The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech February 9, 2023 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]. Ed. note: The Daily Media Update will return Monday, Feb. 13. New from the Institute for Free Speech Professor Sues University of Texas for First Amendment Violations .....A finance professor is suing officials at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) who threatened to punish him for his criticism of the university by threatening his job, reducing his pay, and removing his affiliation with UT’s Salem Center. In a complaint filed in the Austin federal court, Dr. Richard Lowery, an Associate Professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business at UT-Austin, said the officials at the state’s flagship university violated his constitutional right to criticize government officials. The lawsuit also claims the UT administration harmed his right to academic freedom. Professor Lowery is well known for his vigorous commentary on university affairs. His articles have appeared widely, including in The Hill, the Texas Tribune, the Houston Chronicle, and The College Fix. He questioned the UT administration’s approaches to critical-race theory, affirmative action, academic freedom, competence-based performance measures, and the future of capitalism. One key target of Prof. Lowery’s critiques was the UT administration’s use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements to filter out competent academics who dissent from the DEI ideology. Lowery’s lawyers wrote in the complaint that UT’s administration “responded with a campaign to silence Lowery.” Congress Reason: House Oversight Committee Is Fighting Twitter Censorship the Wrong Way By Robby Soave .....The House Oversight Committee held a hearing Wednesday with the purpose of "Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias." Given the disturbing and unprecedented steps taken by federal agencies like the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control to limit free expression on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites, this would appear to be a legitimate subject for government oversight. Unfortunately, the approach taken by the Republican House majority—haul tech executives before Congress and attack them for being the victims of government pressure—is both counterproductive to the goal of defending free speech online, as well as a galling example of Republican members of Congress doing the very thing they claim to oppose. The Republican Party can hardly chide private companies' content moderators for being deferential to government authority while demanding similar deference to Congress. Washington Post: Ex Twitter official confirms Pentagon disinformation campaign By Mark Seibel .....The confirmation came during questioning of Yoel Roth by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.). “Is it true that Twitter white-listed accounts for the Department of Defense to spread propaganda about its efforts in the Middle East?,” Burlison asked. “Did they give you a list of accounts that were fake accounts and ask you to white-list those accounts?” “That request was made of Twitter,” Roth responded. “To be clear, when I found out about that activity, I was appalled by it. I undid the action, and my team exposed activity originating from the Department of Defense's campaign publicly. We shared that data with the world.” Rolling Stone: Twitter Kept Entire ‘Database’ of Republican Requests to Censor Posts By Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng .....When the White House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down. That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere to be found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases, which have focused almost exclusively on requests from Democrats and the feds to the social media company... But former Trump administration officials and Twitter employees tell Rolling Stone that the White House’s Teigen tweet demand was hardly an isolated incident: The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online. New York Times: Five Takeaways From the House G.O.P. Hearing With Former Twitter Executives By Luke Broadwater and Kate Conger .....House Republicans on Wednesday summoned former Twitter executives to answer to accusations that the social media platform has tried to silence voices on the right, but the hourslong hearing yielded new revelations about how the company failed to limit hateful speech or material that could incite violence, sometimes altering its own rules to avoid doing so. The Courts Carolina Journal: Federal Appeals Court rules in favor of AG Stein in dispute over criminal libel law .....A federal Appeals Court has ruled in favor of N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein in his challenge of a state criminal libel law dating back to 1931. The unanimous panel agreed Stein is likely to win his argument that the law is unconstitutional. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision sends the case back to a trial court. There Stein had lost his bid to secure a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the challenged law. New York Times: Free Speech vs. Disinformation Comes to a Head By Steven Lee Myers .....The attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, both Republicans, have sued the White House and dozens of officials like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, accusing them of forcing the platforms to stifle the voices of its political critics in violation of the constitutional guarantee of free speech. The outcome could help decide whether the First Amendment has become, for better or worse, a barrier to virtually any government efforts to stifle a problem that, in the case of a pandemic, threatens public health and, in the case of the integrity of elections, even democracy itself. KCCI: Johnston student suing school district after being suspended over T-shirt By Marcus McIntosh .....A Johnston Community School District student filed a federal lawsuit against the district, district administrators and a teacher. The student, a minor who is not named, was sent out of class and suspended after wearing a T-shirt to school on Sep. 1 that had a second amendment quote and a picture of a gun. This came two days after a discussion in Government class about free speech. According to the court filing, the teacher told the class the right to free speech was limited on school grounds. He added that the teacher would decide what qualifies as acceptable speech in the classroom. Podcasts Early Returns - Law and Politics with Jan Baran: Wes Bizzell: The Role of Corporate America and Associations in Politics .....Political activity and lobbying have become not only full time, but also highly regulated. That also means that election campaigns as well as lobbying activities are getting under way for the next election cycle. To talk about the demands and challenges of advising companies on political law, Jan speaks with Wesley Bizzell, a lawyer who has spent over 20 years specializing in political law, including at one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, Altria, which is politically active and lobbies both congress and state legislatures. They discuss the corporate compliance issues unique to a tobacco company and its approach to their PAC strategy. Free Expression Fox News: Airbnb admits 'mistake' in banning controversial YouTuber's parents from using its service By Gabriel Hays .....Popular short-term housing and vacation stay rental service Airbnb admitted it made a "mistake" in banning conservative provocateur Lauren Southern’s parents from using its service this week. According to Southern, a far-right content creator who used to work for conservative Canadian outlet Rebel News, Airbnb alerted her parents that they were barred from renting a property for a "romantic getaway" because of their daughter’s political activity. Airbnb had banned Southern previously and claimed it extended that ban to her parents... Southern posted a subsequent tweet defending her parents, insisting they have nothing to do with political activism. She wrote, "My parents are some of the sweetest people I know. They were just planning a romantic getaway, they aren't political activists." Southern then dinged the company, adding, "All I've learned is that if governments and corporations can't shut you up by harming you, they'll now go for your families." 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. Follow the Institute for Free Speech ‌ ‌ ‌ The Institute for Free Speech | 1150 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20036 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected]