This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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In the News
By Greg Piper
.....CCC Chancellor Sonya Christian and the Kern Community College District swung back Friday against Bakersfield College history professor Daymon Johnson in separate oppositions to his lawyers' motion for a preliminary injunction, arguing their client cannot show a real threat to his tenured position from their policies, past and potential investigations, and firing of a like-minded history colleague.
Johnson replaced Matthew Garrett in leading Bakersfield's right-leaning Renegade Institute for Liberty, which has repeatedly clashed with its Social Justice Institute, cofounded by Christian when she was president of the college…
Kern also filed a motion to dismiss Johnson's case Friday, claiming "most" of his lawsuit is "based on speculation about what might happen in the future if he decides to act inconsistently with state regulations that promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility." Johnson is represented by the Institute for Free Speech.
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The Courts
By David Shepardson
.....Montana's attorney general asked a U.S. judge to uphold a first-of-its kind state ban on the use of short video sharing app TikTok before it takes effect on Jan. 1.
TikTok, which is owned by China's ByteDance, sued in May seeking to block the first-of-its-kind U.S. state ban on several grounds, arguing that it violates the First Amendment free speech rights of the company and users. A separate lawsuit has been filed by TikTok users in Montana.
Attorney General Austin Knudsen, a Republican, said Monday the state legislature and governor "did the right thing in prohibiting TikTok from operating in Montana as long as it is under the control of a foreign adversary."
Knudsen said in a legal filing that Montana can ban harmful products, saying it does not violate free speech rights.
"Were it otherwise, Montana would be powerless to ban a cancer-causing radio merely because that radio also transmitted protected speech, or to ban sports-betting apps merely because those apps also shared informative videos teaching their users the intricacies of sports gambling," he wrote in the filing late Friday. "The targeted harms -- preventing cancer, illegal gambling, or data-gathering by a hostile foreign state -- are inherently nonexpressive."
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By George Leef
.....Professor Stephen Porter of North Carolina State is a tenured member in the graduate school of education. Quite remarkably, he doesn’t think his field should become just a propaganda mill for leftist notions about diversity and social justice, but instead actually study what works in education. Over a number of years, he said some things that got under the skin of his superiors. The end result was a demotion that left him with very little opportunity to interact with students. So he filed suit against NC State.
The university defended its action, saying that Porter’s speech was “uncollegial” and therefore not protected under the First Amendment — and also that he hadn’t proved that there was a connection between his speech and the demotion. The trial judge bought that and dismissed the case. Porter appealed to the Fourth Circuit.
The Fourth Circuit split, with two Dem-appointed judges ruling in favor of the dismissal and the GOP-appointed judge tearing apart their reasoning. I write about the case and why it matters in today’s Martin Center article.
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By Aunna Dennis
.....These groups knew their coordinated spending was against the law, which is why they took steps to avoid disclosure. We at Common Cause Georgia knew this was wrong, and we filed a complaint with the FEC about True the Vote’s illegal and undisclosed contributions to the Georgia Republican Party.
The FEC’s own lawyers recommended investigating but the FEC’s commissioners didn’t have the four votes necessary to move forward with an investigation, resulting in the case being set aside.
We are now suing the Federal Election Commission to get the agency to do its job and investigate this coordinated campaign aimed at suppressing the votes of hundreds of thousands of Georgians during the hotly contested 2021 Senate run-off elections.
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Congress
By Gabe Kaminsky
.....House Republicans are raising concerns over the possibility that a super PAC supporting President Joe Biden unlawfully failed to disclose the identities of donors for a major cash transfer from the group's linked dark money group…
A source close to the House Administration Committee told the Washington Examiner that oversight of the Federal Election Commission remains one of its top priorities heading into 2024, pointing to a hearing the panel is hosting on Sept. 20. The FEC investigates alleged law violations among groups following complaints being filed, and the committee has "no reason to believe the commission isn’t going to follow established complaint procedures should someone file," according to the source.
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Free Expression
By Joel M. Gora
.....Though criticized over the years as a protection of wealth over democracy, the landmark Buckley decision has withstood the test of time because it embodied this core principle: Freedom of speech is the indispensable engine of political freedom and democracy and the government cannot be allowed to limit and control the speech that is used to challenge the government. In more recent times, the Citizens United ruling properly expanded that principle to protect the right of organizations and groups – corporate, union, non-profit — to use their resources to communicate their political messages to the public at large.
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The States
By Jim Brunner
.....After months of resistance, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson has relented and disclosed the donors behind more than $1.2 million in surplus campaign funds from past years that he shifted to his 2024 gubernatorial bid.
Ferguson pumped the cash into his campaign in April and May, getting ahead of a state Public Disclosure Commission vote that aimed to close the loophole allowing such anonymous transfers, which critics said violate the spirit of Washington’s campaign finance laws.
Facing a PDC complaint, Ferguson had fought disclosure of the supporters whose past donations he’d saved up and, with their permission, moved to his long-anticipated gubernatorial run.
That left open the prospect that Ferguson, the three-term attorney general and leading Democratic candidate for Washington governor, could hit up the same people for additional money — essentially double dipping and busting the state’s contribution limits.
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By Edmund H. Mahony
.....For the first time in years, the torrent of veiled threats and vile slurs against Connecticut judges pouring from an internet blog called The Family Court Circus has stopped — at least temporarily.
Connecticut prosecutors finally made the arrest in July of Paul Boyne, who they say is behind the blog that relentlessly identifies and targets lawyers, judges and others associated with the family division of the state court system, leaving them in fear for their lives and the lives of their families.
What comes next — if Boyne sticks to positions he has taken in the past — could be a legal showdown over free speech and the first amendment. If Boyne is prosecuted for making criminal threats, which is likely, the blog’s racist, homophobic and violent screeds will be aired in a Connecticut courtroom and, ultimately, a jury will have to identify the line separating protected speech from repugnant and unprotected threats intended to instill fear.
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Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update."
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The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the political rights to free speech, press, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org.
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