Category Archives: First Amendment

Seventy-five years ago this month, the ultra-right House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) opened its infamous hearings in Washington D.C. into Communist influence in the film industry.

The hearings led to the indictmenton charges of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committeeand the ultimate jailing of the members of the so-called Hollywood Ten, a group of left-wing writers, directors and producers. In the aftermath of the October 1947 hearings, the Hollywood studios initiated a blacklist, first of the Ten themselves (or those of them that were then employed), and ultimately, anyone labeled a subversive by HUAC and various anti-communist watchdogs.

Estimates vary, and there was never an official list (the studios, for legal reasons, always denied that any blacklist existed), but approximately 325 screenwriters, actors and directors were banned. The total number of those blacklisted or graylisted, partially blocked from working, may have been as high as 500. Among them were some of the most talented and sensitive figures in the film world.

Immense pressure was exerted on individuals under conditions of the Cold War anti-communist hysteria to name names. The witch-hunters were implacable. Artists with left-wing histories had the choice of informing on and destroying former friends and comrades or seeing their own lives and careers ruined. This was Scoundrel Time in Lillian Hellmans memorable phrase. Arthur Millers The Crucible, which uses the Salem witch trials as a metaphor, captures some of the terror and brutality of the era.

Directly or indirectly, the pressures drove numerous individuals to an early death, by heart attacks, strokes or suicide. Moreover, if one examines the lives and careers of Hollywood performers with an eye to this history, a distinct pattern emerges in sundry cases. X suddenly traveled to England or Europe to appear in or direct films. Y underwent a nervous breakdown in the early 1950s and never recovered his or her equilibrium. Alcoholism overcame Z. Others simply had the artistic or moral stuffing knocked out of them and never did anything challenging again. Many were intimidated into betraying their own best artistic and social instincts. Self-censorship, holding ones tongue in the interests of self-preservation, became the order of the day.

The full consequences extend far beyond the thousands of personal tragedies. The aim of the HUAC campaign, backed by the FBI and the US state apparatus as a whole, endorsed by the trade unions and official American liberalism, was to purge left-wing ideas and, furthermore, to the greatest extent possible criminalize such ideas, to enshrine anti-communism. A variety of individual ills could be addressed by the movies, but there was to be no suggestion of something fundamentally wrong with American society. The film industry in the US has never recovered to this day.

Sympathy for the blacklist victims should not blind anyone to the disastrous, reactionary character of the policies pursued by the Stalinist Communist Party, which themselves had far-reaching consequences. We have noted before that the CP and its membership had been profoundly and irretrievably compromised by the crimes of Stalinism. The Moscow Trials, the GPU murders of left-wing elements in Spain, the Stalin-Hitler Pact and other events left them politically vulnerable. In a broader intellectual sense, the CP membership had been largely indifferent to theoretical questions and tended to accept Stalinism as a brand of left-wing American radicalism, we wrote.

The Stalinists Popular Front policies, which subordinated the working class to the Democratic Party and the Roosevelt administration, rendered the Hollywood left thoroughly unprepared once Washingtons wartime alliance with the Soviet Union ended, the mask came off and the grisly visage of American imperialism, now the dominant capitalist power, appeared. The CP had promised a rebirth of democracy, a New Deal on an even grander and more social democratic scale. The partys members and periphery, won on the basis that Communism was 20th-Century Americanism, found it very difficult, if not impossible, to stand up to the immense pressures once the tide turned and the Cold War began.

Larry Ceplair has a lengthy history of writing about the blacklist and related matters. He is the co-author, along with Steven Englund, of The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 193060, first published in 1979, one of the most valuable works on the subject. In addition, he is the author of Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America: A Critical History, Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical and The Marxist and the Movies: A Biography of Paul Jarrico. Ceplair is professor emeritus of history at Santa Monica College in California.

In the preface to his new book, The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist: Seventy-Five Years Later, Ceplair explains that this year marks the forty-seventh anniversary of my first foray into the archives to write about [the blacklist]. Since then, I have coauthored The Inquisition in Hollywood, two biographies of blacklisted screenwriters, dozens of articles and book and film reviews on the subject, conducted many oral histories, and curated an exhibit at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

In addition to the lead essay, Looking Back, which considers the pendulum swing of historiography in relation to the blacklist, the new book includes pieces on Jewish Anti-Communism in the US and Hollywood and the ongoing debate over the Politics and Morality of Cooperative and Uncooperative Witnesses who testified before HUAC, 19471953. There are also studies of writers Dashiell Hammett, Ring Lardner Jr. (neither of whom capitulated to the witch-hunt) and Isobel Lennart (who did).

In Looking Back, Ceplair notes that the right-wing mythologizers, the defenders of the Hollywood purges, who have come to the fore since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in particular, are not interested in facts and definitions; they abhor complexity and nuance. The attitudes or motives of Communists are unwelcome intruders in the simplistic and reductionist world of anti-Communism, in which anyone who dared to oppose the policies and acts of the domestic Cold War was to be demonized.

Continuing, Ceplair asserts that it is, rather, the anti-Communists who should apologize for J. Edgar Hoover, Martin Dies, Richard Nixon, and Joseph McCarthy. And if assignment of blame is indeed possible, it is the anti-Communists who must be assigned responsibility for the perpetuation of investigations and proscriptions and the ruined lives of the thousands of people caught up in the jaws of the Cold War juggernaut they assembled and operated. This behemoth emboldened a rogues gallery of demagogues to inflate, often for their own agendas, the threat posed to national security by domestic Communists.

Later, he asks, What had the motion picture blacklist accomplished, aside from barring approximately three hundred people from their chosen vocation, hastening the exit of hundreds of people from the Hollywood Communist Party, altering the content of movies, and creating an informer subculture in Hollywood?

Larry Ceplair spoke to the WSWS recently on a video call.

***

David Walsh: As far as you know, is there going to be any official Hollywood, film industry or Academy recognition of the 75th anniversary of the blacklist?

Larry Ceplair: To the best of my knowledge, no. The industry made a big deal out of it in 2002. There were effusive apologies from the guilds. I dont think theyre going to do anything more. Film historian Ed Rampell organized various other blacklist anniversaries,. But I havent heard anything that hes doing this time. So I assume its just going to pass quietly.

DW: Apart from your own book, The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist: Seventy-Five Years Later, is there any kind of outpouring of new commentary on the events?

LC: I havent seen any. One of the reasons is that, as far as I know, Norma Barzman is probably the only blacklist victim still alive. Marsha Hunt died three weeks ago or so. The victims were the force behind the anti-Elia Kazan protest in 1999 and similar events. Theyre gone now, and their surviving children dont seem that interested.

DW: Do you have any sense of how many people in the film industry, and more broadly, are even aware of what took place 75 years ago?

LC: Very few, I think. There are of course historians and history students, but in the general population, including the film population, its a very small number who know about this history. And those who do are divided between those who have been supporters of the unfriendly witnesses and those who dont like them. Were an aging group, you know. In 10 more years there might not be anybody around to carry on this debate.

