Showing posts with label Previous editions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Previous editions. Show all posts

Monday, June 6, 2022

Just one vote / Beware ‘pink slime’ / Move over, ACLU

         
Just one vote. Texas Republicans nearly won Supreme Court approval for their repeal of social media companies’ First Amendment rights.
■ CNET notes the ruling nevertheless “could spell trouble for companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter.”
■ A Washington Post editorial: “The dissenters did all the talking, and it was not encouraging.”

Stonewalled? San Antonio Express-News executive editor Nora Lopez tells CNN’s Reliable Sources that “it’s become increasingly difficult for us to trust what authorities are telling us” in the aftermath of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting.
■ A phalanx of bikers working with cops blocked coverage of Uvalde funerals.

A ‘close one.’ That’s how a federal judge describes his decision to reject a former high school student’s First Amendment complaint that he was blocked from commencement after making an online racial slur.
■ High school students and their teachers overwhelmingly say people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions in public, according to a new Knight Foundation survey.

Beware ‘pink slime.’ Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan sounds an alarm about phony news sites like the one that falsely accused a suburban Chicago-area school district of planning to grade students differently based on their race.
■ One of the real news organizations serving that suburb is using that report as a fundraising hook.

Let it ride. Belmont University law professor David L. Hudson Jr. assesses a federal court ruling that a Virginia transit agency violated the First Amendment in banning political bus ads.
■ Georgetown University’s investigation of a newly hired administrator who posted critical tweets about President Biden’s promise to nominate a Black woman for the Supreme Court has cleared him of any wrongdoing.
■ Asserting that Sarah Palin failed to present “even a speck” of evidence, a federal judge has rejected her bid for a new libel trial against The New York Times.

Move over, ACLU. In a move that could signal competition for leadership of the free-speech movement, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has renamed itself Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression …
■  … and it’s pledging a $10 million ad campaign, including billboards in 15 cities.
■ First Amendment advocates are condemning a Georgia district attorney’s use of hip-hop artists’ rap lyrics in criminal cases against them.

‘What I’m asking … is to create artwork that is consistent with my beliefs.’ A Colorado web designer’s hoping the Supreme Court will affirm her First Amendment right not to build sites for same-sex weddings.
■ Nebraska’s joining a multi-state coalition supporting her case.

‘The First Amendment is stronger than Johnny Depp.’ Media lawyer Dan Novack, writing in The Atlantic, says “it would be a mistake to draw any sweeping conclusions” from Johnny Depp’s successful defamation claim against Amber Heard.
■ Free Speech Center Director Ken Paulson says that if Depp and Heard sued one another to bolster their reputations, they ironically failed.
■ An ex-prosecutor: “This isn’t really a free speech issue, this is really a credibility issue.”
■ An Indiana appeals court found one divorce’s non-disparagement clause on the wrong side of the First Amendment.


Until we meet again. This marks the end of my run as proprietor of this newsletter, which I was privileged to help launch in January 2020. Taking the reins next issue under the watch of two terrific editors, Brian Buchanan and Ken Paulson: The talented Vincent Troia, whose substantial contributions have made this issue and the last better. I’ll be cheering them and the Free Speech Center on, and I hope you will, too.
■ Meanwhile, if you’re into news for and about Chicago, you’ll still find me daily at Chicago Public Square.

Monday, May 23, 2022

‘Stop it’ / Dissed / They’ll drink to that

         
‘Stop it.’ TechDirt columnist Mike Masnick says that blaming social media for mass shootings is ridiculous.
■ Vice News’ Greg Walters on the investigation of Discord and 4chan in connection with the Buffalo supermarket massacre: “Nothing will happen.”
■ A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that the First Amendment doesn’t protect a woman fired by a health-care company after criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement on Facebook.

