The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech August 4, 2023 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. Congress Committee on House Administration: Full Committee Hearing: "Oversight of the Federal Election Commission" Wednesday, September 20, 2023, at 10:15 a.m. ET, the Committee on House Administration will hold a full committee hearing titled, “Oversight of the Federal Election Commission.” The hearing will take place in room 1310 of the Longworth House Office Building. Full Committee Hearing Notice Ed. note: Commissioner Sean Cooksey tweeted: "All six @FEC Commissioners will appear before @HouseAdmin for its first oversight hearing in 12 years on September 20. Looking forward to the chance to testify and answer questions about our work." Washington Examiner: Jim Jordan launches 'misinformation' investigation to uncover Biden 'censorship' scheme By Gabe Kaminsky .....House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) is unveiling an investigation into a purported "misinformation" tracking group he says engaged in "censorship" of disfavored speech on social media alongside the Biden administration. Center for Countering Digital Hate, a British nonprofit group with an affiliated U.S. charity, was accused in a Monday lawsuit by X Corp., formerly Twitter, of making "false" claims after alleging hate speech spiked on the platform since CEO Elon Musk's October takeover. Now, Jordan is demanding the center hand over records by Aug. 17 that could detail the extent of its White House-linked efforts targeting the First Amendment, according to a letter the chairman sent to the center on Thursday. The Courts Daily Caller: ‘Discriminatory And Indefensible’: Appeals Court Sides With Conservative Students In College Poster Policy Case By Brandon Poulter .....The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied Clovis Community College’s appeal Thursday to overturn a preliminary injunction against its poster policy, saying the policy was “unconstitutionally vague” and “too broad” in relation to the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Several conservative students acquired permission to post political posters on bulletin boards inside campus buildings in November of 2021 at Clovis Community College, which were taken down after complaints, with the students alleging that the action violated their rights, according to a lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the conservative student’s right to free speech, saying that the college’s school flyer policy, which allowed for the removal of flyers deemed “offensive,” was unconstitutional, according to the memorandum. Reason: UVA Dean of Students 'Purposefully Tampered' With Investigations Into Student's Speech, Lawsuit Claims By Emma Camp .....In the summer of 2020, Morgan Bettinger was a rising senior at the University of Virginia when a fellow student publicly accused her of telling a group of Black Lives Matter protesters that they would make "good speed bumps." Though the university's own investigation cleared Bettinger of wrongdoing—even finding that it was "more likely than not" that Bettinger's accuser never heard her make a "speed bumps" remark at all—the school punished her harshly. She was expelled in abeyance and required to complete a litany of other sanctions. Now, Bettinger has filed a lawsuit against the university claiming that administrators violated her First Amendment rights. Bloomberg Law: California Doctors Sue Licensing Board to Undo DEI Requirement By Mary Anne Pazanowski .....A California law mandating that all continuing medical education courses include diversity, equity, and inclusion training is unconstitutional, doctors say in a new lawsuit. Ophthalmologist Azadeh Khatibi, anesthesiologist Marilyn Singleton, and Virginia-based nonprofit Do No Harm say that an “implicit bias” training provision, enforced by the Medical Board of California, violates the First Amendment rights of CME teachers. The law compels CME presenters to give a message with which they may disagree and that hasn’t been proven to be effective in preventing disparities in health care, the doctors say in a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California. The Wrap: Former Fox News Reporter Ordered by Judge to Reveal Anonymous Source By Natalie Korach .....A former Fox News reporter was ordered by a federal judge to reveal the identity of a confidential source, a highly unusual case of a plaintiff’s right to legal discovery being placed above the First Amendment protections of a journalist. Trump Indictment Cato: Trump Indicted over Attempt to Remain in Power By Walter Olson .....It is widely agreed that the First Amendment protects some telling of lies for political benefit, and also that it protects (as, in effect, lobbying) some efforts to persuade government officials to carry out acts that are wicked and unconstitutional. It is equally certain that the First Amendment does not protect every act of speech or persuasion that someone might retroactively try to jam into these categories. If you shut down a pending courtroom trial by phoning in a false report of a dangerous gas leak, you cannot get off by arguing that you were just