DW: How did you come upon this subject and why did it affect you? Why did you begin writing about this?

LC: Well, it was somewhat roundabout. I was living in New York at the time and New York has a lot of repertory movie theaters. I was going to a lot of movies from the 30s and 40s. It just struck me that they were so much better than the movies I was seeing, the current movies.

The auteur theory was very big in New York at that time, Andrew Sarris in the Village Voice and so on. I started reading books about directors, but I quickly realized that directors dont really know what theyre doing. They do it in some subliminal, instinctive level. They cant really explain what theyre doing.

I started looking at the writers as a group, and I realized they were the largest group of blacklistees. Thats how I started studying the events themselves. I thought most of the books I read were really superficial and condescending. I was enough of a historian to know that people dont get prosecuted and proscribed that way unless they had some substance to them.

My co-author Steven Englunds stepfather had been a member of the Screenwriters Guild for many years. I said, I think we have an interesting story here about the writers and their politicization. Thats how that started, in the mid-1970s.

DW: In the first essay in the new book you discuss the historiography on the blacklist. You point to the leftward shift in the 1960s and 1970s, which expressed hostility to the anti-communist purges, and then the change that took place, the right-wing backlash in the 1990s, especially following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

LC: One of the major events was the opening of the former Soviet archives, and the release of all those records, which revealed the correspondence between the Communist Parties and the Russians. So these right-wingers said, you see, we were right all along. The Communists were agents of a foreign power and they were out to destroy us. The Cold War was important and correct.

DW: We are the most vehement opponents of Stalinism, but to identify the Communist Party as nothing more than a GPU conspiracy was McCarthyite rubbish. Thousands of people joined the Party, not to support Stalin and the gulags, but to fight racism, anti-Semitism, fascism, capitalism. They were wrong in the party they joined, and their defense of Stalinism discredited and often destroyed them. But some of the most talented people found themselves in that organization.

LC: I agree. The notion that somehow or other, if people hadnt joined the Communist Party, something would have happened differently in the Soviet Union is just illogical nonsense.

DW: As we noted years ago in writing about Elia Kazan, informers like Kazan never bothered to explain how ceding the struggle against totalitarianism to McCarthy, John Foster Dulles, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, the CIA, the FBI and the US military would advance the cause of human liberation.

LC: That is because they cannot. Their post-facto explanations are flimsy rationalizations of their primal reason for informing: keeping their jobs. The explanations of the unfriendly witnesses are more substantive. I first learned of them, and got some of my inspiration, as a number of us did, from watching Hollywood on Trial [1976], which I still think is by far the best documentary on the subject. Around the same time that Steven and I started working, Nancy Schwartz started preparing her book on The Hollywood Writers Wars. Victor Navasky had also done something on the Hollywood Ten in articles in the New York Times, as a sort of prelude to his book, Naming Names.

We were not the first, but I think we were among the first cohort to start working seriously on this. No one had gone back to the 30s and 40s. Thats what the new group did.

DW: Could you explain a little about the Dies Committee, later the House Un-American Activities Committee, and how it was set up?

LC: Originally, the committee was the brainchild of a congressman from New York. Samuel Dickstein was Jewish and he wanted to investigate the proliferation of fascist groups in the United States in the mid-30s. Dickstein wanted to investigate these as agents of a foreign power, etc. The committee was originally called the Special Committee on Un-American Activities. Dickstein wasnt named chairman, that went to John W. McCormack, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

McCormack began to shift the committee from looking at fascism, to looking at all subversive groups. Martin Dies, a right-wing Democrat from Texas, became chairman in 1938, and then it became purely an anti-communist committee. Dies did not seek re-election in 1944. At that point, John Rankin, the Democrat from Mississippi, became the main influence over the committee. When the Republicans won control of Congress in 1946, John Parnell Thomas from New Jersey became chairman.

So Dies was around for about six or seven years and didnt really make a dent. He tried twice to come out to Hollywood during the late 1930s and early 1940s to conduct investigations, but he found no support at that time. On these occasions the studio owners didnt support him. There was no Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, established in 1944, to support him.

DW: Presumably during the war years these failures had something to do with the alliance with the Soviet Union and the policy of the Roosevelt administration.

LC: That obviously dampened anti-Soviet talk, but it never went away. It always remained a subtext. And groups like the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, big businessmen, Southern Democrats, they were just waiting for the war to end so they could launch, or relaunch, the Red Scare.

DW: John Rankin was one of the filthiest of the HUAC figures, an out-and-out fascist, a defender of the Ku Klux Klan.

LC: Rankin was a virulent anti-Semite and racist, anti-communist, a man simply without any moral scruple whatsoever. He was important because he was the one who pushed for HUAC to be made permanent and for it to take up the Hollywood investigations again. So a significant but horrible figure politically.

J. Edgar Hoover, of course, is one of the most important figures of the Cold War. Hes a spider at the center of this vast web that grew so significantly and became so powerful.

HUAC had its own investigators. They had two investigators who came out to Hollywood on a pretty regular basis and made contact with the anti-communists there. But they kept pushing Hoover for more and he kept saying, no, no, because he just despised the HUAC people. Hoover thought they were latecomers to the game and not very serious. He thought the committee was detracting from the effort, like Joe McCarthy, who he thought was making the anti-communism issue ridiculous, bringing it into disrepute. Finally, in September 1947, Hoover agreed to give them names without, however, handing over the full files.

DW: We have written about the fact that there was a significant change in the situation in the US in 194748: The American political and media establishments anticommunist campaign had shifted into full gear.

In addition to the HUAC hearings into Communist influence in Hollywood in the autumn of 1947 and the eventual conviction and sentencing of the Hollywood Ten, throughout 1948 the Communist Party leadership in New York City faced prosecution under the Smith Act, which outlawed conspiring to advocate forcible overthrow of the government; in August 1948 congressional hearings (presided over by Richard Nixon) began into accusations that former State Department official Alger Hiss had spied for the Soviet Union; the following summer, indicating the general climate, a right-wing mob broke up a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York.

LC: You can see the sprouts beginning to come up in 1946, but the major turning point came in March 1947, with the announcement of the Truman Doctrine. And the institution of loyalty investigations of all federal employees.

DW: Could you explain what happened in May 1947 when HUAC came to Hollywood and held closed-door hearings?

LC: A HUAC subcommittee came out with Parnell Thomas. They held closed-door hearings at the Biltmore Hotel and most of the witnesses were of the friendly variety. Studio head Jack Warner was one of them. Most of the rest were members of the Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals.

So almost all the information they were getting could be used to issue subpoenas. They also used the trip, I think, to try to intimidate the Motion Picture Association of America, the studio heads, to get them to cooperate. They were saying, you guys really have a problem here. And if you dont do something about it, we will.

Eric Johnson, president of the association, and the producers took the same position they had 10 years earlier, which was, We have the situation under control. We dont need this sort of thing. But this time around, HUAC wasnt buying it. And so they go back to Washington with a lot of names.

