Monthly Archives: April 2024

Matters of freedom of expression and higher educations federal responsibilities were at the forefront of the University of Californias Sixth Annual #SpeechMatters Conference.Catherine Lhamon

The virtual half-day conference, held April 18, brought together panelists from across higher ed including federal officials, faculty, staff, university deans, and students to speak about the state of free speech on American college campuses, particularly amid ongoing tensions regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict and the 2024 elections.

Across the country, we are confronted with the challenges of extreme polarization, perhaps no more intensely than on our college campuses, said UC President Dr. Michael Drake. Places that ideally offer space for exchanging ideas and stretching perspectives, institutions of higher education are increasingly charged environments.

Hamass attack on Israel last October is one of the latest assaults in a bloody decades-long geopolitical dispute. Tensions surrounding this most recent conflict which has resulted in thousands of deaths, mostly of those in Palestine have flared student protests and hostility at colleges.

Last December, Congress questioned the presidents of several high-profile universities about potential antisemitism on their campuses. As recently as April 17, Congress called on Columbia University President Dr. Nemat Shafik to answer about reports of antisemitism and harassment of pro-Palestinian students.

Universities have a federal civil rights obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to take action if they know or should have known about the presence of hostile environments on their campuses, including those against Jewish and Palestinian students, Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education (ED), said in a recorded message during the conference.

There has been a proliferation of hate in campus communities in recent months, she said.

My office generally finds that a hostile environment exists where there is unwelcome race/national origin-based conduct that, based on the totally of circumstances, is subjectively and objectively offensive and is so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person's ability to participate in or benefit from the recipient's education program or activity, Lhamon defined.

Even if schools find that certain speech is protected, they still have a responsibility to ensure that it doesnt create hostile environments for students, she said.

And colleges can act in ways that do not necessarily cause conflict between free speech rights and their obligations against discrimination, such as publicly rejecting derogatory opinions, providing counseling to affected students, instructing students on how to file discrimination complaints, and teaching students how to engage in civil discourse, Lhamon said.

Students knowledge about Title VI and freedom of expression may vary, depending on their access to resources and people who can help them understand, explained Dr. Sheri Atkinson, associate vice chancellor for student life, campus community, and retention services at UC Davis. To that end, her office focuses on giving students proactive education about their rights and existing policies.

Dr. Sheri AtkinsonWhen they're using their voice, when they're expressing themselves, when they're expressing hurt and pain, these are important things that are happening. And if there's a policy violation in that, ... we can address it, Atkinson said. [We have to remind ourselves that] some of these behaviors are developmentally appropriate. This is a safe space on our campuses to express themselves. And they're opportunities to learn and grow from this.

But students are not the only party that can be victim to harassment. Multiple faculty and staff speakers told their stories of being targeted for their work. This kind of harassment such as emails, social media, and death threats is pervasive and can lead to censorship of faculty work, the panelists said.

It can be thoroughly isolating, added Dr. Patrick Grzanka, divisional dean for social sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, after sharing his own story of targeted harassment.

It's really important to understand that we're talking about a structural form of isolation that this kind of harassment involves, Grzanka shared. It isolates you within your job, within your expertise, within all of your professional roles. It can make people incapable of doing their work. If what you're being harassed for is simply existing in your role, the stress ... can be quite debilitating.

Often in discussions about free speech, the First Amendment and a desire for a marketplace of ideas are brought up. But such ideas are not foolproof, said Dr. Mary Anne Franks, the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor at George Washington Universitys Law School.

Sometimes, when we think about the marketplace of ideas, we don't think enough about how unfortunately it is very much like a marketplace in a bad sense, Franks noted. There are people with more power and more resources who are able to keep other people out. If you have [a] lack of safeguards, certain things can poison the marketplace, hurt people, and damage the things that people are looking for.

As the U.S. approaches its 2024 election season, student voter participation was centered during one of the conferences panels. Todays students are interested and concerned about several issues the economy, civil and reproductive rights, climate change, etc. but they are at the same time quite disengaged and disillusion with the current state of politics, according to the panelists.

Students are exhibiting signs of hopelessness and feeling as though they are not being listened to by their representatives in a dysfunctional government, said Dr. Nancy Thomas, executive director of the AAC&Us Institute for Democracy & Higher Education.

We know from the polls that our elected officials are not listening to us, Thomas said. We know that most Americans want reasonable gun safety [and] reproductive rights for women. And yet, they are not following through on the will of the people.

Continued here:
UC Virtual Conference Centers Free Speech and Civil Rights Amid Ongoing Tensions on College Campuses - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

The Vernal Equinox is half-way between the solstices: half-way between the shortest and the longest day. Like all the solar holidays, it brings to mind long shadows and standing stones and neo-paganism. Stonehenge and Glastonbury: picture a white sun rolled like a pin over a field of feral kids; a shrieking mass of stray limbs like the innards of an iPhone or an etching by William Blake; crap in buckets and crepe paper platted in hair.

