November 30, 2023

In the News

Idaho Dispatch: Press Release: Idaho Freedom Caucus Member, State Senator Brian Lenney, Spearheads Anti-SLAPP Bill to Champion Free Speech

.....Idaho Freedom Caucus member and State Senator Brian Lenney has announced the introduction of a pivotal anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) bill in the 2024 legislative session...

With resounding bipartisan support, including endorsements from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Institute for Free Speech, the bill transcends political divides. It reinforces the idea that freedom of expression is a cornerstone of all American values.

Supreme Court

SCOTUSblog (Relist Watch): University bias-response teams and more Munsingwear vacatur

By John Elwood

.....The Relist Watch column examines cert petitions that the Supreme Court has “relisted” for its upcoming conference…

The highest-profile case is undoubtedly Speech First, Inc. v. Sands, involving whether state university bias-response teams – and specifically, the bias-response team at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, better known as Virginia Tech – objectively chill students’ speech in violation of the First Amendment.

Free Expression

Reason: USC Censors Jewish Professor for Saying Hamas 'Should Be Killed'

By Robby Soave

.....John Strauss is a professor of economics at the University of Southern California (USC). Earlier this month, he confronted pro-Palestinian students who had staged a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. After hearing some of the students call for the destruction of Israel, Strauss—who is Jewish—became angry.

"Hamas are murderers," he shouted in response, according to The Los Angeles Times. "That's all they are. Everyone should be killed, and I hope they are killed."

Student-protesters captured his statements on video and shared them on social media. In response, several activist groups—including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the campus's Muslim Student Union—called on the university administration take action against Strauss. A petition demanding his termination garnered 7,000 signatures.

These students swiftly got their way. Following "multiple complaints to USC's equity, diversity and Title IX office," the university placed Strauss on leave pending an investigation and barred him from campus. Administrators subsequently relented in part, allowing him to continue teaching his classes—remotely.

Daily Beast: Offensive Speech Is Still Legally Protected Free Speech. That’s a Good Thing.

By Matthew L. Schafer

.....This small-town controversy centers on the local school board and one member in particular, Sahar Aziz, but has its roots in the Israel-Hamas war a world away. Ms. Aziz is a law professor at Rutgers Law School where she researches the intersection of national security, religion, and civil rights. She is also an outspoken critic of Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

She has been criticized for employing the controversial (if disputed) phrase, “from the river to the sea,” and for her commentary on X (formerly Twitter), including writing: “People all over my town in New Jersey are posting ‘I Stand With Israel’ signs on their lawns. I read them as ‘I Stand With Israel’s #genocide of #Palestinians.’”

As a result of her speech, she has been targeted with multiple petitions (one signed by nearly 5,000 people) demanding that she resign or be removed from the school board. Last week, even The Westfield Leader joined the fight against Ms. Aziz. But rather than engage in counter speech or contest her ideas on the merits, the newspaper argued that her speech is not even free speech.

Archive.today link

National Review: Banning Ire in Ireland

By The Editors

.....The hate-speech law currently under consideration is sweeping and draconian; it could be enforced only in a capricious way. We urge the Dáil and the Seanad to roundly reject it.

The problems with the law are manifold. First, its definition of hatred is tautological and legally meaningless: “‘Hatred’ means hatred against a person or a group of persons in the State or elsewhere on account of their protected characteristics or any one of those characteristics,” it declares. Most astonishingly, one does not have to utter or even publish such speech. Mere possession of speech — memes stored on a cellphone, say — renders a person guilty if a judge later deems it “likely” to incite hatred. Refusing to share your text-message history with police, or to grant them your password to inspect the contents of your smartphone, brings a sentence of up to a year in prison. The law also presumes guilt once the legal gears start turning: “In any proceeding under this section . . . the person shall be presumed until the contrary is proved, to have been in possession of the material in contravention” of the law.

Reuters: Aspiring law students seek classmates who match their political views - survey

By Karen Sloan

.....A majority of would-be attorneys want to attend law school with like-minded classmates, according to a new survey.

Of the 390 pre-law students polled in September by test prep company Kaplan, 58% said it was important to go to a school where students generally hold the same political and social views as they do. Another 36% said the views of their future law school classmates is not important, while 6% said they were not sure, said the survey, released Tuesday.

That’s a significant change from 2020, when only 46% of students told Kaplan that the political and social views of law school classmates were important.

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post: U.S. stops helping Big Tech spot foreign meddling amid GOP legal threats

By Naomi Nix and Cat Zakrzewski

.....The U.S. federal government has stopped warning some social networks about foreign disinformation campaigns on their platforms, reversing a years-long approach to preventing Russia and other actors from interfering in American politics less than a year before the U.S. presidential elections, according to company officials.

Meta no longer receives notifications of global influence campaigns from the Biden administration, halting a prolonged partnership between the federal government and the world’s largest social media company, senior security officials said Wednesday. Federal agencies have also stopped communicating about political disinformation with Pinterest, according to the company.

The Federalist: NewsGuard Is Selling Its Government-Funded Censorship Tool To Private Companies

By Margot Cleveland

.....The for-profit censorship giant NewsGuard is now selling its “Misinformation Fingerprints” technology to private companies to silence Americans’ speech — technology the federal government helped NewsGuard develop to the tune of nearly $750,000 in taxpayer funding. So while NewsGuard is now making headlines for trying to take down Elon Musk’s X, the bigger story concerns the federal government’s funding of the censorship-industrial complex.

The States

New York Times: Wisconsin Judge Dismisses Felony Charge in ‘Ballot Selfie’ Case

By Christine Hauser

.....A Wisconsin judge on Monday dismissed a felony charge against a school board candidate who had posted a photograph on Facebook of a ballot with his name filled in...

Mr. Burrell would have faced a maximum possible sentence of three and a half years in prison and a $10,000 fine had he been convicted. He would also have been barred from running for elected office.

The case reflects the debate among states over selfies of ballots and of people showing how they vote. Some legislators have argued that public displays of marked ballots can be used to influence voters in an election or to promote vote buying. Others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say such laws banning voting selfies on social media restrict free speech.

National Review: Flagstaff Bans Advertising at Local Airport after Lawsuit Threat over Banned Gun Ad

By David Zimmerman

.....The city of Flagstaff, Ariz., banned all commercial advertising at the local airport after a gun-range owner threatened to sue the city for prohibiting his ad specifically from appearing on government property.

The recent proposal came after Rob Wilson, owner of Timberline Firearms and Training, threatened to sue city leadership if Flagstaff Pulliam Airport continued censoring his ad in alleged violation of the Arizona constitution. Wilson’s latest application for his business’s silent, ten-second ad was rejected in May because the video depicted “violence or antisocial behavior,” according to the airport’s former advertising policy.