DW: In September 1947, 43 friendly and unfriendlyi.e., left-wingwitnesses were issued subpoenas to appear in October in Washington before HUAC. There were originally 19 unfriendly witnesses, including German playwright Bertolt Brecht, and that was whittled down to 11 or 10, if you exclude Brecht (who left the country). Why were those 10 (or 11) actually called, do you think?

LC: You know, no one really knows. I asked that question to many people, including Albert Maltz, Lester Cole, two of the Ten. And there doesnt seem to be any single rhyme or reason to it. All were male, mostly writers, a significant number were Jewish, almost no one had a war record, which I think is important. The committee didnt want to be seen persecuting war heroes. Three of them werent Communists at all. Howard Koch, Lewis Milestone, Irving Pichel, none of whom was called. Although Koch ended up being blacklisted anyway.

DW: Like Marsha Hunt, whom we wrote about a few weeks ago. She seems to have just been a principled liberal, never close to the Communist Party. What about the Committee for the First Amendment, the group of prominent Hollywood liberals, who opposed HUAC?

LC: That committee was started by director William Wyler and screenwriter Phillip Dunne, both solid liberals. The Hollywood liberals very much disliked what HUAC was trying to do. But they didnt want to defend the 19 directly; their goal was to bring HUAC into disrepute.

For one thing, they knew that most of the 19 were Communists. They knew that the 19 were probably going to take a position in the hearings that was different from what they wanted to do. The 19 werent going to be forthright First Amendment defenders. So Wyler, Dunne and company tried to draw a line. They would defend the principle, but not the person, which I think is an impossible line to draw.

Most of them were sincere, naive liberals. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are good examples of that. I give them credit for what they initially tried to do.

The Committee for the First Amendment made two national radio broadcasts. They had this well-publicized trip to Washington D.C. They were ineffective. For example, Richard Nixon, when he heard they were coming, immediately flew back to California so he wouldnt have to confront them or deal with them.

DW: Did they do anything in Washington aside from attending the hearings in October 1947?

LC: No. They tried to meet with HUAC and present them with petitions, but they didnt have any success. And, of course, as soon as they got back to Hollywood, the studio bosses called them in and said, stop this. And they did. Humphrey Bogart wrote his famous column for Photoplay in 1948, Im No Communist, which was horrible.

DW: Yes, whether he wrote it or his agent wrote it, somebody wrote it anyway. But it was a horrible article.

LC: It shows the atmosphere of fear there was at that time. I think a few scenes in The Way We Were [Sidney Pollack, 1973] capture that well.

DW: This is something we have written about a number of timeshow prepared do you think the Hollywood left was for what hit it?

LC: After May 1947, they began to think that something big was coming and they began to have a series of meetings, preparing the ground of what might be coming. So I dont think they were entirely unprepared, but I think when they received the subpoenas, they were shocked. That was a step beyond what they thought was going to happen.

They were not organized in any real sense. They were in the Communist Party. They were in groups like the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. But it was only after they got the subpoenas that they put together a defense committee.

DW: What was the role of the liberals, the ACLU, organizations like that?

LC: Nonexistent. They didnt do anything of import. The ACLU has a very dicey record during these years in terms of defending communists. There were a large number of liberal anti-communists, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., for example, who made no effort to try and get due process for the Communists.

DW: What role did the unions play?

LC: The biggest union in Hollywood was the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees [IATSE], and it was anti-communist through and through. Roy Brewer, their international representative in Hollywood, was probably the most zealous anti-communist Ive ever heard about or met. He went to his grave [in 2006] believing there was still a Communist conspiracy in the United States.

The only union that might have been supportive was the Conference of Studio Unions. But they were caught up in a huge jurisdictional strike confrontation with IATSE and the producers that basically broke their backs. So they really were no help. The [writers, directors and actors] guilds kind of stood back, taking the position that we dont have a Communist problem, but not supporting the 19.

DW: Obviously, the purging of Hollywood of left-wing forces and the purging of the unions are associated processes. What do you think were some of the broader social and cultural consequences of the blacklist?

LC: I think the biggest one was censorship and self-censorship, not officially, but unofficially. The studios, which always were wary about doing films with a strong social content, became utterly opposed to them. Those who kept their jobs didnt want to do anything to call attention to themselves.

So I think they began to seriously censor themselves. There was a trend of social commentary movies after World War II for a number of reasons. People were hyped by the successful fight against fascism. Many of them had made documentaries during the war. They wanted to come back and do that sort of thing in America.

As a result of that and other processes, there were more social problem films made between 1945 and 1947 than ever before. They were a significant portion of the output. They almost disappear after that. Insofar as you think film is important in creating a dialog, a way of thinking about things, it became a much narrower media form.

The blacklisted writers published a few novels with small publishers, and they published a few periodicals, so they werent completely silenced. But they couldnt write movie scripts under their own names. I think it had a significant dampening effect on 50s culture.

DW: Left-wing thought was essentially criminalized. The most interesting artists in Hollywood were not necessarily CP members, although there was a group of writers and also directors such as Abe Polonsky and Joseph Losey. But I agree, the movies made between 1945 and 1951 are the most interesting movies made in Hollywoods history.

Not all of them explicitly political, often they couldnt be, but theres a strong element of opposition, of criticism, along with great texture and depth. From Orson Welles and John Huston, for example, left figures but not associated with the Communist Party.

There were Max Ophuls Caught and The Reckless Moment, Edgar Ulmers Ruthless, Hustons Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Welles The Stranger and The Lady From Shanghai, Michael Curtizs Mildred Pierce, Flamingo Road and The Breaking Point, Abe Polonskys Force of Evil, Raoul Walshs White Heat, Robert Siodmaks The Killers and Criss Cross, Anthony Manns Raw Deal and a hundred lesser-known films. This kind of filmmaking was essentially made impossible. It became almost impossible to make films about contemporary American life. So you went and made Westerns and so on.

LC: Whereas in the 50s, you had almost 50 explicitly anti-communist movies. They didnt do very well, but there they were. I can count on the fingers of one hand the movies that really spoke to opposition. Perhaps Bad Day at Black Rock with Spencer Tracy, and Storm Center with Bette Davis, as a librarian who gets fired for having the wrong books, and Broken Arrow. Not many more.

It became too dangerous to express any criticism of the United States. Sixteenth-century Dutch artists painted landscapes because it was politically dangerous to do anything else.

DW: What is your purpose in continuing to write about these issues?

LC: Because I think the First Amendment is in a very precarious condition. Its been under attack in the United States almost from the very beginning and its under attack especially today. I think its incredibly important for people to understand that.

We have a Bill of Rights, but it doesnt mean much unless people are vigilant and defend it. Otherwise, its just a piece of paper, I think. Vigilance, critical thinking are just crucial. I dont think we have enough of that right now.

DW: Do you plan to continue this work?

LC: I think this is my last hurrah in regard to the blacklist. I dont think I have anything else to say.

DW: How would you define your own politics?

LC: I would say Im a democratic socialist. I think I think we need a socialist form of government. But I believe strongly that we have to reach it through some sort of democratic process. You mentioned that you were a Trotskyist. Leon Trotsky is one of my great, great heroes.

DW: So youve read some of his works.