I wasnt thinking about the Vernal Equinox or the Autumnal Equinox or any other harbingers of death, decay, and degeneration until about 8.07am, when a swarm of whatsapps wrenched me out of my bleary morning innocence. Id never heard of Vernal Scott, but his name was obviously an omen of some kind. He had tweeted: I applaud the mayor and police of Brussels for their decision to close down this conference.

For some reason, this was what the Mayor of Brussels and his dragoons had suppressed

He meant NatCon. And while I am delighted that many readers will have no idea what a NatCon is, it does mean that I will have to give a word of explanation. NatCon National Conservatism is a movement, organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation, that holds conferences on faith, flag, and family-values conservatism. It was vaguely on my radar back in the Euro-days as an occasional pulpit for one of the sexier Le Pens; Scruton might have gone once, presumably to indulge that particularly Tory penchant for addressing the Inuit in Mandarin. Their 2024 meeting was held in Brussels in mid-April, and the local mayor had set les Rozzers on them: the conference was shut down, although unfortunately, we were not granted the spectacle of Nigel Farage being hauled off to le slammer.

I got hacked-off about NatCon at the start of 23, when the Tories were settling into their new disorder, and the movements leader a disarming man in a kippah called Yoram Hazony rocked-up to announce NatCon London. During the taster, he was politely advised that National Conservatism had a branding problem in the UK.

None of this was exactly taken on board, which was unfortunate.

NatCon London was a morass of punditry everyone had heard before. It was bland even by the Pigling-Bland standards of a Conservative Party Conference fringe event. There were off-the-shelf speeches by Braverman, Frost, Mogg, and Gove (I skipped most of these: the labels at the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate Britain were woke but at least they had a certain mock-gravity). The Brexit Man and his gawky drummer humped their speakers from the pelican crossing down to Marsham Street and set up camp. It was all quite strange.

Unfortunately, the Roderick Spode branding, the Disneyfied over-production, the Leni Riefenstahl lighting, and the brill-creamed bouffantry made it look like a planning meeting for the Fourth Reich, and the press was delighted to run with it. The fact that it was actually a window on the only future that might be even worse a future of shivering losers in shepherd-huts, shit-posting about Anglicanism in their dressing gowns and watching woke Netflix meant nothing. NatCon London violated Rules Alpha and Beta of British politics. Dont look like a fanatic(k). Dont sound like an American. We pitched these people overseas for a reason: they are a bit intense.

The whole circus seemed to have been calculated to have the smallest possible appeal: it won no new supporters, inspired no new ideas, informed no new policies, and cost an awful lot of money that could have been spent more usefully on practically anything else.

For some reason, this was what the Mayor of Brussels and his dragoons had suppressed. Obviously, it isnt good when Village Hitlers like Monsieur Philippe Close a soft-boiled oeuf who is mayor because his predecessor got attrapd avec le schnozzle dans la trough municipale start summarily banning painfully pedestrian talking shops. It isnt good for European conservatism that rootless, listless, pointless NatCon got some light and oxygen from it. But it probably is good for European conservatism that the mayor of Imperious Europes capital city outed himself as a low-rent train conductor (revenue protection officer in Newspeak).

Unfortunately, as the coffee settled into my veins and I scrolled every deeper down the rabbit hole of Vernal Scotts twitter feed, I remembered that the Covid Age has been high season for revenue protection officers, Village Hitlers, and other assorted mastodons of tyranny over our granulated societys witless and alienated electrons.

Vernal Scotts decision to side with lOeuf Mayeurnaise was getting a bit of a reaction. Free speech not your bag, Vernal? His reply was a staple of Dark Age philosophy that I had heard a few times the night before: Sure, but the mayor decides.

In the United Kingdom, he is Head of Equality and Diversity at the University of Oxford

Sire, you cant just murder your subjects: after all, it is the tenth century. (I stole that line, but Google is being racist and refuses to identify the source for me.) You see, in Villareal-Vladivostock Europa, theres a rule. If you want to quietly suspend some human rights or some constitutional freedoms or the rule of laws above men, and you dont have time to gather the support staff of the European Council of Ministers in the usual basement to do it legally, just chance your arm and the international nomenklatura will do everything it can to let you get away with it.

