Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech June 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 Reason: Campaign Finance Laws Institutionalize Corruption By David Keating .....Free speech advocates and groups like my organization, the Institute for Free Speech, have warned for decades that campaign finance laws can be and are weaponized against disfavored speakers. Washington again proves we're right. That's why we filed an amicus brief supporting Meta's challenge to this regime at the Washington Supreme Court. Yet, the true victims of these rules aren't corporate giants that can afford attorneys and fines. Rather, the real victims are grassroots candidates and citizens who lose access to vital communication channels. As our brief highlights, Chad Magendanz, a former state legislator, testified that Facebook advertising had revolutionized his ability to reach younger voters. When the platform left Washington, outsider candidates like Magendanz lost an essential tool. Jonathan Turley: University of Oregon Loses Roughly $750,000 in Fighting Free Speech Claim .....We have been following the case of Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley, who was blocked from the Twitter account of the University of Oregon’s Division of Equity and Inclusion after tweeting “All men are created equal.” The case was an obvious attack on free speech by the University of Oregon. Now the public will pay over three-quarters of a million dollars for the university’s anti-free speech conduct. Gilley was excluded from a Diversity Twitter page by the Communication Manager of the Division of Equity and Inclusion at the University of Oregon. (The manager is identified as “tova stabin” who the court notes “spells her name with all lowercase letters.”). Stabin has now left the school. In Gilley v. Stabin, Judge Hernández previously offered this background: Supreme Court Election Law Blog: The Supreme Court, The Political Parties, and the SuperPacs By Richard Pildes and Bob Bauer .....Later this week, the Supreme Court will consider hearing a case next Term on whether the First Amendment prohibits Congress from limiting how much political parties can spend for their candidates through TV advertising and other public communications. By law, the parties are limited in this spending when it is coordinated with their candidates—when the candidates are involved in such decisions as content, timing, or budget. In 2024, for example, that meant that the Democratic or Republican party could spend only the trivial amount of $61,800 in coordination with their House candidates. The case is wider in significance than the opposing positions of the parties and a conclusion in which one will “win” and the other will “lose.” It exemplifies the extensive shift in the role of money in American politics as changes in both the Supreme Court’s constitutional jurisprudence and the way campaigns are financed have moved far from the Watergate era when these limits were enacted. The Courts Just the News: CBS in Trump lawsuit says it can't be held liable for 'exercise of editorial judgment' by officials By Natalia Mittelstadt .....In President Trump's $20 billion lawsuit against Paramount Global, CBS' owner, the news organization said in a court filing on Monday that it cannot be held liable for its "exercise of editorial judgment" by public officials because of the First Amendment. "This is a meritless lawsuit" over "editorial decisions Plaintiffs dislike," CBS and Paramount Global said in its court filing, referring to Trump and his co-plaintiff, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas. "President Trump and Representative Jackson attempt to evade bedrock First Amendment principles establishing that public officials like themselves cannot hold news organizations like CBS liable for the exercise of editorial judgment," according to the court filing. "Effectively conceding that their claims cannot survive if the Broadcasts are editorial speech subject to full First Amendment protections, Plaintiffs argue that the Broadcasts somehow became 'commercial speech' via a simple promotion for the Interview. Politico: Media Matters sues FTC over ‘retaliatory’ investigation By Gregory Svirnovskiy .....A liberal media watchdog group has filed suit against the Federal Trade Commission, saying it was placed under investigation in retaliation for its reporting about extremist content on the social media site X. Media Matters said in the suit filed Monday in federal court in Washington that White House appointees in the FTC were seeking to punish the organization on behalf of Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X who until recently had a prominent role in the Trump administration. New York Times: Oil Companies Fight Climate Lawsuits by Citing Free Speech By Karen Zraick and Sachi Kitajima Mulkey .....“What we’re seeing now is a complete inversion” of the original intent of these [anti-SLAPP] laws, said Nicole Ligon, an assistant professor of law at Campbell University in North Carolina and expert on freedom of speech and SLAPP, which is shorthand for strategic lawsuit against public participation. The laws offer judges a way to dismiss cases that they determine lack merit. This strategy is playing out in courtrooms nationwide, particularly where oil companies are fighting lawsuits filed by state and local governments that claim the industry has misled Americans about global warming and should help pay the cost of adapting to climate change… Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a veteran First Amendment lawyer who represents Chevron in the climate litigation, said the lawsuits against the oil companies are centered on political speech by the companies that is protected by the Constitution. “The First Amendment applies to everyone,” he said. “It applies to companies.” He pointed to the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, in which the justices, citing free speech, ruled that the government could not ban political spending by corporations. Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): No Preliminary Injunctions Against Penn's Sanctions on Prof. Amy Wax By Eugene Volokh .....From today's decision by Judge Timothy Savage (E.D. Pa.) in Wax v. Univ. of Pa.: FTC New York Times: Ad Giants, Seeking Merger, Agree to F.T.C.’s No-Boycott Deal By Lauren Hirsch and Tiffany Hsu .....The Federal Trade Commission has paved the way for the advertising giants Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group to complete a long-awaited $13.5 billion merger, after the companies agreed that they would not boycott media platforms because of the platforms’ political content. The agreement, detailed in a consent decree that the F.T.C. announced on Monday, is an unusual move by one of the nation’s principal antitrust regulators. Free Expression New Yorker: How My Reporting on the Columbia Protests Led to My Deportation By Alistair Kitchen .....Many people are detained at U.S. airports for reasons they find arbitrary and mysterious. I got lucky—when I was stopped by Customs and Border Protection last week, after flying to Los Angeles from Melbourne, a border agent told me, explicitly and proudly, why I’d been pulled out of the customs line. “Look, we both know why you are here,” the agent told me. He identified himself to me as Adam, though his colleagues referred to him as Officer Martinez. When I said that I didn’t, he looked surprised. “It’s because of what you wrote online about the protests at Columbia University,” he said. The States PHL17: Bill banning AI deepfake political ads heads to PA Senate By Drew Miller .....Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives unanimously voted to pass a bill that would ban the use of AI-generated deepfakes to create false media for election campaigns. The bipartisan piece of legislation was passed during Monday’s session in the House and previously made it out of the House’s committees with unanimous votes. The bill would ban AI impersonation in any form of media like text, image, video and sound “that appears to establish, resemble or represent an individual in a way that did not occur in reality” for campaign advertisements without their consent. If passed by the Senate and signed, violators found guilty of generating deepfakes designed to spread misinformation of a candidate within 90 days of an election would go to courts created for civil liability and potential court penalties. A similar bipartisan bill was introduced to the Senate in May 2024, but no action was taken on it since it was referred to committee a month after being introduced. CPR News: Colorado has been expanding some of its privacy protections, but how do they work, and who qualifies? By Bente Birkeland .....Colorado passed a law in 1992 to allow people to keep their voter information confidential in certain circumstances. An individual can remove information like their address, how frequently they’ve voted and party registration from the public database. But there’s a catch: legally, that option is only open to people if they believe their information could be used to harass or harm them… During the most recent legislative session lawmakers updated the law to make it easier for people to become a confidential voter. It will no longer require a $5 filing fee or for a voter to appear at their clerk’s office in person. Instead, a free electronic version of the form will be available starting January 1, 2026. The new law also adds first responders, as a group, to those who can make their information private without attesting to any specific fear of threat. 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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