April 19, 2024

In the News

Campus Reform: SCOTUS misses chance to stop campus Orwellian nightmare

By Brett Nolan

.....Secret investigations into thoughtcrimes–prompted by classmates surveilling and reporting each other for expressing the wrong ideas.

This isn’t a story from the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, or even present-day China. Nor is it the plot of a dystopian novel. It’s a scenario that now plays out at hundreds of colleges across the United States.

Campus culture in America has tilted decidedly against free speech over the last decade. Many colleges have abandoned any pretense that their campuses are a place for open debate. Instead, “harmful” ideas are shunned, and institutions that used to pride themselves on diversity of thought now demand ideological conformity.

That’s why it is disappointing that the Supreme Court recently passed on the opportunity to hold college administrators accountable for fostering this anti-speech culture at the expense of the First Amendment.

New from the Institute for Free Speech

April 13, 2024: Maine Enacts Robust Anti-SLAPP Law

.....Maine’s current anti-SLAPP law covers a limited amount of speech and falls short on several vital procedural protections. A new and improved bill (SP 367) became law on April 13 and will take effect on January 1, 2025...

Maine’s existing anti-SLAPP law earned a C- in our 2023 anti-SLAPP report card because of three flaws in the 1995 statute. First, the law covered speech only in public proceedings, which meant that many types of speech and speech in other forums, such as online, were not protected. Second, there was no provision for an immediate appeal (interlocutory appeal) if an anti-SLAPP motion was denied, saddling defendants with burdensome discovery and often a trial in a frivolous case. Finally, the statute only gave courts the option, not the requirement, to award attorney fees and court costs to prevailing defendants, which could discourage legal representation for defendants with limited resources. 

The Courts

National Review: Public Defenders Shouldn’t Be Forced to Support a Union’s Anti-Israeli Speech

By Jeffrey Schwab

.....No one should be forced to pay money to an organization that advocates for points of view that they find deeply offensive. For example, a Jewish person shouldn’t be forced to pay for an organization that advocates ideas that he or she considers antisemitic. That’s the situation that Arnold Levine and Allen Popper, longtime public defenders in New York City, find themselves in. Arnold and Allen have both long represented criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own defense attorneys, a job that is extremely difficult and often thankless, involves long hours, and can be emotionally and psychologically draining.

To do their jobs, Arnold and Allen have to pay money to a union. Worse, that union has adopted several resolutions that Arnold and Allen, who are Jewish, believe are antisemitic, support terrorists, and promote the destruction of Israel. The First Amendment prohibits the government from compelling a person to subsidize other people’s political speech — including a union’s speech. So how do Arnold and Allen find themselves in this situation?

Kerr County Lead: We The People, Liberty In Action files suit against Kerrville, claiming First Amendment violations

By Louis Amestoy

.....[A] pair of non-Kerrville residents filed a case in federal court on Thursday asking for injunctive relief against the city. They claimed a pair of city ordinances infringed their First Amendment rights. 

Terri Hall, the chief spokesperson of We The People, Liberty In Action, and Rachel Vickers, a window washer, said the city’s ordinance regulating peddlers, solicitors and canvassers harmed them. We The People, Liberty In Action is also part of the suit, saying the city’s electioneering ordinance violates their First Amendment Rights.

The suit was filed Thursday in the San Antonio-based Federal District Court Texas Western Division. A Fort Worth-based attorney filed the case for the Liberty In Action network (or We The People, Liberty In Action) and Hall and Vickers. 

Congress

Wall Street Journal: Congress Fast-Tracks TikTok Ban Legislation, Setting Up Possible Passage This Month

By Tim Hanrahan and Georgia Wells

.....Congress is fast-tracking a bipartisan effort to crack down on TikTok that could lead to passage of a law this month forcing a sale or eventual ban of the popular Chinese-controlled app in the U.S.

The House plans to vote this weekend on revised TikTok legislation that would tie it to a sweeping package of aid for Ukraine and Israel. The new approach would give TikTok up to a year to find new ownership—versus the six months previously proposed—with the fate of the wildly popular video-sharing app hanging in the balance.