Which brings us to the salient point of this screed. Vernal Scott is indeed a member of the neo-nomenklatura. In the Soviet Union, he would probably have managed some kind of turnip manufactory in the Urals. In the United Kingdom, he is Head of Equality and Diversity at the University of Oxford, and we are delighted to have him: delighted, says the Chief Diversity Officer (Order of Lenin, II.ii), to have such an experienced leader on diversity joining us, as we embark upon our new agenda on equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Joining us? Yes, lets toss the past-peak-woke chestnut on the Belgian griddle, for Vernal was appointed to this august position as recently as September 2023 (equinox?), fresh from something called the Essex Police Service. Vernal is thrilled to have been appointed. His mission will be to persuade everyone that excellence in Higher Education and EDI are integral values. Aye, where are the songs of autumn. Where are they?

I do not care that Mr Scott is a gay dad or an ex-man of faith, any more than I care that Monsieur Close is an egg with a pair of eyebrows. I dont want to care about Mr Scotts values, which I wish were his business. I was briefly amused to see that he thinks diversity and human rights consultant is a job but then again, hes had the last laugh on that one all the way to the bank with public and charitable dough.

I do care a great deal that someone who will have vast, yea, unfathomable powers of sanctimonious meddling in one of this countrys greatest institutions an institution full of people who are too cowed and too poor and too busted to stand up to such meddling believes that random officials have the right to suppress the free and peaceable exchange of ideas upon a whim. And this actually matters, because Oxford is a coal-face of human imagination and invention, an enormous asset to Britains economy and influence and the place where we recruit our political and cultural leaders.

I dont like NatCon. But what Mr Scott said about its suppression is a knife tickling the gullet of Oxford University. He needs to explain himself. And if he will not recant, he needs to go: pour decourager les autres, because attitudes like his are destroying our society. And if he will not recant, and he does not go, then the Universitys most senior leaders will have questions to answer as well.

I dont like being gas-lit either. A few months ago Chris Patten announced his retirement as the Universitys Chancellor:

I regard universities as an important part of the value system of open democratic societies We should certainly not allow them to be dragged into the centre of so-called culture wars which have usually little to do with culture, but are invariably a clash between the ideologues and heresy hunters from the extremes. Scholarship is often abandoned in these somewhat demeaning fights. We should certainly do everything we can to avoid what has been happening on the campuses of some great universities in the United States.

Should certainly not allow! Everything we can to avoid! Its a nice old story Pang, but its in the wrong tense. Future most definitely imperfect. Were not buying it, and Vernal is Exhibit A.

Read more:
Free speech freeze-up | D.H. Robinson - The Critic

The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education held its first Free Speech Training Program on April 11, beginning efforts to train administrators and higher education officials.

Deans, department heads and other officials who deal with free speech policies or complaints must complete First Amendment training every two years or when they are hired, according to 70 O.S. 3205. House bill 3543, which Gov. Kevin Stitt signed April 2022,establishing the Oklahoma Free Speech Committee for the Regents. The Regents' policy 2.28 also established the committee, with the purpose of giving recommendations forfree speech policies, training and complaints.

This training is among the Regents first step toward complying with the statute.

The Regents' committee is also reviewing OSU's free speech policies.

The training was held at the University of Central Oklahoma, where faculty filed into an auditorium to learn about the basics of the First Amendment and how it applies to higher education institutions.

Andy Lester, a former member of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and lawyer, spoke and moderated a panel during the training. He said freedom of speech is essential for college campuses.

Let's be clear, freedom of expression is a central core principle for our public institutions of higher education, Lester said. Of course, the ideas of different members of a college or university community will often quite naturally conflict, but it is not the proper role of a college or university (to) attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagree (with) or even deeply offensive. With that said, our colleges and universities should greatly value civility. Today's college students are tomorrow's leaders.

The training had Joseph Thai as its featured speaker. Thai, an associate dean and professor of law at the University of Oklahoma, gave a lecture about the basics of the free speech clauses application to college campuses.

He discussed the varying degrees of protection based on context. For example, he said professors could impose a rule on their classes that students cannot disrupt class based on content-neutral restrictions.

As college campuses continue to evolve and serve as a space for political or social discourse, Thai said it is more important than ever to know about freedom of speech.

We know, as Andy (Lester) touched on, and as you have certainly followed from the news, that free speech controversies have been roiling our campuses across the country, from elite institutions like my alma mater, Harvard, to institutions closer to home, like my employer the University of Oklahoma, Thai said.

Pointing to issues of controversy, such as when OUs chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity did a racist chant that spread across the internet, Thai said there is a difference between protected and unprotected speech. Although hate speech is protected, fighting words, true threats and incitement are not.

Thai used Cohen v. California (1971) as an example to demonstrate the importance of free speech to society.

The court said that freedom of expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and pompous as ours, Thai said. It is designed and intended to remove governmental restraints from the arena of public discussion, putting the decision as to what views shall be voiced largely in the hands of each of us, in our students, in the hope that use of such freedom or alternately produce a more capable citizenry, and a more perfect polity.

