July 15, 2025

In the News

Courthouse News: Ninth Circuit gives anti-DEI California professor partial win in free speech case

By Alan Riquelmy

.....A California professor who argued that speaking against diversity policies could lead to retaliation had an appeals panel hand him a partial win on Monday.

Bakersfield College professor Daymon Johnson appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after a lower court judge in September found he had no standing to bring suit against the college, its administrators and trustees. The lower court also denied a motion for preliminary injunction, a legal move to stop the defendants from enforcing the law.

National Journal: The Supreme Court case that could upend the world of campaign fundraising

By Erika Filter

.....Nine campaign finance experts told National Journal the Court seems poised to overturn precedent after it decided last week to hear National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, which challenges the statute limiting how much party committees can spend in coordination with candidates. That ruling would allow the two parties to claw back power from super PACs, potentially giving party leaders more freedom to recruit and elevate candidates aligned with their values…

In 2010, the Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that corporations and outside groups can spend an unlimited amount on elections, a decision that led to the proliferation of super PACs.

“The law has changed, the facts have changed, and honestly, just as a policy matter, it doesn’t make sense to put this wall between parties and their candidates,” said Brad Smith, chairman of the Institute for Free Speech and a former FEC commissioner. “The parties can generally be moderating forces because they have to put together broad coalitions of people.”

Maine Morning Star: First Circuit rules Maine ban on foreign government election spending likely unconstitutional

By Emma Davis

.....The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled on Friday that a law passed by Maine voters in 2023 prohibiting foreign government spending in elections is likely unconstitutional. The ruling underscores that the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on corporate contributions continues to control the campaign finance landscape, those on both sides of the issue said. 

The decision, which affirmed a district court’s temporary stay on the state from enforcing the law, is not the final word, as it will next return to the lower court…

Meanwhile, Charles Miller, a senior attorney at the Institute for Free Speech who filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs, argued the decision sends a message that states can’t put vague parameters on free speech. 

“I think that we citizens have to all be on high alert for clever ways that politicians are going to use to try to limit our speech rights, and we have to fight against it, even when the target of those laws at the time are things that we don’t want to hear,” Miller said…

“They came to Maine to do this because they thought the First Circuit was their best chance to get a court to sort of try to sidestep or ignore Citizens United, and this opinion indicates that they have no appetite to do so,” Miller said. 

NH Journal: Bow Parents, XX, and the Emperor’s New Clothes

By Bill Hamlen

.....So today, I am proud to share the news that I, along with my friend Bobby Charles (Republican gubernatorial candidate in Maine) and our lawyer and constitutional law expert Ted Cooperstein, have submitted an amicus brief to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the Bow parents.

For those unfamiliar with the case, in September 2024, a group of parents in Bow, New Hampshire, attended a high school girls’ soccer game wearing pink wristbands marked with “XX,” a symbol representing the female chromosome.

Their silent protest was a response to a transgender athlete, identified as a biological male, playing on the opposing girls’ team. The Bow School District issued trespass orders against parents Kyle Fellers, Anthony and Nicole Foote, and Eldon Rash, barring them from school grounds and events. While this silent protest has sparked a heated debate about fairness in sports and the rights of transgender athletes, what is really at stake here in New Hampshire is the First Amendment, freedom of speech, and the right to peaceful protest...

As it relates to this case, and in layman’s terms, our brief points out the following:

FCC

New York Times: The F.C.C. Is Pressuring Companies to Drop D.E.I. It’s Succeeding, Too.

By Niko Gallogly

.....In a letter this week to the F.C.C.’s chairman, Brendan Carr, the company said it would end all D.E.I.-related policies “not just in name, but in substance.” That includes redirecting employees working on D.E.I. initiatives to “focus on employee culture and engagement” and removing all references to D.E.I. from the company’s website, the letter said.

The moves announced by T-Mobile this week go even further than the steps the company told the F.C.C. in March that it was taking to end some of its D.E.I.-related programs.

Free Expression

National Review: The EU’s Censorship Codes Are Coming for the First Amendment

By Thomas O’Reilly

.....On July 1, the European Union’s flagship online censorship tool, the Digital Services Act (DSA), expanded its scope. The DSA has severe implications for free speech not just in Europe, but potentially across the whole world, and must be repealed. A few days later, Elon Musk added his voice to endorse its abolishment, raising the global stakes.

The act is a binding regulatory framework that gives the EU authority to enforce “content moderation” on platforms and search engines with over 45 million monthly users. It is one of the most dangerous censorship regimes of the digital age, enabling bureaucrats to control online speech at scale — both in Europe and globally — under the guise of “safety” and “protecting democracy.”

July 1 marked a critical milestone, as the previously voluntary DSA Code of Practice on Disinformation became a binding Code of Conduct. What was once framed as a cooperative initiative now has teeth, with financial penalties and regular audits to remove or suppress content seen as misleading or harmful by EU regulators.

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post (Tech Brief): AI chatbots’ content rules often frustrate users, study finds

By Will Oremus

.....Elon Musk’s Grok demonstrated vividly over the past week what can happen when an artificial intelligence chatbot goes off script. The bot, which is built into Musk’s social network, X, took on a blatantly antisemitic persona in some chats with users, praising Adolf Hitler and identifying itself as “mecha-Hitler.” Over the weekend, the company apologized and blamed a code update that instructed the bot to “tell it like it is” without fear of offending people, my colleagues Drew Harwell and Nitasha Tiku reported.

The episode, the latest in a string of embarrassments for Grok, didn’t stop the Defense Department from contracting with Musk’s AI firm, xAI, to use its new “Grok for government” tools, as my colleague Faiz Siddiqui reported on Monday...

A forthcoming study from researchers at the University of Chicago reviews the content moderation policies of 14 generative AI tools — including ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Microsoft’s Copilot and Grok — and reviews six Reddit forums where users routinely document their run-ins with those policies. It will be published in August at the Usenix Security Symposium in Seattle. Among the takeaways:

Candidates and Campaigns

The Oklahoman: A racist campaign message caused ire among Oklahoma Democrats. But it wasn't real, it was AI

By Kayden Anderson

.....Days before Oklahoma Democrats were planning to elect a party leader, phones started buzzing. 

A recording began circulating of a voice, claiming to be state Rep. John Waldron, making inflammatory racial remarks about his opponent for party chair. 

A local news publication jumped on the story.

Except Waldron, who eventually won the election, said it wasn’t him. 

Evidence suggests the voice was actually generated by artificial intelligence. Who was behind the recording, and for what purposes, is still unknown.

But the flash controversy points to what experts warn is a growing threat in Oklahoma and across the nation as AI becomes an increasingly easy tool to spread political disinformation and influence elections through lifelike audio and video clips.  

The States

Washington Free Beacon: Corporate Donors Gave Big to a Newsom Family Charity. Then the California Governor Took Their Side on State Issues.

By Andrew Kerr

.....While the data doesn't show an explicit quid pro quo between Newsom and Graton Rancheria, several ethics experts told the Washington Free Beacon that Newsom’s charitable solicitations from the tribe to his wife’s charity just before he used the powers of his office to try to block its rival from opening a competing casino raises major red flags.

Washington Post: Texas just gutted free speech on college campuses. Is your state next?

By Laura Benitez and Jonathan Friedman

.....Signed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) in June, the new laws amount to a stunningly aggressive legislative crackdown on campus protest (S.B. 2972) and academic shared governance (S.B. 37) at public colleges and universities. The laws will not just silence dissent and undermine faculty authority in Texas; they provide a blueprint for how to dismantle academic freedom and chill speech on campus state by state.