Court house hunting? A Washington Post editorial concedes that the right to assemble and speak freely is essential to democracy, but it calls on demonstrators to leave Supreme Court justices alone at home.
■ Veteran D.C. journalist Bill Sternberg: Are the protests legal? “Probably not.”
■ Cornell University Law School professor Michael C. Dorf: Even if they are legal, they risk distracting attention from the real issue.
■ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill forbidding picketing and protesting outside private residences …
■  … which, Post columnist Aaron Blake says, surprisingly puts Republican DeSantis on the side of many Democrats.

‘A fundamental violation of the First Amendment.’ A press-freedom lawyer sees trouble in the Texas law reinstated last week by a federal appeals court, forbidding social media networks from policing users’ submissions.
■ An industry group warns that the law is so broad as to keep platforms from removing the most extreme posts.
■ Even the libertarian Reason condemns the law as “blatantly unconstitutional” and likely to “wreak havoc on the internet as we know it.”
■ In defense of the law, Texas cites Justice Clarence Thomas, who last year compared digital platforms to “common carriers” like phone companies.

‘Pandemic or not, this court cannot look the other way.’ Louisiana’s Supreme Court has ruled that Pastor Tony Spell could not be convicted for violating executive orders limiting in-person gatherings, concluding that such restrictions infringed on his First Amendment religious-liberty rights.
■ Spell to his congregation after the ruling came down: “Devil, you just got dethroned.”

Chief distinction. A U.S. Circuit Court has tossed out claims of First Amendment retaliation against Jellico, Tenn., police chiefs after their dismissal by the town mayor—saying that, as public employees, they weren’t protected.
■ Read the opinion here.
■ A federal appeals court governing Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah and parts of Yellowstone National Park in Idaho and Montana is considering whether recording police is a First Amendment right there.

Dissed. The Department of Homeland Security’s plans for a “Disinformation Governance Board” is on life-support after the woman President Biden picked to run it complains she fell victim to … disinformation.
■ U.S. Marine Corps University law professor Jill Goldenziel: “Disinformation is necessary. Governing it might be illegal.”
■ The Atlantic’s Charlie Warzel declares the DCB another “Cursed News Story.”

‘The Supreme Court just made it much easier to bribe a member of Congress.’ Vox’s Ian Millhiser says a legal victory for Sen. Ted Cruz is a boon to wealthy candidates.
■ Post deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus: “The court’s decision enables blatant political corruption in the supposed service of the First Amendment.”
■ American-British law firm Hogan Lovells: The ruling casts a shadow over future campaign finance restrictions.

News of note. New York State lawmakers have taken a step toward making theirs the first state in the nation to limit rap lyrics’ use as evidence in criminal trials.
■ Culture journalist Evette Dionne: “It’s nearly impossible to prove that a rapper’s content can be directly linked to real-world crime, but that hasn’t stopped prosecutors from attempting to use the strategy to bury them.”

‘We can’t keep f*** you out of books or movies … but we should be able to keep it off license plates.’ Governing Magazine executive editor Alan Ehrenhalt ponders the First Amendment issues surrounding vanity license plates.
■ Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Gehrke: Utah ordinances on political signs violate citizens’ free-speech rights.

They’ll drink to that. Maryland’s Flying Dog Brewery has won a First Amendment federal court fight for the right to label their beer in North Carolina with a silhouette of a naked man.
■ A Wilson Times (N.C.) editorial celebrates the failure of “a tired excuse for government censorship: The ban … is only meant to protect the children.”


Vince Troia contributed mightily to this edition.

Monday, May 9, 2022

‘A huge win’ / Pay to tweet? / She’ll be back

         
‘A huge win.’ A plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit against facial recognition firm Clearview AI hails a proposed settlement under which the company agrees to limit the use of its massive collection of images …
■  … technology that those concerned about stalkers, ex-partners or predatory companies challenged under Illinois’ pioneering biometric privacy law.
■ The company had hired free-speech champion Floyd Abrams to argue that the First Amendment protected its right to make publicly available information searchable.