Brandee Hancock, deputy general counsel and chief legal officer to OSU President Dr. Kayse Shrum, spoke during the panel portion of the event.

Hancock said that trainings, such as this, are important for faculty members to participate in. It informs them of their rights and the rules they can impose on students. Specifically telling faculty members what they cannot do, as opposed to what they can, is often more helpful, she said.

I always quote a member of one of our communications team, who shall remain nameless, who says, If you're talking, you're losing, and that's usually what I'm thinking about when we're talking about should we say something or should we not? Hancock said.

Although there are no plans for the next free speech training, Hancock said in an email after the event that the Regents recorded it and that it will be available to anyone who could not make it in person. She said OSU plans to have all administrators and department heads complete the training by the end of the year.

Hancock said though the training was the only planned event to specifically discuss freedom of speech, other training OSU offers cover the topic during the academic year.

news.ed@ocolly.com

Read more:
OSU, OK State Regents for Higher Education complete first required free speech training - Daily O'Collegian

(April 19, 2024 / JNS)

I was proud until recently to have been an adjunct professor at Columbias Law School for more than 20 years. My one-day-a-week seminar was titled Religious Minorities in Supreme Court Litigation. In class discussions, written exercises and other assignments, students covered recent Supreme Court briefs, oral arguments and decisions.

The testimony of Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard, reportedly prepared by lawyers at the distinguished Washington law firm Wilmer Cutler, astounded me. Gay, along with the other university presidents who appeared at a hearing of a House committee on Dec. 5, was apparently not told of the Supreme Courts unanimous agreement in Counterman v. Colorado, (600 U.S. 662023), decided a few months before her public appearance, that the First Amendments shield for free speech did not protect harassing utterances. She and the two other intellectual giants replied to the sharp questions of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) by asserting that calls for genocide of Jews, even if harassing, were protected on their campuses so long as they did not cross the line into conduct. The Supreme Courts opinions in Counterman uniformly rejected such a reading of the First Amendment.

Former dean David Schizer of Columbia Law School, whose term coincided with seven years of my participation on the law school faculty (although I must confess that I have no recollection of ever meeting him) sat next to the universitys president, Minouche Shafik, at the witness table for her appearance on April 17.

Schizers introductory statement at the House hearing was appalling, deserving a failing grade in his schools constitutional law course. He declared that on Columbias campus, the right to protest has to be protected, as if protest on grounds owned by Columbiaa private, not a government-owned or run, institutionis public speech shielded by the First Amendment guarantee against abridging the freedom of speech.

Schizer should know that protest in a public forum is legally and constitutionally very different from protest on private premises. I may legally control what is said in my home and exclude anyone from my private premises if he or she says anything that offends my family or other guests. Free speech does not extend to declarations that the owner of the premises chooses to forbid for any reasonor, for that matter, for no reason at all.

Schizer listed for the House Committee four areas that his remedial committee on antisemitism identified. The first, he said, was better rules about where and when protests can be held. Only where and when? As if all protests were mandatory and the only restrictions the Columbia administration might impose were on their location and timing.

Would Columbia permit a protest calling for a return to slavery of all blacks? What if a protest is called on the Columbia campus to repeal the 19th Amendment and again deny suffrage to females?

The First Amendment might entitle a provocateur to carry a sign on a public street or deliver an address with either of these messages in a town square. But the owner of premises, even if they are open to the public for certain purposes, could not be compelled to allow this opinion to be expressed on his property.

This is not a dubious constitutional proposition. In 1972, sustaining the right of a shopping center owner to bar the distribution of handbills protesting the war in Vietnam, the Supreme Court vigorously and forthrightly rejected the assumption that people who want to propagandize protests or views have a constitutional right to do so whenever and however and wherever they please. (Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, 407 U.S. 551, 568, 1972).

Schizer is simply wrong in declaring that free expression and academic freedom demand that all protests be permitted on campusno matter how they affect portions of Columbias invited student populationso long as they dont disrupt classes and other activities. Columbia has always had the legal right and moral obligation to decide that certain opinions, even if called protests to energize and inflame its adherents, should not be tolerated.

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Will Columbias law-school dean learn the law of free speech? - JNS.org

People may not be removed from school board meetings without proper cause or warning

TEMECULA VALLEY Today, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the First Amendment Coalition reached a settlement with the Temecula Valley Unified School District on behalf of two plaintiffs, following the unconstitutional removal of school board meeting attendees.

Residents Upneet Dhaliwal and Julie Geary sued the Temecula Valley Unified School District, its Board of Trustees, and its president, Joseph Komrosky, in December 2023 for violating their rights under the First Amendment and California law by ejecting them from school board meetings without cause.

