The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech January 29, 2024 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]. Supreme Court PBS: How involved should the government be on social media platforms? By Jameel Jaffer .....The specific question the Court will address in Murthy v. Missouri is whether the Biden administration’s interactions with the platforms were constitutionally permissible. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which I direct, has filed a brief arguing that some of these interactions may have crossed the constitutional line. But whatever the Court says about this question, the Court should reaffirm the rule that Justice Brennan drew in Bantam Books—the line between persuasion and coercion. In an era in which so much of the speech that is important to our democracy is mediated by private platforms, that principle is essential to the integrity of free speech online. The Courts Bloomberg Law: SEC ‘Gag Orders’ at Risk as Skeptical Court Takes Up Challenge By Matthew Bultman .....The Securities and Exchange Commission’s controversial policy of silencing defendants who settle with the agency is under fire once again, as a federal appeals court wary of regulators weighs a constitutional challenge. The SEC has long allowed parties to settle cases brought by the agency without admitting wrongdoing. But they must also promise not to publicly deny the SEC’s allegations—a policy that’s prompted pushback from SEC targets like Elon Musk and Mark Cuban. A decision from a federal appeals court that the no-deny condition is unconstitutional would have far-reaching effects for the SEC’s policing of financial markets… The condition has been criticized by legal scholars and federal judges as a potential First Amendment violation. Musk and Cuban argue it stifles criticism and hides information from the market. The “no-deny” policy—often referred to as the Gag Rule—will be back in the spotlight next month, when the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit hears arguments in a case challenging the policy. The challenge was brought by Christopher Novinger, a financial planner and radio host from Texas. National Review: After Twelve Years, Mark Steyn Finally Faces Off against Michael Mann in Defamation Suit By Ryan Mills .....The lawsuit, which Mann filed in 2012, stems from a blog post critical of Mann’s work that Steyn wrote on the Corner section of National Review’s website. In his post, Steyn commented on a separate article by Rand Simberg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who made a crude analogy between Mann and Sandusky. Simberg said Mann had “engaged in academic and scientific misconduct.” He added that Mann “could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate change, except for, instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science that could have dire economic consequences for the nation and planet.” The Detroit News: Federal judge won't block targeted ads during Flint water suit By Beth LeBlanc .....A federal judge overseeing litigation against Flint water consultants hired prior to the city's water crisis has rejected a request to bar one of the companies, Veolia North America, from targeting jurors with social media communication regarding the case. U.S. District Court Judge Judith Levy acknowledged Jan. 22 that there was a concern by plaintiffs' lawyers that Veolia North America would target jurors with social media posts or advertisements about the case. But she declined to block the company from doing so, noting such an order may infringe on First Amendment rights and that, as of yet, she hadn't seen enough evidence to prove there was ever targeted advertising toward jurors, according to transcripts from a Monday hearing. Free Expression The New Yorker: The Future of Academic Freedom By Jeannie Suk Gersen .....Sometime in the twenty-tens, it became common for students to speak of feeling unsafe when they heard things that offended them. I’ve been a law professor at Harvard since 2006. The first piece I wrote for The New Yorker, in 2014, was about students’ suggestions (then shocking to me) that rape law should not be taught in the criminal-law course, because debates involving arguments for defendants, in addition to the prosecution, caused distress. At the very least, some students said, nobody should be asked in class to argue a side with which they disagree. Since then, students have asked me to excuse them from discussing or being examined on guns, gang violence, domestic violence, the death penalty, L.G.B.T.Q. issues, police brutality, kidnapping, suicide, and abortion. I have declined, because I believe the most important skill I teach is the ability to have rigorous exchanges on difficult topics, but professors across the country have agreed to similar requests. Over the years, I learned that students had repeatedly attempted to file complaints about my classes, saying that my requiring students to articulate, or to hear classmates make, arguments they might abhor—for example, Justice Antonin Scalia saying there is no constitutional right to same-sex intimacy—was unacceptable. Donor Privacy Gem State Chronicle: The Myth of Dark Money By Brian Almon .....Disclosure laws not only threaten private citizens who wish to donate to 501c3 and 501c4 nonprofits, they act as a chilling effect on future political activity. Would Norfolk police lieutenant William Kelly have donated money to Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense fund if he knew it would become public knowledge? Would you give your money to the Idaho Freedom Foundation on the right or the American Civil Liberties Union on the left if there was a possibility that your name and address might end up in the newspaper or on someone’s blog? The best way to look at this issue is not that we need to root out “dark money,” but rather we must protect donor privacy. Americans have the right to donate to causes they believe in without their names and addresses becoming part of the public record. Indeed, in 2021 the Supreme Court held in Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta that nonprofits were not required to share their donor lists with state governments. Our right to privacy is just as important as our right to free speech. Independent Groups Reuters: Big money fails to stop Trump, prompting a donor reckoning By Alexandra Ulmer and Jason Lange .....From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, wealthy donors have thrown tens of millions of dollars at Republican U.S. presidential candidate Nikki Haley in an effort to keep Donald Trump from returning to the White House. They have learned a hard lesson: Big money cannot win the Republican presidential nomination, at least not against Trump, who holds the support of a wide majority of the party's voters. Pro-Haley forces outspent the main outside group supporting the former president's candidacy by more than two to one over the past year, according to a Reuters analysis of campaign finance disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission... On Wednesday, Trump upped the ante, saying anybody making a contribution to Haley would be "permanently barred" from his political orbit. One Haley donor said he feared speaking out against Trump for fear of getting on his bad side, adding, "That's dangerous." The States Tallahassee Democrat: Bill that could pull financial aid from student protesters advances in Florida By Benjamin Taubman .....A bill that opponents say violates the First Amendment because it would withdraw financial aid and state scholarships from college students who promote “foreign terrorist organizations” such as Hamas cleared its first House subcommittee this week. The legislation (HB 465) would also require those students to pay out-of-state tuition, which is much more expensive than in-state tuition. If they're an international student on a visa, universities would have to report them to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. New Jersey Monitor: Morris County woman’s imprisonment for Facebook posts sparks free-speech fight By Dana DiFilippo .....For weeks, Monica Ciardi vented on Facebook about her ex-husband, their bitter child custody dispute, and the Morris County judges overseeing it, calling the jurists liars and demanding their resignations in posts that sometimes numbered dozens a day. She knew her rants might rankle, so she posted about that too, citing a federal court ruling protecting social media posts as free speech. “ZERO RETALIATION IS PERMITTED AGAINST ME FOR EXERCISING MY RIGHTS. Take notice,” she wrote on Dec. 15. A week later, police swarmed her Chatham home and took her to jail in handcuffs after Morris County prosecutors decided at least one post about the judges amounted to terroristic threats, harassment, and retaliation against a public official… Now, free speech advocates are watching the case, which her attorney characterizes as “the government punishing and jailing a woman for simply speaking her mind.” Omaha World-Herald: Nebraska bill seeks to prohibit homeowners associations from banning political signs By Erin Bamer .....Nebraska homeowners would be allowed to display political signs on their property during election season without restriction from their homeowners association, under a new bill in consideration in the Legislature. Legislative Bill 886 would prohibit homeowners associations, or HOAs, from banning political signs displayed on an owner’s property, with some caveats. The bill was discussed in a public hearing before the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee Thursday. 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