The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech August 18, 2022 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 Luke Wachob at [email protected]. In the News Las Vegas Review-Journal: Editorial: A state ranking Nevada can be proud of .....The Institute for Free Speech this month revealed its Free Speech Index, which assesses how each state “supports the free speech and association rights of individuals and groups interested in speaking about candidates, issues of public policy and their government.” Nevada placed fourth, behind Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa. The report examined 10 different factors, including laws involving grassroots advocacy, lobbying and political action committees, regulations on issue-related speech and rules regarding independent political expenditures. Breitbart: ‘All Men Are Created Equal:’ Prof Sues U. of Oregon for Blocking Him over Declaration of Independence Quote By Alana Mastrangelo .....A professor has filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the University of Oregon after he was blocked on Twitter by university staffers for tweeting “all men are created equal” from the Declaration of Independence. The Institute for Free Speech said, “The First Amendment does not allow the government or its actors to ban individuals from public forums just because they disagree with the views those individuals express,” in a press release on the lawsuit. New from the Institute for Free Speech The Free Speech Indices and You By Luke Wachob .....For the past several years, the Institute for Free Speech research team has been hard at work assessing and comparing how political speech is regulated in the states. We have now produced a trio of reports detailing how different forms of political expression and advocacy fare across the country. They combine to give the best possible analysis of the health of First Amendment political speech rights in the states today. Unfortunately, our diagnosis is grim. No state succeeds at protecting free expression in all of the areas we examined. Most states fail in most areas and achieve low overall scores in our reports. But with failure comes an opportunity for change. Our research offers a roadmap to policymakers who value free speech to restore First Amendment rights in their states. The Courts National Law Journal: DC Circuit Rejects Political Speech Limits for Judiciary Workers By Avalon Zoppo .....The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected a series of restrictions that limited the political activity federal court workers could engage in outside of the office, citing free speech problems. In a split ruling, the court held that employee code of conduct revisions implemented by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in 2018—including barring making campaign contributions and posting about candidates on social media—weren’t needed to maintain the perception of the judiciary’s independence and violated the First Amendment. Employees of the AO, which provides support to the judiciary, perform administrative duties like handling human resources and assisting courts with information technology, but aren’t involved in resolving cases. Reason: Ousted Progressive Prosecutor Files 1st Amendment Lawsuit Against Ron DeSantis By C.J. Ciaramella .....Former Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren filed a federal civil rights lawsuit today against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to try and retain his job after DeSantis ousted the prosecutor for alleged neglect of duty. DeSantis announced in an August 4 press conference, flanked by local law enforcement, that he was suspending Warren after the state attorney signed letters saying he would not enforce state laws restricting abortion or transition-related medical care to transgender minors. Congress Politico: The Espionage Act Has Been Abused — But Not in Trump’s Case By Jameel Jaffer .....This much the law’s new critics have right: The Espionage Act is wildly overbroad. We know this from experience. Former President Woodrow Wilson signed the measure into law in 1917 and immediately began using it as an instrument of political repression. During and after the First World War, his administration used the Espionage Act to prosecute thousands of people for legitimate political speech. One of those people was the socialist and labor activist Eugene Debs, who was sentenced to a decade in prison for an anti-war speech that allegedly obstructed military recruitment... Congress amended the Espionage Act after the Second World War, but the amended law, like the original, criminalizes a wide range of activity bearing little resemblance to espionage as the term is usually understood. A major problem with the law is that it fails to distinguish, on one hand, government insiders who share national security information with foreign powers in order to harm the United States, from, on the other hand, those who share information with the press in order to inform the American public about government misconduct and criminality. Free Expression New York Times: The Stabbing of Salman Rushdie Renews Free Speech Debates By Jennifer Schuessler .....Two years ago Salman Rushdie joined prominent cultural figures signing an open letter decrying an increasingly “intolerant climate” and warning that the “free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.” It was a declaration of principles Mr. Rushdie had embodied since 1989, when a fatwa by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, calling for his murder, made him a reluctant symbol of free speech. The letter, published by Harper’s Magazine in June 2020 after racial justice protests swept the United States, drew a backlash, with some denouncing it as a reactionary display of thin-skinnedness and privilege — signed, as one critic put it, by “rich fools.” The reaction dismayed Mr. Rushdie, but didn’t surprise him. “Put it like this: the kinds of people who stood up for me in the bad years might not do so now,” he told The Guardian in 2021. “The idea that being offended is a valid critique has gained a lot of traction.” Online Speech Platforms Wall Street Journal: Twitter Becomes a Tool of Government Censorship By Vivek Ramaswamy and Jed Rubenfeld .....In January 2021 we argued on these pages that tech companies should be treated as state actors under existing legal doctrines when they censor constitutionally protected speech in response to governmental threats and inducements. The Biden administration appears to have taken our warning calls as a how-to guide for effectuating political censorship through the private sector. And it’s worse than we feared. The Hill: TikTok to crack down on paid influencer political ads ahead of midterms By Rebecca Klar .....TikTok will label all content related to the midterms and crack down on paid influencer political ads as part of its plans to prepare for the upcoming elections, the company announced Wednesday. The popular video sharing app will label content identified as being related to the elections and all content from accounts that belong to governments, politicians and political parties in the U.S. The labels will direct users to click to enter the TikTok Elections Center, a resource with information available in more than 45 languages about elections and voting access created with partner organizations. The States Washington Post: Students lose access to books amid ‘state-sponsored purging of ideas’ By Hannah Natanson and Lori Rozsa .....In one Virginia school district this fall, parents will receive an email notification every time their child checks out a book. In a Florida school system, teachers are purging their classrooms of texts that mention racism, sexism, gender identity or oppression. And a Pennsylvania school district is convening a panel of adults to sign off on every title that school librarians propose buying. The start of the 2022-2023 school year will usher in a new era of education in some parts of America — one in which school librarians have less freedom to choose books and schoolchildren less ability to read books they find intriguing, experts say. In the past two years, six states have passed laws that mandate parental involvement in reviewing books, making it easier for parents to remove books or restrict the texts available at school, according to a tally kept by nonprofit EveryLibrary. Five states are considering similar legislation. 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." The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the First Amendment rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org. 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