The settlement stipulates that the school board president Joseph Komrosky may only remove members of the public for conduct that actually disrupts a meeting and not conduct that he decides is merely likely to disrupt the meeting.

The ability to question elected officials is crucial for democracy, said Jonathan Markovitz, staff attorney at the ACLU SoCal. Todays settlement ensures members of the public that no one can violate their right to participate in school board matters that are crucial to their children and families.

According to the settlement, the board president may not determine that members of the public are being disruptive and order them removed merely because he disagrees with the viewpoint of their speech. Opposing opinions or stances on topics are not inherently disruptive.

It is important that our rights to petition the government and air grievances shall not be infringed by a school board president on a power trip, said plaintiff Julie Geary. My hope is that the Temecula school board goes back to supporting students academic excellence and stops trampling on our constitutional rights.

In the case of an actual disruption, the board president or their designee must provide a verbal warning and an opportunity to cease the disruptive conduct before removing a member of the public. The settlement makes clear that Komroskys unorthodox use of waving penalty cards during board meetings cannot substitute for the verbal warning that is required by California law.

"Debate is democracy, not disruption, said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition. The settlement protects the peoples right to engage with their elected officials free from unlawful censorship.

The settlement ensures a three-year enforcement period by the U.S. District Court.

I hope this settlement will ensure that our elected representatives, including Joseph Komrosky, respect the law and refrain from silencing differing or critical opinions, said plaintiff Upneet Dhaliwal.

Read the settlement: https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/2024_03_25_settlement_stip_003.pdf

Go here to read the rest:
Settlement Reached in Free Speech Case at Temecula Valley Unified - ACLU of Southern California

On Monday, Andrew Guzman, the provost of the University of Southern California, sent aletterto the campus community announcing the cancellation of the speech by the student valedictorian. Concerned with the intensity of feelings around the Middle East and accompanying risks to security, he wrote, tradition must give way to safety.

There is no question that universities have a duty to maintain campus safety during graduation ceremonies. Campus administrators are responsible for the safety of tens of thousands of students and their friends and families at a very public venue during this period. They want everyone to share a memorable moment of recognition of accomplishment, and to be safe while doing so.

Yet the provosts letter sounded all too familiar to me. For six years, I served as the United Nations principal monitor of freedom of expression worldwide. In that role, I repeatedly saw governments shutting down public speech to prioritize vague assertions of national security or public order over the rights of its citizens.

This context helps us understand why USCs decision is so troubling. For as much as Guzman asserted that the decision has nothing to do with freedom of speech, he failed to demonstrate the necessity of this draconian measure. As such, the action is clearly an interference with free speechthe question is whether it was justified.

The student selected as valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, earned the honor, the result of a faculty recommendation that Guzman himself approved. With nearly perfect grades, a major in biomedical engineering, and a minor in genocide studies, Tabassum presents the kind of profile that any university would be thrilled to celebratehardworking, successful, committed to science and society, engaged in the life of her campus.

And like so many young people today, she has thoughts about justice and the wider world of which she is a part. Specifically, she supports the pro-Palestine activism that has grown across the world, especially on college campuses. This is obvious because she linked to a pro-Palestine website on her Instagram page and liked posts from a campus organization favoring Palestinian rights.

Many find those websites, and those views, objectionable. Thats fine: Everyone enjoys the right to disagree and object. According to reporting in theLos Angeles Timesand elsewhere, those associations and views caused pro-Israel groups to launch a campaign against her, and some unnamed individuals to issue threats.

The USC leadership caved to these efforts. Asserting that Tabassum had no entitlement to speak, as the provosts letter emphasized, is beside the point. USC pulled her from the podium because, it appears, it concluded that thereactions toher views and associationsperhaps her valedictory speechcould somehow threaten public safety or disrupt commencement. Even Guzmans letter makes this plain: He made sure to note that the criteria for selection did not include candidates social media presence, implying that he would not have approved her as valedictorian if he had known her views.

The question is not whether the university has a significant interest in a safe celebrationit obviously does. The question is whether it has shown that the steps it took were necessary and proportionate to ensure that kind of environment. And here is where USC administrators have failed. They did not demonstrate that it was necessary to cancel Tabassums speech. They did not show, or even allege, that Tabassum would use the moment to incite any kind of disruption.There is no evidence that the university considered what a security arrangement might look like to protect Tabassum and all participants at graduation. There is no evidence that it considered or offered alternatives to canceling her speech altogether.

In short, Tabassum has been penalized while those making the threats have secured a victory. USCs choice came with obvious costs, depriving Tabassum of a speaking role and her classmates of hearing one of their most academically successful members.