LC: Ive read everything thats in translation. Permanent Revolution and Literature and Revolution are great books. I think the way Trotsky acted in 1917, during the revolution, was genius. I dont think there could have been a Bolshevik revolution without Trotsky. And his commentaries on fascism, during the 1930s, were brilliant.

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An interview with Larry Ceplair, author of The Hollywood Motion Picture BlacklistSeventy-Five Years Later: The biggest consequence 'was censorship and...

(RNS) Queer students like Veronica Bonifacio Penales, who have been protesting religious university policies they call discriminatory and homophopic, often find themselves confronting the same question: Why would you go to a Christian school if you are LGBTQ?

For many of these students, this fight at religiously affiliated universities is part of a larger push happening from within Christianity toward more inclusive beliefs to, as activists at Seattle Pacific University put it, deconstruct harmful theologies on sexuality, gender and queerness.

And, as theyve reminded their thousands of social media followers: You can be queer and Christian.

We shouldnt have to compromise where we go because they dont want to accept who we are, said Penales, a student at Baylor University, a Baptist school in Waco, Texas. Baylor has taught me what I dont want my religion to be.

RELATED: Are the culture wars changing how Christian students choose colleges?

Within the last two years, students at religious schools across the country have made headlines pushing back against university policies regarding LGBTQ students or staff.

Theyve staged a monthlong sit-in at Seattle Pacific University, a private school associated with the Free Methodist Church, against a policy that forbids the hiring of LGBTQ people. Theyve called on Baylor University, that affirms marriage between a man and a woman as the biblical norm, to officially recognize an LGBTQ student advocacy group. Theyve protested at Brigham Young University after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which operates the school, saidsame-sex romantic behavior was not compatible with university rules, despite the removal of the homosexual behavior section from its Honor Code, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Veronica Bonifacio Penales. Photo courtesy of Penales

Penales, along with students at more than 100 campuses, are now planning to walk out of school on Tuesday (Oct. 11) to, among other things, protest religious exemptions to Title IX that they say allow for the discrimination and erasure of LGBTQ students. Theyre urging for Title IXenforcement so all faculty, staff and students, including those who are LGBTQ and from minority communities, have the ability to exist completely as themselves.

Organized by the nonprofit Religious Exemptions Accountability Project and the Black Menaces a group at BYU, which has expanded to numerous college campuses and has gone viral for their TikTok videos interviewing their largely white peers about issues concerning race the walkout will be happening at religious, public and secular campuses, including high schools. The nationwide student protest, dubbed Strike Out Queer-Phobia, coincides with National Coming Out Day.

Students from Azusa Pacific University, an interdenominational Christian school in Southern California, will be walking out as they demand gender and sexuality training for staff and faculty. They also want staff and faculty to be allowed to include their pronouns in email signatures. LGBTQ singer and songwriter Grace Baldridge and other local artists will be performing nearby after the walkout.

At Denver University, students will be walking out in solidarity with queer students at BYU. And at Western Illinois University, Casa Latina Cultural Center will be participating as a way to urge institutions to implement Title IX to these religious universities who are exempt.

We are privileged here at WIU, especially since students are protected by Title IX, they wrote.

Were all fighting for each other, said Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, a junior at Brigham Young University, and one of the leading organizers of the walkout. Stewart-Johnson, who was raised Mormon, is one of the founders of The Black Menaces.

I cant fight for POC (people of color), or Black people without fighting for queer people, he said.

The Black Menaces in late August urged mandatory anti-racism training and sessions for staff, faculty and students after a Duke volleyball player, who is Black, alleged she was repeatedly called a racial slur by someone sitting in BYUs student section.

Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, right, interviews people during the Salt Lake City Pride Parade on June 5, 2022. Photo by Rabbecca Torres Moak, courtesy of Stewart-Johnson

After Black Menaces chapters became active on other campuses this summer, Stewart-Johnson said hes noticed that students in religious campuses answer their questions differently. Theyre emboldened by religion, he said, to push out their ideas, regardless if those are homophobic or racist, because they feel like God is empowering them.

To Max Perry Mueller, a historian of race and culture, the work to address racism within Mormonism falls to people not in the center but on the periphery of Mormonism, he wrote in an essay in Slate. He noted in his essay that restrictions that banned Black people from full membership in the LDS church remained in place until 1978.

Mueller said its crucial for university faculty, staff and nearby residents to listen to student activists.

Theyre going to be future alumni who care about the institution Theyre coming into adulthood here so they have a vested interest, Mueller told RNS. With any institution you have a better sight line when youre on the margins.

According to Paul Southwick, director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, universities like BYU have a system of discrimination that is on the brink of collapse.

Last spring REAP filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education on behalf of dozens of LGBTQ students at federally funded Christian colleges and universities.

RELATED: Are LGBTQ students at Christian schools discriminated against? A lawsuit, scholarly studies say yes.

The younger generation, Southwick notes, went to schools where they were taught critical race theory and to question the white values that they were taught in their white churches.

They are done being told that in order to be a good Christian, that means you must be a white, straight Christian, or embrace white, straight Christian values, Southwick said. This is a crisis because the (university) boards are so out of sync with their youth that it will essentially be an inescapable crisis for them.

A number of these schools are part of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, a global association of more than 180 Christian higher education institutions. Campus attorneys, public relations professionals and outside counsel gathered at a CCCU conference in late September to talk about Title IX and accreditation concerns. The conference was set to feature a public relations crisis simulation and discussions about how to ensure mission fidelity legally and through good policy.

Social media post for the Strike Out Queer-Phobia protest. Screen grab

Amanda Staggenborg, chief communications officer for the CCCU, said the council encourages free thought and ideas as protected in the First Amendment.

We also support our member institutions and their commitment to Biblical standards in their mission work. We ask for peaceful debate, not campus disruption, as cultural issues are discussed and challenged in academia, Staggenborg told RNS through email.

Tensions over LGBTQ-related policies have particularly intensified this year at SPU, where students will also be walking out.

Students and faculty have sued leaders of the schools board of trustees for refusing to end the hiring policy. Additionally, the Washington state attorney general is also investigating SPU for potential illegal discrimination against LGBTQ people due to the schools hiring practices.

Our story is not unique, said Chloe Guillot, a graduate student at SPU who is listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the board of trustees. You can just see theres this pattern and movement happening of students and employees at these Christian universities finally saying, enough is enough.

While students and faculty claim the trustees position threatens SPUs reputation, school leaders see the blowback as a violation of the universitys right to religious freedom. SPU leaders have sued the state of Washington to protect its freedom to choose employees on the basis of religion, free from government interference or intimidation.

But the way Guillot sees it, its not about us persecuting you for your religion, because we share your religion.

At Baylor, Penalessaid she has found her voice in advocating for this work.

The university earlier this year granted itsfirst charter in history to a new LGBTQ-focused student group, but its statement on human sexuality that upholds purity in singleness and fidelity in marriage between a man and a woman still stands, the Texas Monthly reported. The LGBTQ advocacy group that Penales is involved with remains unchartered.