Devil’s in the details. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled Boston violated a Christian group’s First Amendment rights by refusing to let its flag fly over Boston’s City Hall Plaza, the Satanic Temple religious freedom advocacy group wants its standard hoisted there this summer …
■  … for “Satanic Appreciation Week.”
■ The group honors Satan not as an evil figure but as one who questioned authority.
■ A Wayne State University professor explains: “The key question … was whether raising a flag on City Hall’s third flagpole was an act of government speech or private expression.”
■ Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Stuart Gerson sees the ruling this way: “When government does not speak, it may not discriminate on the basis of religion as to access to a public facility.”
■ Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby: “How many more times must Boston be spanked by all nine members of the nation’s highest court before it learns to treat the First Amendment with respect?”

‘Police are concerned that if they do something about protesters outside of a clinic, they’re going to get sued for violating their First Amendment rights.’ If the Supreme Court indeed overturns Roe v. Wade, a Drexel University law professor tells Mother Jones the legal line between harassment and free speech will get blurrier.
■ Jewish organizations contend that an abortion ban would threaten their First Amendment freedoms.

R.I.P., ‘free speech zones.’ A new Georgia law outlaws them on college campuses …
■ Iowa public universities’ new requirement that students, faculty and staff undergo First Amendment training is off to a slow start.
■ A Wall Street Journal editorial celebrates an Ohio mother’s free-speech victory in a lawsuit filed after a school board president told her to “zip it.”

Pay to tweet? Aspiring Twitter owner Elon Musk is mulling the prospect of imposing “a slight cost” on commercial and government agencies to use the service.
■ CNET: Pitching itself to advertisers, Twitter “made little more than a veiled allusion to … Musk.”
■ A federal court has tossed Donald Trump’s lawsuit complaining that Twitter was acting as a government agent when it kicked him off …
■  … but the judge left the door open for him to file an amended complaint.
■ George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley suggests five steps to save free speech on Twitter.

She’ll be back. Georgia’s top election official has ruled that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene can stay on the Republican primary ballot …
■  … overruling challengers’ contention that she should be kicked off because she engaged in insurrection …
■  … but similar fights continue in other states.
■ Truckers who drove to Washington to protest COVID-19 vaccine requirements are suing the city on First Amendment grounds.
■ Maine is retreating from its “anything goes” approach to license-plate wording.

‘The Orwellian name’ didn’t help. ABC News says the Biden administration is playing defense over its proposal to establish a “Disinformation Governance Board” …
■ Another Journal editorial: Pull the plug on the DGB …
■ Turley again, sarcastically: Biden’s choice to head the agency is “practically perfect in every way.”

Monday, April 25, 2022

‘A full-blown assault’ / Twitter chitter / ‘Tell the meat inspector’

         
‘A full-blown assault on the First Amendment.’ Free Speech Center Director Ken Paulson says Florida’s new law punishing Disney for opposing the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law is far worse than the “feud,” “rift” or “battle” some news organizations have characterized it as.
■ Mike Masnick at Techdirt: “Florida’s Republican politicians are … bending over backwards to give Disney all the evidence they need to … get these legislative changes declared unconstitutional” …
■  … but the unique nature of Disney’s self-government at its Orlando complex complicates things.
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signature on the bill “makes a mockery of right-wing wailing about ‘free speech.’”
■ The Atlantic’s David French: “DeSantis Aims at Disney, Hits the First Amendment.”

Ball’s in court’s court. The U.S. Supreme Court today heard an ex-football coach’s case against a public high school that put him on paid leave after he led prayers with students at the 50-yard line …
■ The coach has lost repeatedly in lower courts …
■  … but Politico says the justices seemed sympathetic to him.
■ Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson predicts the court’s conservative wing will “make a mockery of the separation of church and state.”
■ Hear today’s arguments here.
■ Last week, justices upheld an Austin ordinance blocking the digitization of billboards—rejecting an argument that the rule violated the First Amendment.
■ Read that ruling here.
■ The court also refused to revive a Kansas ban on secret filming at slaughterhouses.

Twitter chitter. Earth’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, was reportedly close to acquiring Twitter …
■  … a deal that conservative Republicans, such as U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, see as “good for the First Amendment” …
■  … although Quartz’s Scott Nover suggests that “Musk’s interest in taking over Twitter has more to do with exerting control over his favorite playground than it does with promoting free speech.”
■ Cato Institute senior fellow Cathy Young discounts “panic” over Musk’s potential purchase: “Part of Twitter’s outsize importance is that it’s the playpen of choice for media and for political activists.”
■ Exemplifying the sort of policy Musk has deprecated, Twitter’s banning ads that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change.

‘We often don’t know what principles govern those decisions.’ Barack Obama, who says he’s “pretty close to a First Amendment absolutist,” nevertheless says Congress should hold social media platforms to a higher standard for what is or isn’t allowed on their platforms and how it appears—offering an analogy to meatpackers: “They don’t have to reveal to the world what that technique is. They do have to tell the meat inspector.”

‘I was asking people to come for a peaceful march, which is what everyone is entitled to do under the First Amendment.’ Testifying in a hearing to determine if she should be tossed off the ballot for her actions during the January 2021 insurrection, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene asserted, “My words never ever mean anything for violence.”
■ The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake: “It seems unlikely that anything established in the testimony would clear the legal bar of proving Greene incited the insurrection. … But we finally have something to review, from a congressional leader of the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement.”
■ George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley sees the effort to remove Greene and other inflammatory candidates from the ballot as “part of a new movement to defend democracy by denying it.”

■  … and instead will pay the professor $400,000 in damages and attorney’s fees.
■ Oklahoma’s governor has signed a bill creating a “Free Speech Committee” to oversee and recommend improvements in public universities’ free-speech policies and training programs, and to review campus First Amendment complaints.
■ The National Coalition Against Censorship is calling on Palm Beach, Fla., public school libraries to put a couple of books featuring transgender characters back on the shelves.

Monday, March 28, 2022

‘Don’t Say Gay’ Day / Gone books / Musk vs. Twitter

         
■ 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.”
■ 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 …
■ 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.”

Monday, February 28, 2022

‘A direct assault on civil rights law’ / ‘This … violates … the First Amendment’ / TRUMP TOO SMALL™

         
‘A direct assault on civil rights law.’ Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern says the Supreme Court’s decision to decide the case of a graphic designer who wants a legal guarantee that she can turn down website commissions for same-sex ceremonies signifies that “a constitutional revolution led by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch has finally arrived.”
■ National Review’s David Harsanyi says the case gives the court “a chance to reaffirm that we don’t coerce people to say things—or refrain from saying things—in ways that violate their conscience.”
■ George Washington University Law School Professor Jonathan Turley says it “seems uniquely framed to reinforce free speech on religious values in conflicts with anti-discrimination laws.”
■ Justices passed on a chance to review a Texas school district employee’s First Amendment complaint that he was fired for criticizing a superintendent’s alleged misuse of funds.

Trucks and the First Amendment. At least one convoy of truckers headed from California to Washington, D.C., to protest at President Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday has fizzled …
■  … but others were still on the move  …
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “Legislatures and Congress need … seizure/forfeiture laws related to the use of vehicles to obstruct traffic for protest purposes.”
■ Stephen Colbert schools supporters of Canadian truckers who inspired the U.S. protests: “Their first amendment isn’t about freedom of speech. It establishes the Province of Manitoba.”

‘This … violates … the First Amendment.’ Two dozen media and press-freedom organizations are sounding an alarm about Arizona legislation that would forbid unauthorized close-range recordings of police …
■  … within 8 feet, to be precise; but it would let those in a car stopped by police or being questioned record such encounters.

