Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech January 24, 2025 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 The Oklahoman: We asked readers to grade Ryan Walters' job performance in 2024. Here's what you said By Todd Pendleton .....KFOR v. Walters: First Amendment lawsuit filed by KFOR against Walters and his spokesman, Dan Isett, who had refused to allow KFOR into the main meeting room during state Board of Education meetings. The case was settled, with KFOR receiving almost everything it asked for. Utah Political Watch: Utah Political Watch sues Utah Legislature over press credential denial By Bryan Schott .....Utah Political Watch filed suit against the Utah State Legislature on Wednesday, alleging legislative staffers violated publisher Bryan Schott’s First Amendment rights by refusing to issue him a credential to cover the 2025 Legislative session. Schott, UPW and the Institute for Free Speech filed a motion in U.S. District Court for Utah on Wednesday alleging the restrictions on non-traditional media are unconstitutional. WFSU: A restraining order is issued in a Brevard County School Board case By News Service of Florida .....After an appeals court in October sided with a chapter of the group Moms for Liberty, a U.S. district judge Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the Brevard County School Board from enforcing challenged restrictions on public comments at board meetings. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in October said parts of a school-board policy targeting “abusive,” “obscene” and “personally directed” speech violated the First Amendment. But in an eight-page order Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton said the board had not changed or eliminated the policy. New from the Institute for Free Speech Free Speech Arguments – Can Public School Teachers Challenge Mandatory Equity Training as a First Amendment Violation? (Henderson v. Springfield R-12 School District) .....Henderson v. Springfield R-12 School District, argued en banc before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on January 15, 2025. Argued by Braden H. Boucek (on behalf of Brooke Henderson, et al.) and Ransom A. Ellis (on behalf of the Board of Education of the Springfield R-12 School District, et al.). Background of the case, from Circuit Judge Colloton’s Eighth Circuit panel opinion: Supreme Court SCOTUSblog: Justices allow enforcement of corporate transparency law to go forward By Amy Howe .....The Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon granted the federal government’s request to be allowed to enforce a federal anti-money-laundering law while the government’s appeal moves forward in the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. In a brief unsigned order, the justices put on hold an order by a federal trial judge in Texas that would have barred the government from enforcing the law anywhere in the United States... The challengers urged the court to deny the government’s request. They stressed that any harm to the government from delaying the implementation of the reporting requirement would be “minimal,” particularly when it had waited three years to set the deadline. “By contrast,” they wrote, “mandating compliance during review would plainly cause irreparable injury to those forced to report, in the forms of unrecoverable compliance costs — which the government estimates to be in the tens of billions — and constitutional injury to their First and Fourth Amendment rights from being compelled to disclose their associations and other private information.” The Courts Arkansas Advocate: Arkansas AG appeals ruling declaring parts of library obscenity law unconstitutional By Tess Vrbin .....Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has appealed a federal judge’s December ruling that portions of a 2023 state law changing how libraries handle controversial materials are unconstitutional. Congress Sen. Rand Paul: Dr. Rand Paul Introduces Free Speech Protection Act to Safeguard Americans’ First Amendment Rights Against Government Censorship .....Today, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced the Free Speech Protection Act that will prohibit federal employees and contractors from using their positions to censor and otherwise attack speech protected by the First Amendment. The bill will impose mandatory severe penalties for those individuals that violate this rule. The bill is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). Trump Administration Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Trump Executive Order on "Ending Federal Censorship": Free Speech, Private Power, and Government Power Following Murthy v. Missouri By Eugene Volokh .....Monday, President Trump issued an Executive Order, “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” … The difficulty, of course, is in figuring out what government action constitutes "unconstitutionally abridg[ing] the free speech of any American citizen." When the government exerts "substantial coercive pressure" on a platform to restrict speech, that would indeed generally be unconstitutional (see NRA v. Vullo). But the order doesn't seem limited to that; recall that it says that: Just Security: A Free Speech View on the “Free Speech” Executive Order By Alex Abdo .....If the executive order were limited to the second section, it would be unobjectionable. That section essentially requires the government to comply with