Penales, who is also a plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit filed by REAP, is a main organizer of the walkout. She loves Baylor so much, she said, that she is willing tocontinue this work to make a change. But, she added: I love me more to also do that work.

Link:
Students across the country to walk out in protest of discrimination by religious schools - Religion News Service

In the weeks after he assumed office, former President Donald Trump put reporters in the crosshairs when he labeled them the enemy of the American people.

He was following the authoritarian playbook, long consulted by the likes of Stalin and Hitler, but it was shocking to see such strongman rhetoric coming from an American leader, who swore an oath to a constitution that takes press freedoms pretty seriously.

The open animus toward journalists that Trump exemplified is increasingly a standard trait of leaders at all levels of American government, particularly, but not only, among Republicans. Hostility to the press coincides with the growing reliance by politicians on digital platforms such as social media to bypass journalists and communicate directly with constituents.

Their access to free and easy forms of mass communication allows them to indulge their animosity for reporters who might challenge them on misjudgments, misinformation and misdeeds, with the result being an electorate that is misled, misinformed and mistreated.

What was true in 1789 is true in 2022: A strong press is essential to a strong America.

Despite the First Amendment and the countrys venerable journalistic traditions, the U.S. has descended to a mediocre place among nations of the world in terms of press freedoms. The2022 World Press Freedom Index, which measures the ability of journalists to disseminate news independently and without political or other interference, ranks the U.S. at 42, just behind Burkina Faso, whichas of several days agois ruled by a 34-year-old army captain who led a coup.

Republicans have taken press blocking to new levels in the run-up to the November elections.

In this cycle, Ive started to see more Republican candidates avoiding the press, blocking the press from events, and taking advantage of the fact that there is conservative media that will ask different questions and has a different audience, Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel toldNPR.

Far-right candidates, such as Pennsylvania governor hopeful Doug Mastriano and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, treat legacy media with near-total disdain. The editor of The Plain Dealer in Ohio last monthran a blank spacewhere a photo was supposed to appear ofa rally for DeSantis and U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance as a protest after those Republicans imposed restrictions that amounted to barring the press from covering the event.

In a sign of how siloed our information sources have become,CNNcorrespondent Kyung Lah wrote, midterm campaigns, many of them Republican, are widely shutting out local papers, local TV stations and national reporters.

So many Republican leaders are preoccupied with so-called cancel culture and what they perceive ascensorshipof their views. Its an astounding feat of hypocrisy for them to also bar journalists from events, which is a form of censorship in that it preempts news readers access to impartial speech about people who hold public office.

And this highlights the larger problem when candidates and holders of public office reject the role of journalists in an open democratic society if it were merely newsrooms that suffered due to the trend, Americans might not have reason to care much, but its democracy itself thats damaged.

A democracy functions only when constituents have access to reliable information about their government and the officials who lead public institutions, especially information thats unflattering to those officials. Its no surprise that candidates and office holders would prefer to communicate directly with constituents. That way they can inflate the good stuff and omit the bad stuff.

But thats exactly why Americans should reject the practice. And the more a politician maligns truth tellers in the press, the more constituents should be skeptical. They will find that the enemy of the American people is in fact a trusted friend.

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Fear of reporters is fear of the truth - Ohio Capital Journal

Danny Masterson and lawyer Thomas MesereauPhoto: Lucy Nicholson (Getty Images)

This week marks the beginning of the trial of Danny Masterson, the That 70s Show alum charged with three counts of rape. Accusations of assault have followed the actor for years now, impacting his careerhe was fired from the Netflix series The Ranchand implicating the Church of Scientology, of which he has been a longtime member.

These accusations first became public in 2017, after Tony Ortega, a journalist who has specialized in reporting on Scientology, shared a detailed account of the allegations against Masterson. Ortega wrote that, like Masterson, the accusers were Scientologists and felt pressured by the Church of Scientology not to contact police or go public with their accusations. (One of the victims did in fact file a police report in 2004 but was contradicted by other witnesses, reportedly fellow Scientologists, and the case was closed.) The women were inspired by Leah Reminis docuseries Scientology And The Aftermath to come forward, leading the Los Angeles Police Department to open (or re-open) an investigation against the actor. In March of that year, the LAPD confirmed that three women have come forward and disclosed that they were sexually assaulted by Masterson during the early 2000s.

In the months following, the investigation reportedly garnered overwhelming evidence, including audiotapes, emails sent to and from Scientology officers at the time the alleged rapes happened, forensic computer evidence, and a threatening handwritten letter Masterson sent to one of the alleged victims, as well as two more additional accusers coming forward. However, the investigation inexplicably stalled in late 2017. According to Ortegas report, one of the survivors claimed that the LAPD had been compromised by the Church of Scientology. Remini told the reporter that her experience with the department has not been good, recalling her meeting with the lead detective on the case: I pointed out to her that there was a framed picture of a Scientologist on their wall, actor Michael Pea. Do you know what that says to a young Scientologist who comes here to seek justice? A later report from The Daily Beast highlighted the LAPDs fundraising relationship partnership with the Church through the Police Activities League, an organization with which Masterson was reportedly involved.

Netflix was also questioned as to why they had not, at that point, cut ties with Masterson on The Ranch (which co-starred fellow 70s Show alum Ashton Kutcher). The streamers former director of kids and family content was fired after he inadvertently told one of Mastersons accusers that the company wasnt taking the accusations seriously because we dont believe them. By the end of 2017, it was confirmed that Masterson would be written out of the show; in early 2018, he was dropped by his agent.

Masterson denied the allegations then and continues to do so, often specifically blaming Remini for colluding with the accusers and claiming that she was stirring up the controversy to boost her own television show. Remini did film an episode of Scientology And The Aftermath about the Masterson accusations, but the episode was delayed several times for various reasons (including, some speculated, that A&E was covering for the Church of Scientology). Interviews with some of the accusers eventually aired as part of the 2019 series finale.

Masterson was officially charged with three counts of rape in 2020 (of the two additional accusations, one reportedly had insufficient evidence and the other was past the statute of limitations). He was arrested, and quickly released on bail, in June. The charges stemmed from incidents occurring between 2001 and 2003. Masterson attempted to have the charges thrown out for being past the statute of limitations, but was rejected by a judge, setting the legal proceedings in motion. Then, in May of 2021, a pre-trial determined there was sufficient evidence to move forward with the case.

Mastersons criminal trial begins on October 11. Separately, four of Mastersons accusers filed a civil lawsuit against Masterson and the Church of Scientology for the alleged cover-up, reportedly perpetrated via stalking and harassment. Last week, the Supreme Court declined to intervene on the behalf of Scientology after the Church argued that the Court of Appeal in California sought to weaponize the First Amendment against religious freedom by allowing the case to move forward (per Deadline). So although the judge in the criminal case asserted that This is not going to become a trial on Scientology, it seems that the Churchs practices will inevitably come under scrutiny in both cases. If charged in the criminal trial, Masterson faces a possible sentence of 45 years to life.

If you or someone you know is suffering from sexual abuse, contact the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.

