March 20, 2025

In the News

Her Campus: Trump’s Threat To Arrest College Protesters, Explained By Free Speech Experts

By Alisha Allison

.....One of the biggest concerns about Trump’s Truth Social post was that it was unclear what “illegal” protests entail. “It’s not entirely clear what the Administration means by the term, but it should mean a protest that involves violence, vandalism, trespassing, or other criminal acts,” David Keating, President of the Institute for Free Speech, suggests to Her Campus. “In addition, it might also mean a protest that could violate federal civil rights laws.”

New from the Institute for Free Speech

Free Speech Arguments – Can Public Schools Compel Preferred Pronoun Usage? (Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District, et al.)

.....Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District, argued before the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on March 19, 2025. Argued by Cameron Norris (on behalf of Parents Defending Education); Elliott Gaiser, Solicitor General of Ohio (on behalf of Ohio and 22 other states as amici curiae); and Jaime Santos (on behalf of the Olentangy Local School District Board of Education, et al.).

Background of the case, from the Institute for Free Speech’s second amicus brief (in support of reversal):

The Courts

New York Times: Jury Orders Greenpeace to Pay Pipeline Company More Than $660 Million

By Karen Zraick

.....A North Dakota jury on Wednesday awarded damages totaling more than $660 million to the Texas-based pipeline company Energy Transfer, which had sued Greenpeace over its role in protests nearly a decade ago against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The verdict was a major blow to the environmental organization. Greenpeace had said that Energy Transfer’s claimed damages, in the range of $300 million, would be enough to put the group out of business in the United States. The jury on Wednesday awarded far more than that.

Greenpeace said it would appeal. The group has maintained that it played only a minor part in demonstrations led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It has portrayed the lawsuit as an attempt to stifle oil-industry critics...

Afterward, outside the courthouse in Mandan, both sides invoked the right to free speech, but in very different ways.

“We should all be concerned about the attacks on our First Amendment, and lawsuits like this that really threaten our rights to peaceful protest and free speech,” said Deepa Padmanabha, a senior legal adviser for Greenpeace USA.

Just moments before, Trey Cox of the firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, the lead lawyer for Energy Transfer, had called the verdict “a powerful affirmation" of the First Amendment. “Peaceful protest is an inherent American right,” he said. “However, violent and destructive protest is unlawful and unacceptable.”

Washington Post: Unilever fired Ben & Jerry’s CEO over liberal views, court filing alleges

By Shannon Najmabadi

.....Ben & Jerry’s parent firm threatened then ousted the ice cream brand’s chief executive for defending its “social mission,” a Tuesday court filing alleges.

Officials with the consumer packaged goods company Unilever told Ben & Jerry’s independent board that it planned to remove chief executive Dave Stever on March 3 and pressed the board to quickly rubber-stamp the decision, according to the court filing from Ben & Jerry’s and board directors. Board members sought more time and asked to see Unilever minutes and notes related to the decision, but they were refused, the filing said.

“Unilever’s suppression of Ben & Jerry’s social mission has reached startling new levels of oppressiveness,” this week’s filing alleges.

Spokespeople and attorneys for Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment.

The Tuesday filing is part of a lawsuit filed last year that accuses Unilever of trying to censor the ice cream brand’s public stances on various issues.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Amicus Brief in Georgia Adult-Entertainment Case

By Sasha Volokh

.....A few weeks ago, I blogged (Parts 1 and 2) about the cert petition I filed in Georgia Ass'n of Club Executives v. Georgia, where we raised a First Amendment challenge to a state tax on adult entertainment establishments. Now, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the First Amendment Lawyers Ass'n (FALA) have filed an amicus brief supporting the cert petition. These are great organizations, who do good work in litigating free speech cases—I'm grateful for their help!

I'm reproducing the text of their brief below. The lawyers for the two organizations are Bob Corn-Revere, Ronnie London, Ed Rudofsky, and (my former student) Cory Conley.

Congress

Sen. Grassley: Grassley, Peters Introduce Foreign Agents Transparency Act

By xx

.....Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.) introduced the Foreign Agents Transparency Act to ensure unregistered foreign agents are unable to sidestep disclosure requirements by exploiting judicial misinterpretations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).  