exercising your speech and lobbying rights, nor are you likely to get off by arguing that you knew there was a gas stove in the court cafeteria and were basing your 911 call on a sincere belief that there was an elevated risk of asthma from stray methane. In short, it matters in law and under the First Amendment whether speech and lobbying intended to obstruct proceedings or nullify rights was taken in good faith or otherwise, and deceitfully or otherwise. That is probably one reason why the indictment cites extensive cause to believe that Trump knew his claims of election fraud to be false, rather than wandering around in some sort of fugue state in which he might reasonably believe them to be true. Wall Street Journal: The Unprecedented Jack Smith By Kimberley A. Strassel .....As former Attorney General William Barr told CNN on Wednesday, “there were reasons not to bring” the case, and among them is “the slippery slope of criminalizing legitimate political activity.” Take Mr. Trump out of the equation and consider more broadly what even the New York Times calls Mr. Smith’s “novel approach.” A politician can lie to the public, Mr. Smith concedes. Yet if that politician is advised by others that his comments are untruthful and nonetheless uses them to justify acts that undermine government “function,” he is guilty of a conspiracy to defraud the country. Dishonest politicians who act on dubious legal claims? There aren’t enough prisons to hold them all. Jonathan Turley: Making History in the Wrong Way: The Second Trump Indictment is a Threat to Free Speech .....The hatred for Trump is so all-encompassing that legal experts on the political left have ignored the chilling implications of this indictment. This complaint is based largely on statements that are protected under the First Amendment. It would eviscerate free speech and could allow the government to arrest those who are accused of spreading disinformation in elections. In the 2012 United States v. Alvarez decision, the Supreme Court held 6-3 that it is unconstitutional to criminalize lies in a case involving a politician who lied about military decorations. The court warned such criminalization “would give government a broad censorial power unprecedented in this Court’s cases or in our constitutional tradition. The mere potential for the exercise of that power casts a chill, a chill the First Amendment cannot permit if free speech, thought, and discourse are to remain a foundation of our freedom.” That precedent did not deter Smith. This indictment is reminiscent of the case against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. His conviction on 11 corruption-related counts was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in 2016, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing that federal prosecutors relied on a “boundless” definition of actions that could trigger criminal charges against political leaders. Biden Administration Fox News: New Facebook Files reveal lengths WH was willing to go to try to control COVID narrative on social media By Hillary Vaughn .....White House officials pressed Facebook for special access to tools to target vaccine-hesitant users and berated Facebook employees for not sharing enough data, contradicting White House claims at the time. According to internal company communications viewed by Fox Business, the White House asked Facebook if they could provide government agencies with special access to tools to target users. "Since it’s a global pandemic, can we give agencies access to targeting parameters that they normally wouldn’t be able to?" President Biden’s digital director Rob Flaherty asked. The Media Deadline: Fox Cites First Amendment In Urging FCC To Renew Broadcast License In Face Of Challenge Over Coverage Of Donald Trump’s False Election Claims By Ted Johnson .....Fox says that the First Amendment limits the FCC from considering whether its news coverage of Donald Trump’s false election claims should play a role in the license renewal of its Philadelphia station. In a filing this week, Fox Television Station attorneys argued against a petition brought by the Media and Democracy Project, a challenge led in part by former Fox executive Preston Padden. The public interest group is seeking an evidentiary hearing on the license renewal of WTXF-TV, or Fox 29 on the basis of that the company “lacks the character to remain a licensee.” The Fox attorneys wrote that such a hearing “for the first time in history, have the Commission adjudicate a broadcast license renewal on the basis of cable network content, in violation of the First Amendment and the authority delegated to the Commission by Congress.” Despite the revelations from the Dominion defamation case, the Fox attorneys wrote that the litigation has “no bearing” on the license renewal. Read their response here. They also wrote that “as explained by Chairwoman [Jessica] Rosenworcel a few years ago, the government making editorial decisions about content in the course of a broadcast license renewal proceeding ‘would be an affront to our First Amendment tradition.'” Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. 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