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A timeline of the sexual assault allegations against Danny Masterson - The A.V. Club

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'So to Speak' podcast: What does the First Amendment protect on social media? - Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

A federal jury has rejected the free-speech claims of a Sullivan County teacher suspended after parents complained about his expletive-laced social media posts on topics ranging from masking during the COVID pandemic to former President Donald Trump.

In what was the first test case of a U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision granting First Amendment speech protection to the prayers of Washington state high school football coach Joe Kennedy, a jury in U.S. District Court in Greenville, Tenn., last week ruled against former Sullivan County teacher Jeremy McLaughlin.

McLaughlin was suspended for three days without pay in September 2020 after parents complained about social media posts he made while off-duty. Citing the Kennedy decision, McLaughlin insisted then-Sullivan County Schools chief David Cox violated his free-speech rights.

Cox countered that although McLaughlins profanity-filled posts supporting masking and opposing Trump were unprofessional and factored into his suspension decision, the commentary was not the sole basis for it.

Instead, Cox pointed to another social media post in which McLaughlin appeared to encourage people outside the Sullivan County school system to vote against in-person learning in what was supposed to be a survey of teachers within the school system.

In the run-up to last weeks trial, a judgeruled McLaughlins social media posts on hot-bed political controversies were protected speech. What was not protected was McLaughlins social media urgings to his followers to participate in a poll about school re-openings meant only for teachers.

Such dishonest behavior was tantamount to cheating, and, therefore, remained punishable as conduct unbecoming of a professional teacher, attorney Chris McCarty wrote on behalf of Cox in a pre-trial statement of facts.

After a two-day trial last week, jurors sided with Cox.

Has Director Cox proven by a preponderance of the evidence that he would have taken the same action to suspend Jeremy McLaughlin for three days even in the absence of all (his) protected speech? the verdict form read. Yes.

Although McLaughlin lost his case, he was successful in testing the bounds of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted free-speech protection to Kennedy, who was fired for praying on the 50-yard line after football games.

In the run-up to last weeks trial, U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker ruled McLaughlins social media posts on hot-bed political controversies were protected speech under the Kennedy decision. That ruling put the burden on Cox to prove he suspended McLaughlin for reasons other than those controversial posts.

At trial, McCarty argued Cox did, in fact, have another reason for his suspension decision McLaughlins suggestion on social media that outsiders could cast votes in an August 2020 online survey designed to only poll Sullivan County teachers on whether the school system should return to in-person learning.

McLaughlin, court records show, posted a link to the survey on his Facebook page and wrote, If you were a teacher and had the anonymous link, you should fill it out.

Suspension followed parents upset

The brouhaha over McLaughlins social media posts began after a contentious Sullivan County Board of Education meeting in August 2020 at which more than a dozen parents and students urged the board to reopen schools, which had been shut down in the early months of the pandemic.

After McLaughlin spoke up at the meeting in favor of continued on-line instruction, parent Mandi Mittelsteadt took to Facebook to complain about McLaughlin and posted copies of McLaughlins social media posts she deemed objectionable. She wrote a letter of complaint to Cox and urged other parents to do the same. A handful did. Cox suspended McLaughlin soon after.

The posts Mittelsteadt cited as objectionable centered on masking and Trump, although she also included a complaint about the survey post.

Please stop clapping for nurses and giving them a (expletive) raise. Sincerely, teachers, McLaughlin posted on May 7, 2020.

If youre in public and youre not wearing a mask, please know that you are part of the problem, McLaughlin wrote in a June 25, 2020, post. You dont know if you have it. You dont know if youre spreading it. You are keeping everyone from moving out of this crisis because you are a spoiled, selfish child.

That post included a meme depicting the fictional character Ron Burgundy in the Anchorman movies and a Burgundy catchphrase: Go (expletive) yourself, San Diego.

A July 2020, McLaughlin post stated, Not wearing a mask doesnt make you look strong. It makes you look like a selfish piece of (expletive). Saying you have a medical condition and you cant wear a mask makes you look like a lying selfish piece of (expletive).

That post also included a meme a screenshot from a viral YouTube video unrelated to masking that shows a student seated at a computer station and pointing his finger and a second student smiling toward the camera.

Saw a guy at Food City walking around in an iridescent blue fishnet face mask, McLaughlin wrote in another July 2020 post at issue in the case. Brother, you dont look clever. You look like youre wearing your side chicks panties on your face.

McLaughlin also posted in July 2020 a news story with a photograph of former President Donald Trump and the headline, Trump floats delaying the November election. He does not have that authority. McLaughlin wrote on that post, Absolutely (expletive) not.

In an August 2020 post, McLaughlin featured a copy of a tweet from a man who wrote, My son is wearing a (Make America Great Again) cap and a Vote Trump 2020 button. Hes been spat on, punched and verbally abused. I hate to think what will happen when he leaves the house.

McLaughlin wrote in response to the copy of the tweet, Father of the year.

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Jury shoots down First Amendment claims of former Sullivan County teacher Tennessee Lookout - Tennessee Lookout

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hills annual First Amendment Day came under fire as beinga condemnation event on the threat posed by free speech.

Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, published anarticleabout the Sept. 21 event and equated it to a collection of vegans assembled to celebrate meat-based diets.

[RELATED: MIT moves to protect freedom of speech on campus, arguing it's essential for 'search for truth and justice']

The event was organized by theUNC Center for Media Law and Policyand featured a number of panels and debates on topics that included ethicalconflictswith the First Amendment, social mediaregulation, and how the First Amendment can be weaponized.

One event, titled Weaponizing First Amendment Rhetoric, asked shouldfree expression be what we value beyond everything else in public life, viz. progress, equality, and inclusion?.

From internet trolls to election disinformation, people weaponize free speech and First Amendment principles to do things like silence women and undermine the legitimacy of elections, the description stated.

[RELATED: Alabama Supreme Court hears case against university free speech policy]

Turley claimed the panel was clearly designed to offer the opposing view to traditional free speech and First Amendment values, but the lack of a dissenting voice allowed these views to go unchallenged.

Campus Reform contacted Jonathan Turley, University of North Carolina, and George Washington University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

Follow@emily_fowler18on Twitter.

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First Amendment event criticized as being anti-free speech by law professor - Campus Reform

This is an editorial piece. An editorial, like a news article, is based on fact but also shares opinions. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and are not associated with our newsroom.

Its been more than 40 years since Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke of the interconnectedness of the freedoms outlined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

As part of a lecture series, he said that the First Amendment is a major branch of the tree from which one should try not to prune. He said those who are not connected with religious freedom, but solely with freedom of speech, will find that any pruning of religion will adversely affect freedom of speech.

With this, Elder Maxwell began a conversation centered on thinking about and then acting upon the importance of the United States constitutional form of government.

Today, importantly, it is imperative to remember that the First Amendment is claimed by all Americans. Including those with whom we disagree. That truth is part of the beauty and the burden of the First Amendment.

I recently spoke with former DC circuit Appeals Judge Thomas Griffith about the interconnectedness of our first freedoms.

