November 27, 2023

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

The Courts

Bloomberg Law: University Can Require Advance Notice for Leaflet Distribution

By Ufonobong Umanah

.....A state university’s advance notice requirement for distributing materials on campus survived a facial First Amendment challenge after the Eighth Circuit vacated a lower court’s ruling Tuesday.

Northwest Missouri State University’s policy says that distribution of non-university publications, like plaintiff Richard Hershey’s vegan pamphlet, will be unrestricted if the vice president of student affairs is notified in advance. Hershey didn’t. After being reported as a “suspicious male,” and after a police officer asked if he had permission to be on campus, he was given a trespass warning barring him from campus. A student affairs representative was unavailable at the time, the court said.

MO Free Speech: MO Free Speech Advocates for Freedom of Speech and the Press in Missouri Case of Prior Restraint

.....MO Free Speech, the Missouri nonprofit organization dedicated to upholding the principles of freedom of speech and of the press, proudly announces the filing of an amicus curiae brief in the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District. The organization is lending its support to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and reporter Katie Kull in their legal battle against a court order barring publication of any articles based on criminal defendant Thomas Kinworthy’s mental-health evaluation.

Congress

Tampa Free Press: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Pushes Back On Biden Admin “Preferred Pronouns” Rule

By Liam Edgar

.....Sen. Ted Cruz seeks to protect the free speech rights of federal workers and contractors from the Biden administration’s DEI cramdown.

The Texas Republican recently introduced a bill that would allow those employees and those who do business with the federal government to sue if they’re forced to use preferred pronouns.

Cruz’s “Safeguarding Free Speech Act,” which has a House version filed by Tennessee GOP Rep. Andy Ogles, would prohibit federal agencies from mandating staff or contractors from using personal pronouns that contradict with an individual’s biological sex, or calling a person’s name other than his or her legal name when referring to that person.

If the government forces such behavior, federal workers or contractors could sue for up to $100,000.

“Forcing anyone to use pronouns that don’t accord with a person’s biological sex is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment,” Cruz said in a statement. “As the Supreme Court held, ‘If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.’”

Free Expression

USA Today: I don't like what Rashida Tlaib has to say. Conservatives should still defend her right to say it.

By Phil Boas, Arizona Republic

.....Four Arizona lawmakers put out a scorching news release last week. Their target was Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian American in Congress. She was scheduled to speak at Arizona State University. They told her to get lost.

“Congresswoman Tlaib’s Extremist, Antisemitic Views Are Not Welcome in the State of Arizona,” the headline of the news release said.

The power of the statement was that it came from members of both parties – two Republicans and two Democrats.

And yet, they buried the lead.

Not until the last paragraph did they get to the most important words in their message:

“Congresswoman Tlaib is of course free to speak on ASU’s campus, and we commend our universities for supporting free speech and hosting uncomfortable conversations.”

Their praise of the universities was premature.

Before Tlaib could address students at Arizona State University’s Neeb Hall on Friday afternoon, the university had canceled her visit.

If you needed good reasons to stop this event, Tlaib and the student protesters who support her had provided them.

Pro-Palestinian protesters had earlier in the week disrupted a student government meeting at ASU’s Memorial Union and were accused of throwing landscaping rocks at the windows.

Some of the Jewish students there said that ASU police had to escort them from the building for their own protection, and that they endured death threats from protesters.

Houston Chronicle: Censoring extremists only makes them more extreme

By Rikki Schlott

.....The internet can be a cesspool for unsavory opinions. And in moments of social unrest, often social media companies err on the side of kicking off fringe users.

But does censoring extremists actually make bad ideas go away? Well, no.

In my new book, “The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All — But There Is a Solution,” my co-author Greg Lukianoff and I argue that censorship doesn’t actually stamp out bad ideas.

If anything, it usually makes extremists even more extreme.

Booting someone from a social media platform doesn’t banish them from the internet. More often than not, it actually sends them into its more obscure crevices.

Forcing people from a mainstream platform to a niche platform is a surefire way to insulate them in an echo chamber, where they only hear the opinions of people who agree with them.

Researchers at the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism have data to prove that censorship is closely correlated with even more extremism.

Candidates and Campaigns

Bitcoin Magazine: An Interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

By Mark Goodwin

.....RFK: Number one, my first day in office, I’ll issue an executive order against any federal agency or any federal regulator encouraging or promoting censorship at any social media site. In addition to that, I will promote legislation to change the RICO Act, the Racketeering Act, which my father originally wrote, to include as a predicate offense government-dictated censorship of free speech. I’ll also summon the heads of all of the major social media sites, including YouTube and Google, which continue to censor political speech in this country. And I’ll tell them that they need to come up with a plan about how they’re going to avoid censoring political speech. The sanction, ultimately, is to transform them into public utilities and recognize that they now have become the public square. And then I will put in legislation to amend the Communications Act, which includes Section 230, and I will, in that act, make the censorship of political speech illegal.

The States

New Yorker: Should People Have the Right to Say Awful Things Without Facing Legal Consequences?

By Jay Caspian Kang

.....Last week, Stuart Seldowitz, a former State Department official, was arrested and charged with a hate crime after videos of him delivering a series of bigoted rants against Mohamed Hussein, a twenty-four-year-old Manhattan street-cart vender, went viral. In these, Seldowitz called Hussein a terrorist, insulted his Muslim faith, and said, with a hysterical crack in his voice, “If we killed four thousand Palestinian children, you know what—it wasn’t enough.” Hussein, for his part, repeatedly asked Seldowitz to leave him alone…

What I am presenting here is a moral question about whether people have a right to say terrible things without legal consequence…

These principles were once safeguarded by institutions such as the A.C.L.U., which famously defended the First Amendment rights of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, but that type of advocacy feels both verboten and anachronistic now.

Cape Cod Times: 'Dark money': Cyr, Fernandes back bill for town meeting campaign finance transparency

By Walker Armstrong

.....A bill recently filed by Massachusetts legislators aims to close a loophole in the commonwealth’s campaign and political finance law that lawmakers have said permits the use of so-called “dark money” to influence warrant articles going before voters at town meetings.

The proposed legislation comes at a time of increased external political influence in seasonal communities across the state, said the bill’s cosponsor Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro. Such activity has notably seen an uptick on the Cape and Islands, he said.

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