Trump Administration

New York Times: With Orders, Investigations and Innuendo, Trump and G.O.P. Aim to Cripple the Left

By Kenneth P. Vogel and Shane Goldmacher

.....Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of President Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked.

Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats’ ability to compete in elections for years to come.

Free Expression

People United for Privacy: Doxing of Tesla Owners Shows Need for Donor Privacy

By Luke Wachob

.... An activist website reportedly doxed Tesla owners across the United States this week, in an apparent act of retaliation for Elon Musk’s role in the Trump White House. From the New York Post:

"The site, called “Dogequest,” reportedly reveals the names, addresses and phone numbers of Tesla owners throughout the US using an interactive map — and uses an image of a Molotov cocktail as a cursor.

The site’s operators, who also posted the exact locations of Tesla dealerships, said that they will remove identifying information about Tesla drivers only if they provide proof that they sold their electric vehicles, according to 404 Media."

...

Nobody should have to fear for their safety because of the causes they support or the car they drive (or sell). That should go without saying. Unfortunately, in today’s toxic political environment, almost anyone can be villainized and targeted for their identity, associations, or beliefs. Before the doxing of Tesla owners, hackers and media outlets exposed the personal information of groups like gun owners and donors to conservative protests on crowdfunding platforms. Politicians across the country have also sought to make it harder for Americans to criticize them anonymously by passing invasive “disclosure” laws for civic groups.

New York Post: I just got kicked off a ‘diverse thought’ panel for wrongthink: Corporate DEI lives on

By Jennifer Sey

.....Woke capitalism is alive and well.

Don’t be fooled by American companies’ public statements suggesting they’re abandoning identity-based diversity, equity and inclusion policies in favor of merit and diversity of thought.

I’m here to prove it: I’ve been canceled. Again.

This time, bounced from a conference boasting a theme of “breaking down walls.”

Five months ago, Peer 150, a networking group for top human resources executives, asked me to speak at one of its events.

The States

New York Times: University of California Will Stop Requiring Diversity Statements in Hiring

By Vimal Patel

.....The University of California said on Wednesday that it would stop requiring the use of diversity statements in hiring, a practice praised by some who said it made campuses more inclusive but criticized by others who said it did the opposite.

Diversity statements typically ask job applicants to describe in a page or so how they would contribute to campus diversity. The move away from them, by one of the biggest higher education systems in the United States, comes as the Trump administration escalates an attack on higher education over diversity programming.

For a decade, the 10-campus system was a national leader in using such statements, as universities increasingly came under pressure from those who wanted more diverse student bodies and faculties.

Inforum: North Dakota Senate passes bill addressing false information in political advertisements

By Grant Coursey, The Bismarck Tribune

.....The North Dakota Senate on Wednesday passed a bill to combat false and misleading information in political advertisements — an issue one senator said is an increasing problem in the state's elections.

North Dakota Century Code already makes publishing false or misleading information on billboards, in pamphlets or other handouts, or in traditional media sources such as television or newspapers, a Class A misdemeanor, which carries a maximum punishment of about a year in jail and a $3,000 fine.

House Bill 1204 originally sought to amend the code to include social media with these other avenues for publication. Sen. Sean Cleary, R-Bismarck, offered a floor amendment to also include text messages and phone calls to the list…

His amendment passed on the floor, and the bill passed in an overwhelming 45-1 vote. It now goes back to the House of Representatives, which will vote on whether to concur with the amendments to the bill or send it to a conference committee before it can make it to the governor’s desk.

Center Square (Texas): Bills filed to ban 'deepfakes' in political ads in Texas

By Bethany Blankley

.....Two bills have been filed in the Texas legislature that would require additional disclosures for political ads. The bills were filed after the Texas Ethics Commission expanded disclosure requirements for political ads on social media posts.

Former House Speaker state Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, filed HB 366 to require disclosures on political ads that contain altered images known as “deep fakes.” State Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, filed a similar bill, SB 893.

Phelan’s bill would require that certain political ads have disclosures that state that images, audio or video recordings of individuals depicted “did not occur in reality.” The bill would require the publishing, distributing, or broadcasting political advertising “that includes an image, audio recording, or video recording of an officeholder’s or candidate’s appearance, speech, or conduct” to state that it “did not occur in reality.” This includes images, audio or video recordings that were “altered using generative artificial intelligence technology.”