The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech March 28, 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]. In the News New York Post: Far-left NYC parent board, DOE muzzling conservative voices: federal lawsuit By Susan Edelman and Aneeta Bhole .....An ultra-liberal Brooklyn parent board and the Department of Education are quashing conservative voices by banning “anyone who might push back against their ideological worldview” from public meetings — and even censoring private speech, a new lawsuit charges. Greenpoint and Williamsburg’s Community Education Council 14 has instituted tough speech codes and repeatedly blocked parents — including members of the conservative group Moms for Liberty — from public events, the suit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court Tuesday night claims. The parent plaintiffs, Deborah Alexander, Maud Maron, and Noah Harlan, claim CEC 14 and Chancellor David Banks have violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and chilled debate. New from the Institute for Free Speech Parents Sue to Stop NYC Education Officials’ Assault on Free Speech .....The First Amendment does not allow New York City’s Department of Education to function as a Department of Conformity. But that’s exactly what’s been happening in Community Education Council (CEC) 14. There, CEC 14 leaders have punished and chilled the speech of individuals who do not conform to the personal political views of the board’s leaders. Aiding them in this effort is the New York City Department of Education’s (DOE) Regulation D-210, which governs the speech of CEC members and members of similar citywide advisory boards. The regulation permits anyone to file a complaint that then triggers an investigation and potential removal of CEC members for speech that others find offensive or disrespectful—even speech that may occur outside of CEC meetings. That’s why the Institute for Free Speech has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of three elected parent leaders, challenging the unconstitutional conduct of CEC 14 officials Tajh Sutton and Marissa Manzanares, as well as the DOE’s unconstitutional policies. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, contends that Sutton and Manzanares have unlawfully excluded individuals from public meetings and blocked critics on social media, weaponizing their disdain for anyone who might push back against their ideological worldview. The Courts Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): State Employer's Requiring Employees to Watch "Antiracist"/"Gender Identity" Videos Isn't Unconstitutional Speech Compulsion By Eugene Volokh .....From Norgren v. Minn. Dep't of Human Servs., decided Thursday by the Eighth Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Ralph Erickson, joined by Judges Michael Melloy and Davis Stras: Nonprofit Law Prof Blog: SAFE SPACE Challenges Constitutionality of 501(c)(3) Political Activity Restrictions By Darryll K. Jones .....Hang on to your campaign hats and buttons. A Louisiana nonprofit group known as Students and Academics for Free Expression, Speech, and Political Action in Campus Education, Inc. (SAFE SPACE) filed a 7428 petition this week seeking to vindicate an asserted right to engage in campaign intervention and substantial lobbying as a 501(c)(3) organization. This is gonna be a summary judgment case one way or the other. And either way, its likely to get to the Supremes. Here is the gist of the complaint: New York Times: Disney Ends Its Fight With DeSantis Over Resort Development By Brooks Barnes and J. Edward Moreno .....In a stunning turn, the Walt Disney Company has dropped its fight against Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for control over $17 billion in planned development at the Disney World theme park complex near Orlando. Disney’s capitulation followed a legal setback. In January, a federal judge threw out a Disney lawsuit claiming that Mr. DeSantis and his allies had violated the First Amendment by taking over a special tax district that encompasses the company’s 25,000-acre Florida resort, which employs roughly 75,000 people. As part of a settlement announced on Wednesday, Disney agreed to pause an appeal of that ruling — but not drop it entirely — while negotiating a new comprehensive growth plan with tax district officials. Congress People United for Privacy: Federal Budget Includes Bipartisan Speech and Privacy Protections for Nonprofits By Alex Baiocco .....On March 23, President Joe Biden signed the remaining appropriations bills into law, providing funding for the federal government until October 1. Included in this latest spending package are three policy riders that passed both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support restricting the federal government’s ability to pursue or adopt regulations that police and chill nonprofit advocacy and violate citizen privacy. These policies were first included in the federal budget following revelations during the Obama administration that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had targeted conservative nonprofits for improper scrutiny. In the aftermath of that scandal, the IRS brazenly proposed rules that would have codified the agency’s improper role as the nonprofit speech police and exacerbated the potential for future scandals. Following federal court decisions protecting Americans’ right to associate with likeminded citizens and speak out about government actions, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the White House also floated regulations aimed at exposing supporters of nonprofit causes. Free Expression Wall Street Journal: A Lesson in DEI Failure From Britain By The Editorial Board .....Memo to companies: Go ahead and cancel your DEI programs. That’s more or less the message of a recent report commissioned by the U.K. government finding that diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The report, presented to Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch by an independent panel, found there’s little