Its important, he said, because its so central to our concept of what a human being is and humans relationship to government. As Americans, we are committed to the idea that we are created in the image of God, and every individual, by virtue of that fact alone has great worth. And so therefore, they ought to be able to follow their conscience, they ought to be able to express their thoughts, they ought to be able to worship if thats what theyre inclined to do, or to not worship. Thats critical to what the American experience is about.

But, Judge Griffith also spoke of the necessary limits on those freedoms, and the danger of taking them to unsustainable extremes.

We live in a society with other people. And we need to recognize that any right, taken to an extreme can actually do some harm. So this is where the real tough work comes. And this is where the tough work of the courts come. And legislators come, Judge Griffith said.

[Its] tough to find the right lines, but we need to keep working at it because thats so central to who we are as humans.

Another essential aspect of our human lives enabled by the First Amendment is the functioning of a positive society. That concept was noted in a conversation I had with D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

They [the First Amendment freedoms] are essential, frankly, to the functioning of government, [and] to the functioning of society, as a whole, Christofferson said.

The interdependent nature of our first freedoms not only requires every citizen to defend them generally, and to defend them for those we agree with but more importantly, to defend these rights for those with whom we disagree.

This point was illuminated in a conversation had with former United States Senator Joe Lieberman, where the senator emphasized how freedom of religion alone simply wasnt enough for the founders.

It wasnt enough just to have freedom of religion, it also had to be matched with political freedom and freedom of the press, particularly, which in a lot of countries does not exist.

To emphasize his point, Sen. Lieberman described a visit hed once taken with other senators to Uzbekistan. While there, he asked the countrys dictatorial leader, Islam Karima, about freedom of religion in his nation.

Karima reportedly replied that, yes, the people in his country mostly Muslims had freedom of religion. When the same senators met with human rights activists the next day at the U.S. Embassy, they agreed.

Well, generally speaking, hes right, we have freedom of religion,' the activists told Lieberman. But if we say the slightest word of criticism toward the dictator, regardless of our religion, were in jail.

To make us a truly free society, Lieberman said, we have to have all those other freedoms that are dear to us.

The U.S. Constitution was created in the spirit of compromise and unity. And what was appropriate and necessary in the summer of 1787 is still needed today. Some might say that today as divisiveness surrounds us, those qualities are needed more than ever.

The Constitution requires it. It requires that sort of civic-mindedness, that humility.

Those aspects of thinking can be applied if we see a group protesting and supporting ideas that we may not agree with. Whether it be on a school campus or on the steps of government, people need to be able to express ideas. I think you have to civilly engage with those ideas, to show why you think they are wrong in a way that is not threatening or hostile to another side.

The Constitution requires it.

I once interviewed Best Selling Author Greg McEwan for his book Essentialism, the Disciplined Pursuit of Less, which is a must-read for many reasons. His framing of essential principles and action had me defining what is essential for me individually. Then, for my family, for the community, and ultimately, what is most essential when it comes to freedom and a constitutional republic.

During this time, I happened to listen to an address given by Elder David A. Bednar, a member of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He gave a keynote address that was part of Brigham Young Universitys three-day Religious Freedom Annual Review.

Elder Bednar shared a conversation he had with Elder Robert D. Hales, an aging associate. Elder Bednar asked Elder Hales, what lesson have you learned as you have grown older and been constrained by decreased physical capacity?

When you cannot do what you have always done, then you will only do what matters most, said Elder Hales after a pause.

I think that is truly a lesson for a lifetime. And in a most surprising and powerful way, the lesson is encompassed in the protection and pursuit of religious liberty in the context of first freedoms which is the topic here.

For those freedoms established in the First Amendment are central to the vitality and vibrancy of the American experience. All of these first freedoms, especially freedom of religion, the first of the first freedoms, are essential. And they are essential for billions of people around the world.

That truth was questioned, however, during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recall that many were caused to review things that were essential and non-essential in relationship to society. In some states during the pandemic, the sale of alcohol, animal care, and legal services were deemed essential and allowed to continue.

But the work of clergy ministering to individuals and other expressions of religion were categorized as nonessential.

Controls on gatherings of all kinds, as well as speech and press, were put under immense pressure during the pandemic. Elder Bednar emphasized throughout his address that while believers and their religious organizations must be good citizens in times of crisis, never again can we allow government officials to treat the exercise of religion as simply non-essential.

Never again must the fundamental right to worship be trivialized below the ability to buy gasoline.

As we have just experienced, religious freedom can quickly be swept aside in the name of protecting other societal interests. Elder Bednar stated we cannot deny and we should not forget the speed and intensity with which government power was used to shut down fundamental aspects of religious exercise. Then, he added, we have witnessed the governments swift, well-intentioned but often dangerous breaching of the boundaries that protect the free exercise of religion.

This includes gathering. Gathering, in short, is at the core of faith and religion. Indeed, if the faithful are not gathering, sooner or later, they will begin to scatter. Gathering versus scattering matters in those first freedoms not just as a relates to religious organizations or people of faith, but to all people in all communities.

Its only a short hop from the breaching of those boundaries of limiting religious liberty to the full suppression of other first freedoms. These are the freedom of speech or of the press, and the right of the people to peaceably assemble.

Without citizens standing up and speaking out, basic freedoms falling from essential to non-essential can indeed be a swift and very slippery slope.

There are other duties that are part of upholding the inspired constitution. They include learning and advocating for the inspired principles of the Constitution. We should seek out and support wise and good persons who will support those principles in their public actions. We should be knowledgeable citizens who are active in making our influence felt in civic affairs.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood the absolutely essential nature of all the first freedoms. He understood that the courage, character, and clarity required to promote and protect them were also essential. He spent and ultimately gave his life in defense of the essentialness of those first freedoms.

Dr. King once said, courage is an inner resolution to go forward. Despite obstacles. Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity. Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.

Remembering the truly essential interconnectedness of first freedoms, and each of us acting with courage is the only way to ensure the preservation of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.

KellieAnn Halvorsen and Simone Seikaly contributed to this article.

Listen to the full special here:

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First freedoms: The interconnectedness of First Amendment rights - KSL NewsRadio

The Onion head writer Mike Gillis submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court this week. He says he hopes it will convince the court to take up an Ohio man's First Amendment case while educating the broader public. Mike Gillis hide caption

The Onion head writer Mike Gillis submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court this week. He says he hopes it will convince the court to take up an Ohio man's First Amendment case while educating the broader public.

The long-running First Amendment case of an Ohio man is suddenly getting a lot of attention, thanks to the satirical news site The Onion.

And that's not because it's been spoofed. It's because the publication has gotten involved directly, submitting a brief to the Supreme Court in defense of parody itself.

The 23-page amicus brief was filed on Monday in support of Anthony Novak, who is asking the Supreme Court to take up his civil rights lawsuit against the police officers who arrested and prosecuted him for creating a parody Facebook page of their department (more on that here).

"Americans can be put in jail for poking fun at the government? This was a surprise to America's Finest News Source and an uncomfortable learning experience for its editorial team," the brief opens.

