court has ruled.
■ An Arizona judge has found that Phoenix’s Super Bowl sign ordinance that prevented a business owner from posting commercial signs in a downtown ‘NFL Experience’ zone violated free-speech rights.
■ An Iowa judge has decided that a resident arrested at a city council meeting last year for public comments critical of local government had a First Amendment right to criticize city employees.
