The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech August 19, 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 Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Book disputes land suburban Atlanta school district in court By Ty Tagami .....There she went again. After being admonished the month before for taking the podium at a Forsyth County school board meeting and reading from an explicit portion of a book, Alison Hair was back at the microphone, with passages from a young adult novel in her hands. “We pushed back together, feeling the warmth and silk of each other’s skin. Our breaths are coming faster and harder,” she read. When she got to a sentence that included the words “arching up into her,” the gavel came down. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Ms. Hair, Ms. Hair,” board chairman Wesley McCall interjected. Still, she kept going. Hair didn’t stop until McCall interrupted to ask if the book had been formally challenged. “It is in your library!” she screamed at him. She would later be barred from attending school board meetings... Last month, Hair and her allies sued Forsyth schools in U.S. District Court in Gainesville. Their lawsuit argues that the school board effectively gagged them, violating their First Amendment right to petition the government for redress. Ed. note: The Institute for Free Speech represents Hair's group, Mama Bears. Learn more about the case here. Inside Higher Ed: Professor Sues U of Oregon Employee Over Twitter Block By Katherine Knott .....A Portland State University professor is suing a University of Oregon employee who blocked him on Twitter, KCBY11 reported. Bruce Gilley, a political science professor, accused Tova Stabin, communications manager of the university's Division of Equity and Inclusion, of violating his First Amendment rights by blocking him on the division’s Twitter account... The office posted a graphic in June as part of a series of posts that provided phrases or prompts on how to interrupt racism. The June prompt read, “It sounded like you just said [blank]. Is that what you really meant?” Gilley quote tweeted that post and said, “Fill in the blank for the @uoregon ‘Racism Interrupter’ machine. @UOequity My entry: …you just said ‘all men are created equal.’” That post got him blocked, according to the lawsuit. Supreme Court Wall Street Journal: Citizens United Bought . . . Nothing? By The Editorial Board .....According to progressive demonology, the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC unleashed corporate election spending, allowed fat cats to buy politicians, and turned the U.S. into an oligarchy, more or less. This is a canard, and further proof is a new study that sifts data to see if Citizens United had any effect on state tax policy. The answer is no. “Ten years after the ruling and for a wide range of outcomes, we are not able to identify economically or statistically significant effects of corporate independent expenditures on state tax policy, including tax rates, discretionary tax breaks, and tax revenues,” the study says. If billionaires were able to buy elections to lower state taxes, you’d think they would have done it by now. The Courts The Hill: Judge blocks DeSantis’s ‘Stop WOKE Act,’ says Florida feels like a ‘First Amendment upside down’ By Zach Schonfeld .....A federal judge on Thursday blocked portions of a Florida law restricting how workplaces and schools can discuss race during required training or instruction championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida Chief Judge Mark Walker issued a preliminary injunction blocking the private employer provisions in the law, known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” saying it violates free speech protections under the First Amendment and that it violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause for being impermissibly vague. “Recently, Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down,” Walker wrote in the ruling, comparing the law to the fictional “upside down” in the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” “Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely,” the Obama-appointed judge continued. “But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely.” Newsweek: ACLU Challenges Florida CRT Law as Ex-Prosecutor Sues DeSantis for Ouster By Emma Mayer .....The ACLU filed a lawsuit on Thursday aiming to challenge Florida's HB 7 bill, also known as the Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees, or the Stop WOKE Act.... "All educators and students have a right to teach and learn free from censorship or discrimination," said Leah Watson, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program in a press release. "The First Amendment broadly protects our right to share information and ideas, and this includes educators' and students' right to learn, discuss, and debate issues around systemic racism and sexism." Carolina Journal: Stein seeks emergency relief from 4th Circuit in challenge of N.C. law .....N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein is asking the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block the Wake County district attorney from proceeding with any criminal charges linked to a challenged state law. Stein filed paperwork Wednesday asking the appellate court to grant an injunction against enforcement of the law during the course of his appeal. A second emergency motion asks appellate judges to make a decision by Friday. The States GeekWire: ‘Gold standard’ or unconstitutional? Facebook and Wash. state AG spar over political ad disclosure law By Todd Bishop .....Calling Washington an “outlier,” Meta asserts that the state’s disclosure law violates the First Amendment by unfairly targeting political speech, imposing onerous timelines for publicly disclosing what Meta considers unreasonable degrees of detail to people who request information about campaign ads. “Holding that Washington’s unprecedented disclosure regime is unconstitutional here would not jeopardize other disclosure laws, whether in Washington or elsewhere,” Meta said in a July 15 motion. “It would simply bring Washington into line with the 49 other states that impose disclosure requirements that do not have the effect of shutting off entire channels of core political speech.” Meta says Facebook has stopped serving ads for campaigns in the state after determining that the company wouldn’t be able to reasonably comply with the law. The attorney general responded in a court filing Tuesday, saying that Meta has instead “made a business choice not to make the required information available despite already collecting it” through its ad platform. “There is no constitutional right to hide information related to election advertising spending just because a company would rather not provide it,” the AG’s filing said. Philadelphia Inquirer: Philly’s Board of Ethics will consider banning super PAC ‘redboxing’ ahead of the 2023 mayoral race By Sean Collins Walsh .....Local election lawyers are pushing back on a proposed change to Philadelphia’s campaign-finance regulations that they say could stifle candidates’ right to free speech. The Philadelphia Board of Ethics on Wednesday heard testimony on whether it should tighten rules aimed at preventing campaigns from indirectly communicating with political groups that can raise and spend money in unlimited amounts but are prohibited from coordinating with candidates. The five-member board is considering a proposed amendment to its campaign-finance regulations that aims to crack down on a new strategy known as “redboxing” that some candidates for federal office have used to give instructions to supportive outside spending groups like super PACs without communicating with them directly. But Philly-based election lawyers say the wording of the amendment, which was proposed by the board’s staff, is too broad and could unintentionally capture normal campaign messaging. FIRE: The New York State Senate blocks critics on Twitter. That’s unconstitutional — and FIRE calls on the Senate to knock it off. .....The New York State Senate wants to hear from “each and every citizen” as it considers hundreds of bills each year. But if you’re a New Yorker who criticizes the Senate on Twitter, you may find your account blocked and your tweet hidden. Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression called on the New York State Senate to stop blocking Twitter critics and hiding their tweets. FIRE defends the speech rights of all Americans and, here, represents William Silver, who was among many blocked after criticizing new gun control legislation. “The First Amendment protects the pen, the press, and the pixel,” said FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh. “When state actors go online, the First Amendment follows.” Courthouse News: Beto O’Rourke takes defamation fight to Texas appeals court By Erik De La Garza .....Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke argued that statements he made which are now the subject of a $1 million defamation lawsuit all concern a matter of immense public importance, and that the claim against him is nothing more than an attempt “to silence political debate.” In a filing Wednesday to the Austin-based Third Court of Appeals, O’Rourke said that his statements critical of energy executive Kelcy Warren and corporate influence over Texas energy policy aimed at Republican Governor Greg Abbott are covered speech under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, and not clearly defamatory. “The court should order the case dismissed and award O’Rourke his attorneys’ fees,” attorneys for the one-time 2020 presidential candidate wrote in the Aug. 17 appeal. 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