November 16, 2023

In the News

KGET (Video): Federal judge sides with BC professor in First Amendment suit over campus DEI policies

By Mikhala Armstrong

.....Rules requiring California community colleges and their faculty to promote diversity, equity and inclusion could violate a Bakersfield College professor’s freedom of speech, according to a U.S. Magistrate Judge.

This decision by Judge Christopher Baker could be the first step toward overturning statewide rules on DEI policies at California Community Colleges.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Community College "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility" Requirements for Teaching and Other Professional Work Violate First Amendment

By Eugene Volokh

.....From today's Report and Recommendations by Magistrate Judge Christopher D. Baker (E.D. Cal.) in Johnson v. Watkin; the plaintiff is a history professor at Bakersfield College, a California public community college. The opinion is long, so I've excerpted it heavily; read the whole thing for more of the legal analysis, and the interesting and contentious factual backstory.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Community College Ban on "Verbal Forms of Aggression … Harassment, Ridicule or Intimidation" Is Unconstitutionally Vague

By Eugene Volokh

..... From today's Report and Recommendations by Magistrate Judge Christopher D. Baker (E.D. Cal.) in Johnson v. Watkin:

The Courts

Politico (Influence): Appeals court mulls whether to revive Wynn FARA case

By Caitlin Oprysko 

.....A federal appeals court this morning wrestled with whether to revive the Justice Department’s bid to force casino magnate Steve Wynn to register as a foreign agent of the Chinese government, after the department’s previous effort to do so was tossed because of decades-old legal precedent that bars DOJ from requiring foreign agents to retroactively register once they are no longer performing that work.

Politico: Prosecutors urge appeals court to reinstate Trump gag order

By Kyle Cheney

.....Former President Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on the family of special counsel Jack Smith and his repeated invective against likely witnesses in his Washington, D.C. criminal case warrant the urgent restoration of a gag order against him, prosecutors argued Tuesday.

Smith’s team urged a federal appeals court in Washington to reinstate the gag order — which a three-judge panel suspended earlier this month — amid Trump’s appeal of the restrictions imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The prosecutors argued that Trump has exploited two temporary suspensions of the gag order to mount some of his most inflammatory attacks on prosecutors and witnesses.

“The defendant here has taken advantage of administrative stays to engage in targeting of witnesses, as well as prosecutors and their families,” Smith’s team wrote in the 67-page filing.

Roll Call: Santos campaign fundraiser pleads guilty in scheme to solicit political contributions

By Chris Marquette

.....A former campaign fundraiser for Rep. George Santos pleaded guilty Tuesday, the second person in the New York Republican’s camp who has admitted to a federal crime tied to the campaign.

Samuel Miele, 27, pleaded guilty to wire fraud as part of a scheme to improperly obtain political donations, the Justice Department announced. Sentencing is scheduled for April 30 before Judge Joanna Seybert of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Online Speech Platforms

Wall Street Journal: Meta Allows Ads Claiming Rigged 2020 Election on Facebook, Instagram

By Salvador Rodriguez

.....Meta Platforms will let political ads on Facebook and Instagram question the legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, one of several changes the social-media company and other platforms have made to loosen constraints on campaign advertising for 2024.

Meta made the change last year, but it hasn’t gained wide attention. The company decided to allow political advertisers to say past elections were “rigged” or “stolen” but prevented them from questioning the legitimacy of ongoing and coming elections. 

Executives at Meta made the decision based on free-speech considerations after weighing past U.S. elections in which the results might have been contested by a portion of the electorate, according to people familiar with the issue.

Lee Fang: NewsGuard's For-Profit Censorship Model Merges Government and Corporate Power

.....NewsGuard has faced mounting criticism that rather than serving as a neutral public service against online propaganda, it instead acts as an opaque proxy for its government and corporate clients to stifle views that simply run counter to their own interests. 

The criticism finds support in internal documents, such as the NewsGuard proposal to Twitter, which this reporter obtained during Twitter Files reporting last year, as well as in government records and discussions with independent media sites targeted by the startup. 

The States

People United for Privacy: Legal Fight Over Texas Abortion Law Spurs Donor Privacy Concerns

By Brian Hawkins

.....In the ongoing legal battle over a Texas anti-abortion law, donor privacy rights have taken center stage. Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas solicitor general defending the law on behalf of the Texas Attorney General, issued multiple subpoenas aimed at obtaining and exposing sensitive information about the donors and volunteers to nine abortion funds in the state, raising serious concerns among abortion supporters and many Democrats about infringement of free speech and personal privacy rights.

Washington Examiner: Free speech wins in Florida

By Brad Polumbo

.....State officials just announced that they are "pausing" their plan to force the derecognition of these Students for Justice in Palestine groups due to fear of "potential personal liability for university actors."

New York Post: Massachusetts town approves proposal to fly Palestinian flag

By Nicholas McEntyre

.....A Massachusetts town approved flying the Palestinian flag for a month despite heated debates among its residents in the wake of Hamas terrorists’ attack on Israel in October…

College student Selma Khayal originally petitioned for the Palestinian flag to be raised after the town had flown the Israeli flag on the same pole following the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, according to the flag raising permit viewed by The Post.

Khayal placed the request on Oct. 16, just six hours before the town updated its flag-flying policies.

The old policy allowed anyone to petition to have any flag raised in the town after approval by the Select Board “resulting in the flagpole being considered a public forum.”