This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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In the News
By Eric Goldman
.....This lawsuit involves the @UOEquity Twitter account, operated by the University of Oregon’s Division of Equity and Inclusion. During the relevant time period, tova stabin (who styles her name in lowercase) was the communications manager running the account. The account ran a series of posts titled “Racism Interrupters” that asked readers to respond by filling in the blanks to various provocative statements, including this post in June 2022 that says “It sounded like you just said _____. Is that really what you meant?”
Bruce Gilley is a controversial professor at Portland State University, best known for arguing in favor of colonialism. In response to the prompt, he tweeted “all men are created equal.”
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New from the Institute for Free Speech
.....Residents of Forsyth County are now permanently free to read excerpts from any written work available in the county school district’s classrooms or library following a court order issued yesterday by federal Judge Richard W. Story.
The order brings a lawsuit filed last July by members of the group Mama Bears of Forsyth County nearly to an end. The only remaining issue in the litigation is the amount of attorney’s fees owed by the Forsyth County School District (FCS) to the plaintiffs’ attorneys, which the parties to the lawsuit agreed to continue working to resolve.
The order, which both sides in the lawsuit asked the judge to approve, also:
- “permanently enjoins the District … from enforcing the respectfulness requirement, the restriction on personally addressing Board members, including the Superintendent, or any restriction on profane, uncivil or abusive remarks contained in the FCS’ current public participation policy or any substantially comparable provision in a future FCS policy….
- “does not prevent the District or its Board from amending the FCS public participation policy or issuing further implementing regulations consistent with this injunction….
- [and awards the plaintiffs] “nominal damages in the amount of $17.91 payable by check made out directly to each Alison Hair and Cindy Martin individually and delivered to them by FCS, or its insurer.”
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The Courts
.....The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Neenah today on behalf of Tim and Megan Florek, challenging the constitutionality of the city’s sign ordinance. The city sent letters to residents, citing its ordinance and demanding citizens to remove signs opposing local re-zoning efforts, or be penalized; thus, stifling their right to First Amendment-protected speech. WILL recently sent a letter to the City of Neenah demanding that they stop this infringement, but the city did not comply.
The lawsuit alleges that the city violated the residents’ First Amendment rights. The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in Green Bay.
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Congress
By Associated Press
.....Former Twitter employees are expected to testify next week before the House Oversight Committee about the social media platform’s handling of reporting on President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.
The scheduled testimony, confirmed by the committee Monday, will be the first time the three former executives will appear before Congress to discuss the company's decision to initially block from Twitter a New York Post article on Hunter Biden’s laptop in the weeks before the 2020 election.
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By Julia Conley
.....Ahead of the Democratic National Committee's annual Winter Meeting in Philadelphia, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called on the party to end super PAC spending in primary races, saying the Democrats should take the event as an opportunity to show their commitment to protecting democracy...
The party could make clear that it opposes the corporate takeover of campaigning by banning super PAC spending in its primaries, said Sanders, noting that the issue was not permitted to come up for a vote at last year's DNC meeting when he proposed it there.
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FEC
By Jessica Piper
.....Embattled Rep. George Santos’ longtime campaign treasurer told the Federal Election Commission Tuesday that she resigned from his campaign and affiliated committees last week.
Nancy Marks, who had served as treasurer for Santos’ 2020 and 2022 campaigns as well as campaigns of other New York politicians including former Rep. Lee Zeldin, said she had left the post last week. And a year-end filing submitted late Tuesday night listed Andrew Olson as the Santos campaign’s new treasurer...
Marks, who had been listed as the treasurer for Santos’ campaign and affiliated committees, told the FEC she had resigned from that post effective last Wednesday. That was the same day both those groups filed amended forms claiming Tom Datwyler, who has served as treasurer for many GOP candidates, was now the treasurer.
But a lawyer for Datwyler said he had not agreed to serve in the role. The FEC then asked Santos’ campaign to clarify the situation. Tuesday’s filing was the first to name Olson as the treasurer. The report also included a note saying it was “filed based on the limited information provided to the campaign from the previous treasurer Nancy Marks.”
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By Liam Madden
.....A recent VTDigger article reported on the Campaign Legal Center's filing of a complaint against my congressional campaign. Reporter Sarah Mearhoff gave me a fair opportunity to have some of my comments be part of the story (with more cursing on my part than I was aware would be shared).
But there are some elements to this story that I feel haven't been appropriately emphasized, the absence of which could give the audience a skewed interpretation of events. I would like to briefly offer these bits of context to make this story a smidge more balanced. Digger, to some extent, but much more so the folks they've interviewed, have given the impression that "Madden broke election law" as though that was a definitive conclusion. It simply is not.
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Online Speech Platforms
By Jacob Sullum
.....A widely cited list of Twitter users who were described as "Russian bots" included "a bunch of legitimate right-leaning accounts," according to an internal 2018 email from Yoel Roth, then the social media platform's "trust & safety" chief. Roth thought the list, compiled by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), was "bullshit" but never said so publicly, apparently because of pushback from other Twitter employees.
That episode, which journalist Matt Taibbi revealed last week, exemplifies the hysteria about Russian propagandists disguised as Americans. Contrary to the overheated warnings about foreign election "interference" we have been hearing since 2016, even genuinely phony social media accounts pose a threat less worrisome than the panic they have provoked.
The ASD takes it for granted that the damage done by divisive or dishonest political speech depends on the speaker's nationality. When Americans comment on U.S. issues or candidates, no matter how ill-informed or misguided their opinions, they are participating in democracy. When Russians say the same things, they are undermining democracy.
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The States
By Sarah Rankin
.....A Republican-led Virginia House panel voted down legislation early Wednesday that would prohibit lawmakers from using campaign funds for personal expenses such as a vacation, mortgage or country club membership.
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By Jason Harward
.....A proposal to double the campaign contribution limits to legislative candidates was voted down 37-31 in the South Dakota House on Jan. 31, with opponents fearing the raise would open the door for large donors to further influence state politics…
“The last time that this increased was 22 years ago,” Rep. Gary Cammack, a Republican from Union Center, said in favor of the change. “Consider the inflation that has occurred in running a campaign: the cost of radio, television, newspapers and postcards.”
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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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