USC gave opponents of Tabassums views the hecklers veto. The lesson seems to be: If you dont like a speaker, complain and threaten disruption to get your way. The risks to campus free speech are obvious. Once a school starts down this path, there is no end to political tests in which university administrators bless certain viewsthose that do not stir up intense feelingsand reject others. That is the path of campus authoritarianism, something American students have been fighting against since at least 1964.

Schools like USC will forever face pressure to pick students without a political backstory, without convictions or passions that spark dissent or make some uncomfortable. Universities face increasingly strident calls, inside and outside their campuses, for them to limit speech on grounds that have nothing to do with their academic missions. Now, more than ever, members of campus leadership must stand up for their students, their faculties, and their communities in the face of threatsand not only teach but practice the centrality of freedom of expression in democratic societies like ours.

More here:
USC canceled its valedictorian speech: What the university got wrong. - Slate

Your essential companion on the #EU2024 campaign trail.

By EDDY WAX

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HELLO. There are 48 days until June 6. After a rather dreary European Council that produced more acronyms than news, its clear that the story of the week was the free speech furor around the National Conservatism Conference, which was both canceled and not canceled at the same time a bit like Schrdingers cat, if the cat had been a Brexiteer.

On a serious note, the conference gave Europes Euroskeptic forces a massive boost ahead of crunch national, EU and U.K. elections in the coming year. Italys Giorgia Meloni, the U.K.s Rishi Sunak, and Hungarys Viktor Orbn all weighed in and Nigel Farage even went on Fox news on Thursday. The hard right has never looked so united but is it really such a happy family?

THREE REASONS EUROPES HARD RIGHT IS DIVIDED: The perennial talk of a tie-up between the two political groups to the right of Ursula von der Leyens European Peoples Party is getting louder and louder. The two groups the European Conservatives and Reformists and Identity & Democracy have lots in common: They hate the EUs new migration pact, they hate the Green Deal and argue its being brought in at the expense of farmers, and they accuse the European Commission of politically charged overreach.

This week I chased former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki down a Parliament corridor to ask him if the hard-right was coalescing perhaps into a single group in the next European Parliament? His walking-talking answer: Its too early to say, it takes two to tango. It wasnt a yes but it wasnt entirely a no and we know that such talks took place and narrowly failed not so long ago.

An ECR-ID group would be the Parliaments second largest, just after the EPP, my colleague Jakob Hanke Vela points out, meaning big implications on policy in the next five-year legislature. When I spoke with Morawiecki, he had just come from a press conference with Orbn and Fabrice Leggeri, one of the big guns that French National Rally chief Marine Le Pen has moved onto her electoral battlefield. Organized by the ECR group and taking place at the same time as the National Conservatism Conference, it was a packed room and its attendees from the Flemish Vlaams Belang and Spains Vox to the German far-right were a veritable whos who of the EU rightwing.

Not happening: There is no chance to merge, top Brothers of Italy MEP Carlo Fidanza told my colleague Sarah Wheaton in an interview at an ECR party conference last month.But even if a full-blown merger doesnt happen, three big factors make the rights apparent show of strength and unity this week seem less certain.

Ukraine. Hungary and Poland dont see eye to eye on supporting Ukraine, and though Orbn is desperately keen to join Morawieckis ECR, weve reported in this newsletter before about the staunchly pro-Ukrainian parties in ECR who are deeply unhappy about that prospect. Orbn largely avoided the issue of the war in Ukraine at the press conference with Morawiecki, only to argue that it should be hived off from talk of Ukraine joining the EU. At NatCon he dismissed a suggestion he was Vladimir Putins ally, but then said Ukraine cant win on the battlefield and that he supports Ukraine to survive somehow not exactly fulsome backing.

Franco-German feud. Within the far-right ID group, a feud is bubbling between the Alternative for Germany and the National Rally. While the AfD, which will be led into elections by MEP Maximilian Krah, is becoming ever more radical, Le Pens party has for years been on a mission to appeal to more mainstream voters putting them on a collision course. This week, the fight flared up again after AfD leader Alice Weidel lodged a parliamentary letter questioning the French ownership of the island of Mayotte which is exactly where Le Pen is soon scheduled to be campaigning. If the two biggest delegations in the ID group cant get on, then can the group survive?

Backing Ursula. The most powerful branch of the ECR group is the Brothers of Italy, whose leader, Meloni, has developed a close relationship with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who is depicted as everything thats wrong with Brussels by Orbn and Co. It seems likely that VDL is counting on the support of the Fratelli to get her across the line in a crunch vote in Parliament later in the year. That could put the ECR at odds with Hungary. Orbn has called for a leadership change in Brussels and it is clear that his campaign back home will be squarely focused on making VDL out to be a danger to Hungarian national interests.

