This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].  

Daily Mail: California school district is sued after administrator said he wanted to bring voices that oppose DEI measure 'to the slaughterhouse' and another called America a 'f*****g piece of s*** nation'

.....A California school administrator who was named in a lawsuit brought by a faculty member said he wanted to bring voices who opposed diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives 'to the slaughterhouse.'

SCOTUSblog: Petitions of the Week: North Carolina seeks to enforce undercover workplace-recording ban against PETA

By Kalvis Golde

.....People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals conducts investigations around the country as part of its efforts to combat the mistreatment of animals. To accomplish these exposés, PETA’s members occasionally pose as employees of other businesses and secretly record workplace operations taking place in private areas. This week, we highlight cert petitions that ask the court to consider, among other things, PETA’s First Amendment challenge to a North Carolina law that imposes monetary damages on undercover workplace recording.

Washington Examiner: The ACLU sides with bureaucrats against the little guy

.....Townstone Financial is currently battling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in federal court for comments its personnel made about crime and dangerous parts of the south suburbs and the South Side of Chicago...

Now the company finds its free speech rights facing an ironic opponent: the national ACLU and its Illinois affiliate, which filed a brief against the company . . . The irony is not lost on Barry Sturner, the president of Townstone Financial, who points out that the organization once infamously represented neo-Nazis who wanted to march through Skokie, Illinois, in 1977 when he was a child.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Challenge to Georgia BDS Law Loses on Qualified Immunity Grounds

.....I think they are facially constitutional, and Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip (8th Cir. 2022) (en banc) was correct in upholding them (see also Prof. Michael Dorf's, Prof. Andrew Koppelman's, and my amicus brief on the subject, as well as Prof. Dorf's follow-up post). At the same time, they, like other antidiscrimination laws, might be unconstitutional as applied in certain situations, perhaps including selection of speakers at an academic conference (though the question is complicated when the government is acting as contractor). But yesterday's Eleventh Circuit decision by Judges Wilson, Branch, and Luck in Martin v. Chancellor avoids the question:

Washington Post: Justice Dept. asking about 2020 fraud claims as well as fake electors

By Josh Dawsey and Devlin Barrett

.....The Justice Department’s investigation of efforts by Donald Trump and his advisers to overturn the 2020 election results is barreling forward on multiple tracks, according to people familiar with the matter, with prosecutors focused on ads and fundraising pitches claiming election fraud as well as plans for “fake electors” that would swing the election to the incumbent president.

Fox News: House Weaponization Committee: Biden admin 'colluded' with Big Tech, 'facilitated the censorship of Americans'

.....The House Weaponization Subcommittee says the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has "facilitated the censorship of Americans directly" and through third-party intermediaries during the Biden administration. 

Fox News Digital first obtained a new committee report Monday, stemming from the panel’s ongoing investigation into government-induced censorship on social media. The report focuses on CISA's alleged work ahead of the 2020 election and the 2022 midterm elections. 

New York Times: Margaret Gilleo, 84, Dies; Made a Yard Sign a Free-Speech Beacon

By Daniel E. Slotnik

.....Margaret Gilleo, who turned a local dispute over an antiwar sign on her lawn into a freedom-of-speech showdown at the Supreme Court, died on June 8 at her home in Ladue, Mo. She was 84...

Wall Street Journal: A Tax Deduction Won’t Save U.S. Charities

By Leslie Lenkowsky

.....High inflation is hitting America’s charities. Donations last year dropped by 3.4% from 2021 levels, or 10.5% after adjusting for inflation, according to the Giving USA report released this week. Never in its more than 60-year history has this annual report recorded so steep a single-year decline in real dollars...

Politico: The super PAC frenzy redefining campaign operations

.....Super PACs have been growing in strength for more than a decade, but this cycle are swimming in more money than ever. They have started earlier, with more than $14 million in independent expenditures in the primary already, according to federal data, compared with around $950,000 at this time in 2015. The groups are also taking new approaches, deploying staffing at campaign events, paying for door-knocking operations and even sending fundraising texts on candidates’ behalf.

OpenSecrets: Record contributions from dark money groups and shell companies flooded 2022 midterm elections

By Anna Massoglia

.....Federal political committees reported taking in $615 million from “dark money” groups and shell companies during the 2022 election – a new midterm record, a new OpenSecrets analysis of Federal Election Commission data found.

New York Times: As Legal Fees Mount, Trump Steers Donations Into PAC That Has Covered Them

By Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman

.....Facing multiple intensifying investigations, former President Donald J. Trump has quietly begun diverting more of the money he is raising away from his 2024 presidential campaign and into a political action committee that he has used to pay his personal legal fees...

Indiana Lawyer: IN Supreme Court schedules arguments in case on contributions to super PACs

.....The Indiana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this fall on the issue of whether state law prohibits or otherwise limits corporate contributions to political action committees or other entities that engage in independent campaign-related expenditures.

Colorado Politics: Colorado Supreme Court considers if lawyers' speech can lead to liability

By Michael Karlik

.....After Colorado's second-highest court decided that lawyers and law firms can be held liable for making inflammatory statements when publicizing certain class action lawsuits, the state Supreme Court agreed to look at whether the new rule went too far.

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