evidence DEI efforts such as mandatory antibias training and corporate policy overhauls have any positive effect on corporate culture… It’s hard to say what DEI even means: “The terms ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion’ (and other associated terminology) are conceptually ambiguous, rapidly evolving, and often conflated,” the authors note. They point out that while the fad is to focus on diversity along racial, sex or other visible lines, “a visibly diverse organization is not necessarily meaningfully heterogenous.” Viewpoint diversity may be more important for a thriving company… A negative twist is that in the U.K. companies face growing risks of having to pay again for DEI as a legal backlash gathers momentum. Several employment-law cases have found that employers, including the government, violated British protections on freedom of belief by punishing employees who dissented from the DEI orthodoxy on race or transgenderism. AP News: Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in New York hush-money criminal case By Michael R. Sisak .....Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, complained on social media that the gag order issued Tuesday was “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional.” He said Judge Juan M. Merchan was “wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement” by Democratic rivals and urged him to step aside from the case. The gag order, which prosecutors had requested, bars Trump from either making or directing other people to make public statements on his behalf about jurors and potential witnesses in the hush-money trial, such as his lawyer turned nemesis Michael Cohen and porn star Stormy Daniels. It also prohibits any statements meant to interfere with or harass the court’s staff, prosecution team or their families. It does not bar comments about Merchan or his family, nor does it prohibit criticism of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the elected Democrat whose office is prosecuting Trump. Newsweek: Donald Trump Gag Order Is 'So Unusual': Former Watergate Prosecutor By Matthew Impelli .....Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman on Wednesday called the gag order against former President Donald Trump in his New York criminal case "so unusual." "This never happens," Akerman said while appearing on CNN, speaking about the gag order against Trump issued by New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. "In over 50 years of law practice, both as a prosecutor [and] a defense lawyer, it's not done. And the reason it's not done is because once you start disparaging the judge, disparaging people in the courtroom, you're putting yourself in harm's way because that's the judge who's gonna sentence you. It's the judge who can send you to jail or give you probation," Akerman said. "Donald Trump is the only one I've ever seen do this and do it in such an outrageous way." Akerman said that Trump is forcing the courts to "deal with where does the First Amendment stop and where do we need a gag order in order to protect the judicial system." Online Speech Platforms The Intercept: Meta Refuses to Answer Questions on Gaza Censorship, Say Sens. Warren and Sanders By Sam Biddle .....Citing the company’s “failure to provide answers to important questions,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., are pressing Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to respond to reports of disproportionate censorship around the Israeli war on Gaza. “Meta insists that there’s been no discrimination against Palestinian-related content on their platforms, but at the same time, is refusing to provide us with any evidence or data to support that claim,” Warren told The Intercept. “If its ad-hoc changes and removal of millions of posts didn’t discriminate against Palestinian-related content, then what’s Meta hiding?” The Media NOTUS: How a Former Democratic Operative Is Testing the Limits of What a Newsroom Can Be By Maggie Severns .....Cardinal & Pine, which promises readers “fact-based, audience-centered journalism” on its website, boasts as many Facebook followers as the longtime North Carolina newspaper, the Winston-Salem Journal. It employs several journalists and publishes stories ranging from politics to lifestyle content. However, key facts about Cardinal & Pine and its parent company, Courier Newsroom, go undisclosed. Courier does not disclose that the newsroom is run primarily by former Democratic operatives, including its publisher and CEO, Tara McGowan. It has received funding from groups like the pro-abortion rights Planned Parenthood, which gave $250,000 to Courier Newsroom between June 2021 and June 2022, the year it was promoting content about what the election means for abortion access. The States Votebeat: Kari Lake asks court to decide damages in Maricopa County official’s defamation case By Jen Fifield .....Kari Lake is asking the court to quickly issue a judgment and to decide how much she will pay Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer in the defamation case he brought against her, according to a filing in Maricopa County Superior Court on Tuesday. Richer sued Lake — who ran for governor in 2022 and is now running for U.S. Senate — for defamation last year, alleging that Lake made defamatory allegations that he had assisted in rigging the gubernatorial election against Lake. They are both Republicans. New York Post: Tearing down pro-Israel flyers would become a crime in NY under GOP proposal to combat antisemitism By Carl Campanile and Vaughn Golden .....Tearing down pro-Israel posters and flyers would become a misdemeanor under a package of laws proposed by state Senate Republicans in response to a wave of antisemitism. The laws unveiled Wednesday would also prohibit the removal pro-Jewish flyers and posters, a common scene in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks in October and ensuing war in Gaza. 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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