‘There is no subjective morality test within our First Amendment jurisprudence.’ National Review senior writer Charles Cooke says a Newsweek piece in which Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk suggests Satanism doesn’t merit First Amendment protection butchers the amendment in God’s name.
■ The Freedom Forum: Arguments for regulating social media fail the First Amendment test.
■ A First Amendment scholar at Harvard explains why ads for gambling are legal, but ads for cigarettes aren’t.

TRUMP TOO SMALL™. A federal appeals court has ruled that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office compromised a lawyer’s right to free speech when it refused to register a trademark on that phrase for use on T-shirts.
■ The court concluded the phrase “invokes a memorable exchange between President Trump and Senator Marco Rubio from a 2016 presidential primary debate, and aims to convey that some features of President Trump and his policies are diminutive.”
■ The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are siding with Twitter to oppose the use of what Techdirt calls “a sketchy copyright claim” to expose an anonymous user critical of a hedge-fund billionaire.
■ The libertarian Cato Institute sees upsides for conservatives and liberals in the launch of Trump’s Truth Social social-media platform.

Monday, February 14, 2022

Journalism’s ‘worst possible scenario’ / Back to school / ‘Sweeping reform’

         
Update, 2:53 p.m.: Politico reports “Judge throws out Palin libel case against New York Times.”

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.”
■ 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.

Feb. 23: Free and open to the public

Monday, January 31, 2022

Not the 1st Amendment / Whoops / ‘No work is safe’

         
Not the First Amendment. A guy who says his First Amendment rights were violated when Spirit Airlines forced him to take off an electronic mask bearing a euphemistic slur aimed at President Biden …
■ Netflix’s First Amendment defense against a chess master who says its Queen’s Gambit series defamed her failed to pass muster with a federal judge in California.

Yes, the First Amendment. An Ohio appeals court says the Constitution protected a man who invoked his free-speech rights as he called a police officer a “dummy,” “piece of s---” and an “a--hole.”
■ People on New York State’s sex offender registry now can access the internet and social media platforms with few restrictions.

‘This is going to be a messy place.’ The president of a nonpartisan think tank devoted to First Amendment issues sees a rough time ahead for a Florida bill that would compel private sports teams to play the national anthem at every game.
■ The bill’s sponsor says he doesn’t know of any team not playing it now, but “this is just to make sure.”

Protesters’ payday. A federal judge has ordered the parties who sued over anti-Israel demonstrations outside a Michigan synagogue to give the protesters $159,000—to cover their legal defense of what the courts found to be free speech.
■ A federal judge cites the First Amendment in blocking a Texas law forbidding government entities from doing business with contractors that participated in boycott, divestment or sanctions activity against Israel.
■ A Tampa-area transit authority’s ban on religious ads runs afoul of the First Amendment, according to a federal court in Florida.
■ The former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union—a man who famously defended Nazis’ right to protest in a largely Jewish Chicago suburb—accuses the ACLU of cherry-picking free-speech cases that don't offend or threaten other civil liberties.
■ The ACLU is going to court on behalf of a Vermont woman cited by police for disturbing the peace after she criticized a local business owner on Facebook for racism.

Whoops. A First Amendment lawsuit filed against the University of Illinois at Chicago accuses the university of subjecting a law professor to “sensitivity training” that used the same slur he was punished for including in an exam question.
■ The professor tells Chicago columnist Eric Zorn (middle of his Picayune Sentinel email): “If I had any doubts about suing the feckless administrators who have subjected me to this outrageous abuse, those doubts are completely dispelled by this readings list that lays their hypocritical abuse completely bare.”
■ Indiana universities have hesitated to back a bill nominally about guaranteeing free speech on campus—warning that it could encourage litigation and complicate First Amendment case law.