FEC

Election Law Blog: FEC, in divided vote, permits GOP to spend legal funds on ads

By Ned Foley

.....In this proceeding (MUR #8071), the Commissioners have released statements explaining their reasons for their votes:

04/11/2024 Chairman Sean J. Cooksey

04/11/2024 Vice Chair Ellen L. Weintraub and Commissioner Shana M. Broussard

04/10/2024 Commissioners Allen J. Dickerson and James E. “Trey” Trainor, III

04/09/2024 Commissioners Allen J. Dickerson, Dara Lindenbaum and James E. “Trey” Trainor, III

Free Expression

Free Press: Censorship in the Name of Safety

By Oliver Wiseman

.....In Brussels yesterday, police shut down a gathering of prominent European right-wingers after the local mayor banned the event to “ensure public security.” …

Yoram Hazony, the event’s organizer, said there was “no threat to public order” at the gathering. And I believe him. Belgian authorities have cited no specific threats. And as someone who has covered National Conservatism gatherings in the past, I find the idea that this tweedy crowd would get into any scraps difficult to believe. The only risk to my safety was nearly dying of boredom at a breakout session on common good constitutionalism. 

But of course, public safety isn’t what this is really about. Hazony’s event was targeted because of objections to the ideas being discussed there…

Hazony’s politics could hardly be more different to those of Asna Tabassum, an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, but she faced the same cowardly excuse for censorship this week: “safety.”

Online Speech Platforms

The Hill: Instagram’s shift away from political content raises questions about what counts as ‘political’

By Julia Shapero

.....Instagram’s recent decision to move the platform away from political content has sparked concerns among content creators and advocacy groups over which issues will be included.

The social media site began rolling out changes last month, following through on previously announced plans to stop recommending political content across Instagram and Threads.

Unless users change their settings, they will no longer see political content on various “recommendation surfaces,” such as Explore, Reels, In-Feed Recommendations and Suggested Users.

According to Instagram parent company Meta, this includes content that is likely to be about topics related to government or elections, such as posts about laws, elections or social topics.

Shoshana Weissmann, digital director and policy fellow at R Street Institute, suggested Instagram will likely “run into some weird lines” as it attempts to delineate political and nonpolitical content on the platform.

“There’s some stuff that’s explicit — like a campaign, people running for office,” she said. “But there’s so much in between.”

“I think it’s going to be a bit of a weird time for creators who aren’t sure how close you have to get to politics for it to be considered politics by the algorithm,” Weismann added.

The Media

Christopher F. Rufo: The Zen Kōans of NPR

.....This week, I have been engaged in a campaign to expose NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, and her anti-speech, anti-truth philosophy. As part of my research, I scoured her social media history, which provided ample evidence of ideological capture.

But rather than simply recapitulating the material, I experimented with another method: satire. The ridicule went viral, driving millions of social media impressions and earning coverage in the New York Times, Politico, Fox News, and elsewhere.

Here is a selection of the best tweets:

The States

The Detroit News:  Nessel 'pleading' with Michigan lawmakers for transparency reforms after Chatfield charges

By Craig Mauger

.....Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said Tuesday she was "basically pleading" with lawmakers to enact new transparency policies as she unveiled criminal charges against former Speaker Lee Chatfield for allegedly embezzling money and misusing nonprofit funds he collected while in the state House…

The Democratic attorney general said Lansing had a "dark money fueled culture." For years, Michigan officeholders on both sides of the aisle have allowed themselves to raise limitless contributions for nonprofit organizations from secret donors while providing little to no information about how they use the money.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): N.Y. Bill Would Require Users to Swear They Won't Use Generative AI to Produce "Offensive, Harassing, Violent, [or] Discriminatory" Speech

By Eugene Volokh

.....Here's the relevant text, from S8206 (sponsored by Sen. Jeremy Cooney and pending before the N.Y. Senate Internet and Technology Committee):

WUNC: UNC board committee passes policy that threatens DEI at NC public universities

By Brianna Atkinson

.....A UNC Board of Governors committee has passed a policy that could lead to the elimination of diversity, equity, and inclusion officers on all 17 UNC system campuses.

In an uncommon move, the University Governance committee did not discuss the new policy at all before unanimously passing it on Wednesday. It still needs to be voted on by the full Board of Governors in May.

The change replaces a policy passed in 2019 that created the DEI positions and data reporting at all 16 public North Carolina universities, and the NC School of Science and Mathematics. This includes a UNC System Diversity and Inclusion liaison and cross-university council, as well as individual institutional DEI officers.

The wording of the new policy makes it clear that, according to the UNC System, the DEI offices and officers do not “adhere to and comply with the strictures of institutional neutrality” as outlined in North Carolina’s Campus Free Speech law that prevents universities from participating in “political controversies of the day.”