the First Amendment. While there’s a lot of uncertainty around the exact limits that the First Amendment imposes on government pressure related to social media, there’s certainly nothing wrong with reminding federal officials of their duty to comply with the First Amendment. But the first and third sections of the order give cause for concern. Politico: Trump pardons abortion clinic protesters ahead of March for Life By Alice Miranda Ollstein .....President Donald Trump on Thursday issued pardons for nearly two dozen people who were convicted for blocking access to and temporarily shutting down abortion clinics, some of whom are currently serving federal sentences. “They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people,” Trump said. “This is a great honor to sign this.” … The activists were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, known as the FACE Act. Some anti-abortion groups and GOP lawmakers have called for repealing the law, while others have said it should be updated to prevent it from being disproportionately applied to anti-abortion conservatives. Yet the law has also been used — including as recently as earlier this month — to charge abortion-rights protesters who target faith-based crisis pregnancy centers. Online Speech Platforms New York Times: Instagram and Facebook Blocked and Hid Abortion Pill Providers’ Posts By Claire Cain Miller, Kate Conger, and Mike Isaac .....Instagram and Facebook have recently blurred, blocked or removed posts from two abortion pill providers. Instagram also suspended the accounts of several abortion pill providers and hid the providers from appearing in search and recommendations. The actions ramped up in the last two weeks, and were especially noticeable in the last two days, abortion pill providers said. Content from their accounts — or in some cases, their entire accounts — were no longer visible on Instagram. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, confirmed some account suspensions and the blurring of posts. The company restored some of the accounts and posts on Thursday, after The New York Times asked about the actions. Washington Post: Meta courted Trump. Now comes the backlash from Facebook, Instagram users. By Tatum Hunter and Heather Kelly .....If you were surprised to see yourself suddenly following President Donald Trump on Instagram and Facebook this week, it’s not because Meta forced you to, the social media company says. The apps’ @POTUS, @FLOTUS and @VP accounts transfer over with each new administration. But online, unfounded claims swirled that Meta had worked with the new Trump administration to promote their accounts. Some even speculated the company had acquired TikTok over the weekend to further consolidate Americans’ social media options. Some called for a boycott of Meta platforms, which include Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp... “This is the same procedure we followed during the last presidential transition,” Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on Threads on Wednesday. “It may take some time for follow and unfollow requests to go through as these accounts change hands.” The States Indiana Capital Chronicle: Anti-DEI bills take heat but pass committee By Leslie Bonilla Muñiz .....For four hours on Wednesday, and with tempers flaring throughout, Indiana lawmakers and plenty of constituents debated whether diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts combat or constitute discrimination. Senate Bill 235 describes DEI as dealing with race, ethnicity or sex — and defines it as any effort by state agencies to influence staff composition, promote differential treatment, promulgate related policies or training, or take official positions containing terms from a list of 15 banned phrases. It would bar agencies from funding DEI offices or employees and from bestowing contracts or grants on entities that mandate DEI training — and lets Indiana’s attorney general sue for violations. News 6 Richmond: Virginia lawmaker takes aim at Confederate groups' tax-exempt status: 'It's not the Virginia Way' By Cameron Thompson .....Virginia Democrats are once again advocating for legislation aimed at stripping tax-exempt status from several organizations linked to Richmond’s Confederate history, including the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). "We can't allow this to continue. It's not the Virginia Way," Delegate Alex Askew (D-Virginia Beach) said. The members of Virginia's Legislative Black Caucus support this initiative, highlighting the UDC's role in perpetuating a sanitized version of the Confederacy known as the Lost Cause. NHPR: CT bill would defend libraries, librarians from book bans and challenges By Chris Polansky .....A bill introduced in the Connecticut General Assembly seeks to prevent censorship in the state’s public and school libraries and immunize librarians from civil and criminal liability stemming from challenges to library materials. The so-called “Don’t Ban Library Books” act was introduced by Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk) and Sen. Ceci Maher (D-Wilton). At a Thursday press conference at the state Capitol, Duff said the bill comes at a time of rising challenges to library materials across the country, particularly those items concerning “race, gender identity and sexuality.” 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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