‘A victory for free speech.’ MTSU First Amendment scholar John R. Vile hails a federal judge’s order that the University of Florida stop forbidding professors from providing expert testimony in lawsuits against the state.

‘No work is safe.’ The executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund sounds an alarm about a Tennessee school board’s unanimous vote to remove the celebrated Holocaust-themed graphic novel Maus from its eighth-grade curriculum.
■ Pop-culture critic Gregory Paul Silber’s open letter to the board: “Nazism … started with bigotry, and scapegoating, and suppression of free speech. You’d know that if you read more books about the subject. Maus would be a great place to start.”
■ Maus sales have skyrocketed.

‘Breyer may have saved his best for last.’ Belmont University College of Law Professor David L. Hudson Jr. says departing Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer played a key role in a student-speech victory for the ages—including “a line that student-speech advocates will cite for decades: ‘America’s public schools are the nurseries of democracy.’”
■ Here’s a look at Breyer’s First Amendment record.

‘It’s about the peaceful transfer of power.’ A Washington lawmaker defends a bill that would forbid elected officials or candidates from knowingly lying about election outcomes if those claims trigger violence.
■ Gov. Jay Inslee says the bill’s been refined so as not to infringe on the First Amendment.
■ Yale University law professor Stephen Carter, warning that “everybody seems to be focused on Jan. 6, 2021—and perhaps overreacting to an isolated event,” asks whether Americans even know what free speech is.

‘Get ready for Sarah Palin v. The New York Times Company.’ Former USA Today editorial page editor Bill Sternberg says the outcome of the case “could have ironic consequences” for news organizations’ First Amendment protections.
■ First, she has to get past her COVID-19 infection.



Monday, January 17, 2022

50-yard faith / Flags in the news / Free-speech Barbie

         
50-yard faith. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to tackle the case of a Washington state public high school football coach fired after kneeling midfield in prayer.
■ The coach contends his worship was private, but he regularly delivered postgame prayers to crowds of players and others …
■  … a practice the school board says potentially could have left it in violation of the Constitution’s ban on state endorsement of religion.
■ Within a week, a federal judge promises a ruling on whether the University of Florida violated faculty members’ free-speech rights by requiring them to get approval before serving as expert witnesses in outside cases.
■ A national organization advocating for conservatives’ free speech complains that Virginia Tech’s student-conduct rules undermine the First Amendment rights of those opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement, gay marriage and the use of preferred pronouns by members of the transgender community.
■ Two recent graduates of an Aurora, Colo., Jesuit high school took to the pages of The Denver Post to protest the school’s retraction of a student magazine that included an opinion piece on abortion in which a freshman advocated for “the basic human right of choice.”
■ Tips to university administrators from Campus Safety magazine: “How your college can meet its own goals while also accommodating the First Amendment rights of protestors.”

Sedition and the First Amendment. A William & Mary Law School professor says the charges announced by the Justice Department against people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection raise “serious concerns about the rights of others protesting government actions down the road.”
■ Author and veteran lawyer Teri Kanefield in The Washington Post: The First Amendment may not help those defendants as much as they think it will.
■ Three civil lawsuits filed by House Democrats and Capitol Police officers allege that Donald Trump and his allies instigated the insurrection.
■ A George Washington University Law School professor rejects Trump lawyers’ call for the suits’ dismissal: “There’s no such thing as ‘absolute immunity’ for former presidents.”
■ A Seattle TV journalist targeted by a neo-Nazi leader who was convicted of conspiracy and mailing threatening communications—and who defended his actions as free speech—says the verdict “makes me appreciate my chosen profession.”