PARTY LINE, WHAT PARTY LINE? MEPs voting record per group reveals major differences between lawmakers ideological agreement with other group members. While the Greens have cast the same vote in the vast majority of roll calls, the Identity & Democracy group stands out for its dissent.

A closer look reveals clear country blocks within the group. Italys League and Frances National Rally which each have about 20 MEPs often dictated the ID majority, only voting about 20 percent of the time against the groups majority vote.

But lawmakers from Alternative for Germany, Belgiums Vlaams Belang and Austrias Freedom Party disagreed about 30 percent of the time, while Denmark and the Czech Republics lawmakers votes went another way a whopping 40 percent of the time.

The average share of votes, which MEPs cast against the group majority, according to MEPs latest group.

The pros and cons of cross-border life

Lucas Joyeux is one of the nearly 100,000 residents of eastern France who travel daily to work in Luxembourg, a figure that keeps going up and which a study by the French statistics office attributed to a quest for higher wages.

Hes also a firm defender of the European ideal. Feeling European doesnt mean disavowing your heritage, Joyeux said. It means acknowledging that whether youre German, Polish or Romanian, you have something in common to fall back on.

Life in the region of Moselle, where Joyeux lives, is largely structured around the border with Luxembourg, with residents enjoying many of the benefits of the EUs passport-free Schengen area and the single market. There are long queues at gas stations in Luxembourg filled with French people taking advantage of cheaper fuel, and smokers buying packs of cigarettes at around half the price charged in France.

In Thionville, Moselles second most populous city, the freely distributed newspaper is the Luxembourgish daily LEssentiel, and some street signs are even translated into German.

Surely this region, which relies so much on the benefits of crossing borders, will vote for pro-EU parties in Junes European election? Maybe not.

Fabienne Menichetti, mayor of Ottange, a small French border town, said she was stunned by both the low turnout in her town during the 2019 European election, and the far-rights strong performance, and is worried about the outcome being the same this year.

Were right along the border, enjoying European amenities on a daily basis, we even have part of the population working directly for EU institutions, yet our turnout numbers are barely above 40 percent, below the national average, she said.

This region of France, which was once represented in the National Assembly by one of the EUs founding fathers, Robert Schuman, is far from being a haven of EU-loving citizens.

In the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who once advocated for France to leave the EU and continues to call out its obese technocratic structure, finished ahead in the first round of voting.

A few months after the election, her National Rally party picked up three of the regions nine seats in the lower house of parliament.

Support for the far right completely baffles me, Menichetti told POLITICO.

Menichetti said about 80 percent of households in her town have ties with Luxembourg, with at least one member of the household working in the Grand Duchy.

Due to our closeness with the border, we have many foreign communities in our town, with many people coming from Portugal, Italy or Luxembourg. Yet it feels like Europe doesnt resonate with them beyond where they work, the non-affiliated mayor said.

Daniel Schmidt, who runs a small business focusing on workplace health and security requirements, reckons the deindustrialization of Moselle, with the factories that once dotted the landscape having closed down, has fuelled the far right.

In 2012, steel giant ArcelorMittal which is headquartered in Luxembourg closed its plant in the town of Hayange. With rising unemployment and economic uncertainty, two years later, a National Rally mayor was elected.

by Victor Goury-Laffont

Victors full story will be published early next week.

Swedish MEP Sara Skyttedal was not kicked out of the EPP for forming a totally new party for the electionbut she wont be allowed to represent them in plenary nor use the EPPs funds, she told me. Why was she at NatCon (the only EPP person I saw there)? In a personal capacity, she said.

Ilaria Salis, an Italian anti-fascist activist who is detained in a Hungarian jail awaiting trial on assault charges, will lead the ticket for Italys Green-Left alliance. She made headlines after appearing in court shackled and handcuffed. Il Foglio got the scoop. David Lundy, the Left group spokesperson, called it a positive signal. Her father will be in Strasbourg next week, according to the Greens.

RECORD-BREAKING FINAL PLENARY! MEPs head to Strasbourg next week for the last plenary before the election. EP spox Delphine Colard said there were 89 final votes on the agenda, a record for the Parliament and a higher number than the final plenary of the 2014-2019 legislature. The FTs Andy Bounds asked a good question about whether this was a planning failure and good for parliamentary scrutiny.

Next week, big votes are expected on simplifying (or gutting green rules from) the Common Agricultural Policy, a new ethics body, and a debate on the Middle East. Heres the extremely packed agenda. Greens group spokesperson Simon McKeageny said he felt a mixture of relief, sadness and joy.

SOME ELECTION INTEREST: Good news! Er, sort of. The latest Eurobarometer data shows that 60 percent of Europeans are at the very leastinterestedin the upcoming election. That may sound like the bar is low, and that is because it is Eurobarometer data from before the 2019 election showed just shy of 50 percent reported interest.