Flags in the news.
■ The American Civil Liberties Union, long opposed to commingling church and state, nevertheless says the Constitution requires Boston to let a Christian organization fly its flag in front of Boston’s City Hall.
■ Boston Globe commentary from a Jewish legal advocate and a Baptist minister: Boston was right to refuse.
■ The Supreme Court hears the case Tuesday morning.
■ A Kansas City Star columnist concedes that a “F___ Biden” flag outside an Overland Park home passes constitutional muster, but pleads for “the kind of self-restraint … that is in such short supply today.”
■ A “F___ OFF” banner on a home triggered controversy in Hampton, N.H.
■ A Washington state appeals court says a man who yelled “F___ the police” and pointed a finger as if he were aiming a gun at an officer was engaging in protected expression.

Phone porn crackdown. Arizona lawmakers will consider a bill that raises First Amendment questions, holding criminally liable those who sell a computer, smartphone or tablet lacking a filter to keep kids from accessing “harmful content.”
■ It has the backing of “an anti-LGBT and anti-porn activist known for his wild stunts.”
■ The Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking a federal appeals court to block copyright rules that it says violate the First Amendment by criminalizing some speech about technology—“preventing researchers, tech innovators, filmmakers, educators, and others from creating and sharing their work.”

Free-speech Barbie. Mattel has created a Barbie doll honoring black female newspaper editor, NAACP co-founder and First Amendment champion Ida B. Wells.
■ There’s a purchase limit of three per user.


Monday, January 3, 2022

‘Not protected by the First Amendment’ / ‘Hateful and hurtful speech’ / Lawsuit that backfired

         
■ Here’s his 43-page opinion.
■ A lawyer for a Michigan county commissioner who, while attending a virtual board meeting from his home last January, grabbed a semi-automatic rifle says his client was just exercising his First Amendment right and not intimidating a citizen critical of the Proud Boys.
■ You can see the video here.

‘Twitter is an enemy to America.’ That’s Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s response to Twitter’s decision to ban her personal account for multiple violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
■ Los Angeles Times reporter David Lazarus: Greene’s case “has prompted many conservatives to demonstrate their lack of understanding about the First Amendment.”
■ Columnist Matthew Yglesias fears “Twitter deplatforming the most deranged GOP politicians is a favor to Republicans.”
■ Techdirt’s Mike Masnick complains that Sen. Amy Klobuchar's “silly letter to Facebook raises First Amendment issues and only gives ammo to misinfo peddlers that Facebook is a state actor.”
■ The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s look back at 2021: “The Year Lawmakers Tried to Regulate Online Speech.”

‘Hateful and hurtful speech.’ A rash of stickers posted near campus—apparently by white supremacists—posed a First Amendment puzzle for a Pennsylvania university.
■ Asserting that the First Amendment doesn’t apply, a federal judge has nevertheless rejected an Arkansas school district’s request to seal proceedings in the case of ninth-grade basketball players accused of sexually assaulting eighth-grade teammates.

‘An outrage against the First Amendment.’ Journalism professor Dan Kennedy condemns a New York judge’s order forbidding The New York Times from publishing confidential documents it unearthed in investigating the reactionary group Project Veritas.
■ Techdirt: Veritas has been “on the one hand, screaming about their own press freedoms … while simultaneously trying to get a prior restraint order against the … Times.”

Mail-in ballots and free speech. Two Texas election officials are going to court on First Amendment grounds against a new law forbidding them from soliciting vote-by-mail ballot applications.
■ Their 24-page motion contends the law imposes content-based restrictions on their right to discuss elections.

‘Can the government censor you for tweeting happy birthday to a judge?’ Wall Street Journal commentator Thomas Berry suggests that a bill advancing in the U.S. Senate—aimed at protecting federal judges and their families—would violate the First Amendment.
■ The bill is a response to an attack that left a federal judge’s 20-year-old son dead and her husband critically wounded at their home.
■ Read it here.

Lawsuit that backfired. A Nebraska town that sued a man for writing letters and sending email that city officials and the police department considered “burdensome” will pay him $16,000 to drop his First Amendment claim against them.
■ A Michigan woman is celebrating a prosecutor’s decision not to seek felony charges against her for outing nurses spreading misinformation about COVID-19.

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