Plus this is the first Eurobarometer since 2011 in which a higher share of Europeans have a positive image (a whopping 41 percent) of the European Parliament than a neutral one, so no wonder everyone is so excited.

CAMPAIGN AGENDA THIS WEEK:

EPP: Ursula von der Leyen has no campaign events planned this weekend.

(Very busy) Socialists: Lead candidate Nicolas Schmit is campaigning with center-left parties in Vienna and Florence this weekend, with SP leader Andreas Babler and PD Florence Mayor Dario Nardella, and on Monday hell be in Berlin to meet the SPD board, and then on Wednesday in Strasbourg he will campaign with MEPs Raphal Glcksmann and Katarina Barley. Also, check out his thinly-veiled attack on von der Leyens running of the Commission here.

Liberals: ALDE is holding a forum today in Budapest with its Hungarian Momentum, Progressive Slovakia, Austrian NEOS, and Romanian USR parties.

Greens: The Dutch Green-Left congress will take place on Saturday.

European Left: Walter Baier heads to Lisbon on Saturday for a conference on fighting the far-right, entitled No Pasarn!

BRUSSELS ELECTION BUZZWORDS:Competitiveness and Bolshewokism. Two words bouncing around the EU Quarter this week, two different election messages. This weeks episode of POLITICOs EU Confidential podcast decodes these concepts targeting very different audiences.Listen here.

IN OUR THOUGHTS: Monika Hohlmeier, the EPP chair of the Budgetary Control Committee, is in critical condition in hospital, BILD reports.

**Are you a young European looking to have a say in this years EU elections? Were looking for you! Join the Maastricht Debate on April 29th as a Youth Ambassador or follow the event online**

POLITICOs Leyla Aksu and Paul Dallison have made another playlist of songs to get you in the mood for the election. This weeks has some top tunes from Luxembourg.Here it is. Enjoy.

MEP trivia:This week Id like to know the names of the two most famous bars in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Answers by email, please. I love hearing from readers so dont hesitate to get in touch.

Last week, I asked you to name which country has the most MEPs who are not attached to a political grouping in the European Parliament. The answer is Hungary, which has 13 non-attached MEPs, 12 of which are from Orbns Fidesz, and one from the far-right Jobbik. But Italy has a whopping nine and Greece has seven non-attached MEPs. Overall, there are a massive 51 unattached MEPs at the end of this legislature, which is more MEPs than there are in the Left group.

MEPs tend to drop out of the main seven political groups if they quit their national political parties, get kicked out for bad behavior, or if the whole national party itself simply isnt aligned with a broader EU family.

Congratulations to Jillian Gaborieau from BCW, APCOs Thomas Thaler, and Association of European Cancer Leagues Toma Mikalauskait for their correct and swift answers.

Casual reminder:Were also on WhatsApp!Follow our account hereto stay up to date on the latest European election news in between Playbook editions.

Current election excitement level:Bolshewokism!

Last word:Ukraine is not a sovereign state anymore. Its a protectorate of the West, said Viktor Orbn at NatCon.

THANKS TO:Hanne Cokelaere, Lucia Mackenzie, Koen Verhelst, Sarah Wheaton and Paul Dallison.

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A free speech fiasco united the far-right here's why they remain divided - POLITICO Europe

Coin Center says the recently proposed stablecoin bill from Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand may be unconstitutional due to its ban on algorithmic payment stablecoins.

Coin Center, a non-profit advocating crypto organization, said in a recent blog statement that the recently proposed stablecoin bill aimed at regulation in reality stifles innovation and breaches First Amendment rights by banning all algorithmic models.

In the statement, the Washington-based crypto think tank highlighted concerns over the potential impact of the proposed legislation on technological innovation and freedom of expression, saying the blanket ban on algorithmic models could hinder progress in the crypto industry, noting that doing so would be not just bad policy but unconstitutional as well.

Banning people from publishing code and algorithms is a clear prior restraint on protected speech and is unconstitutional unless the government can show a compelling interest and narrow tailoring.

Coin Center

Coin Centers statement comes in response to the introduction of a bill by Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand, which seeks to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins. While the bill had received praise for its efforts to bring clarity to the stablecoin market, although it had also faced criticism for its restrictive measures targeting specific models.

The bill was developed jointly with the Federal Reserve and the New York State Department of Financial Services. According to its details, stablecoin issuers must have reserves of cash or cash equivalents at a 1:1 ratio to back their tokens. Additionally, the bill introduces a ban on unbacked algorithmicstablecoins, saying U.S.-approved issuers may only issue dollar-backed stablecoins, preventing algorithmic stablecoins from entering the market.

See the rest here:
Coin Center says Senate-presented stablecoin bill poses risks to innovation and free speech - crypto.news