It goes on to defend the purpose and power of parody in society before explaining that successful satire comes from being realistic enough that it initially tricks readers into believing one thing, only to make them "laugh at their own gullibility when they realize that they've fallen victim to one of the oldest tricks in the history of rhetoric."

None of this would work if it were preceded by a disclaimer, the brief argues, noting that most courts have historically shared this view except for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which, in this instance, sided with the police officers. The Onion's brief urges the Supreme Court to take up the case and rule in Novak's favor. It also wants "the rights of the people vindicated, and various historical wrongs remedied," by the way.

"The Onion cannot stand idly by in the face of a ruling that threatens to disembowel a form of rhetoric that has existed for millennia, that is particularly potent in the realm of political debate, and that, purely incidentally, forms the basis of The Onion's writers' paychecks," it reads.

The document quickly started making the rounds on social media and in straight news headlines, both for its unusual form of intervention this is its first such legal filing and trademark humorous approach to a serious topic.

In classic The Onion fashion, it is snarky one subheading reads "It Should Be Obvious That Parodists Cannot Be Prosecuted For Telling A Joke With A Straight Face" and self-referential it says the story sounds like a headline right out of The Onion, "albeit one that's considerably less amusing because its subjects are real."

It also appeals directly to its audience, sprinkling in numerous Latin phrases (at one point, a whole paragraph full see page 15) because it "knows that the federal judiciary is staffed entirely by total Latin dorks."

Some of the brief's more academically minded fans have said it should be taught in law schools, according to its author (who jokes this might be the first time his own father, a workers' compensation attorney, has used an exclamation mark to praise any of his writing). But it also seems to have struck a chord beyond the legal world.

Mike Gillis, head writer for The Onion and author of the brief, told NPR in a phone interview that he hopes the filing won't just help convince the Supreme Court to take on the case, but also show the public why parody matters so much.

"To just get this many people thinking about parody, and the fact that it adds a lot to their lives and that it's something worth defending, was very, very satisfying for me," he says.

Gillis, who has been at The Onion for about a decade, says the opportunity to get involved in this case arose over the summer when a mutual friend put Novak's legal team in touch with the publication.

He hadn't personally been closely following the case, but once The Onion's lawyers started looking into it and the editorial staff started discussing it they realized it was right up their alley.

As Gillis explains, amicus briefs are often drafted by the lawyers involved in the case, then given to the interested parties for additional details. In this case, it was the reverse: He wrote most of the arguments and jokes, then The Onion's lawyers bulked it up with legal precedent and historical context in what he called "an extremely collaborative process."

"I think because the draft itself was trying to make an argument for why parody is a really powerful form ... we thought it made more sense for us to kind of make the brief itself an example of why this thing is worth defending, and why parody is really interesting and grabs people's attention," he adds.

Immediately after the first call with Novak's legal team, Gillis sat down and wrote 1,500 words in one go which he says was because of how excited he was about the "fun, entertaining, attention-grabbing" argument that he knew he could make.

His years of living and breathing satire and parody from writing for The Onion to teaching classes at Second City and speaking with college humor publications also didn't hurt, since he was already well-acquainted with the theory and importance of the form.

Gillis also consulted at times with The Onion's legal team and editor-in-chief since he found it a bit weird to be writing so publicly about the process and value of his site's own work, which he described as "kind of an example of why a disclaimer for parody is not a good idea."

One requirement of the brief is that Gillis must demonstrate that The Onion is an interested party (for starters, it was invoked in one of the early court rulings on the subject). He says there are two main reasons: Limitations on parody could hurt the company's business model, and could have a chilling effect on it and others.

There's a lot at stake, he says. There were several points Gillis wanted to make in the brief, but he knew above all else that he wanted it to be funny.

"It's like, everybody likes laughing," he says. "And sometimes I think these legal officials maybe get a little bit into their own heads about precedent and stuff, and lose track of just the function of why comedy is great and specifically why parody is great."

Members of The Onion's editorial team attend a team meeting in their Chicago office in 2020. Gillis says it employs about a dozen staff writers, plus contributors. Mike Gillis hide caption

Members of The Onion's editorial team attend a team meeting in their Chicago office in 2020. Gillis says it employs about a dozen staff writers, plus contributors.

There are certain misconceptions Gillis wanted to clear up for the Supreme Court including why it's so important for parody to be realistic and why labeling it as such upfront wouldn't only be unnecessary, but unhelpful.

But he also sees the brief as an opportunity to defend the role of parody at large. So, NPR asked, why does it matter?

The short answer is that it's an "extremely powerful rhetorical form that can't really be mimicked by a serious, dry statement of criticism." The longer answer goes back thousands of years, to the etymological root of the word, and has to do with how even slightly tweaking a form can open readers' eyes to how "this thing that had this extremely elevated sense of itself is actually not infallible and can be criticized easily."

Gillis points to some examples of that in The Onion's archives: In 2012, the publication proclaimed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un "the sexiest man alive," and China's state-run agency republished that as fact, accompanied with a slideshow. Closer to home, a GOP congressman believed (and warned constituents about) a spoof story about Planned Parenthood opening up an $8 billion "Abortionplex."

Satirists aren't actively trying to trick readers, Gillis says. But when authoritarians fall for parody, "it really punctures their own sense of self-importance because they're showing that they're not a reasonable person."

These are particularly high-profile examples, because The Onion is such a prominent publication (in the brief it deadpans that it "has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history," which employs 350,000 journalists and also "operates the majority of the world's transoceanic shipping lanes ... and proudly conducts tests on millions of animals daily.").

But, as the brief points out, "the quality and taste of the parody is irrelevant" to the degree of legal protection it deserves.

"First Amendment rights should cover everyone and not just people who are able to afford large legal teams or who have an established track record of being parodists," Gillis tells NPR. "I just think it's a blanket law that everybody should be able to rally behind. And that is kind of an obvious win for all people."

The more literacy ordinary people have about the workings of satire and parody, the better off the conversation around it will be, he says. People have gotten mad at satirists for thousands of years, Gillis adds, but the current technological and political environment means that spoofs can be interpreted and critiqued in a more personal (and often partisan) way.

If there's one thing he wants people to know about parody, it's that "there's nothing going wrong if, for a little bit, you're taken in by a comedian," whether that's in the pages of a satirical news site or in the audience of a stand-up show.

"Having a bit more space afforded to satirists to do what they have been doing for thousands of years would be great," he says. "I think the more people that can consider that it's OK that they're being fooled briefly for parody to work, and to not take offense at that and to realize that that's just part of the form, I think that would be wonderful."

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Author of The Onion Supreme Court brief explains why parody is worth defending - NPR

Texas Broadcasters Thank Sen. Cruz for Dedication to First Amendment, Effort to Rein in Big Tech | Senator Ted Cruz

WASHINGTON, D.C. The Texas Association of Broadcasters has sent a letter to U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thanking him for his work on the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), to protect the First Amendment and his efforts to rein in Big Tech.

The Texas Association of Broadcasters wrote:

On behalf of the 1,200+ local Radio and Television stations serving the people of Texas, I am writing to thank you for working with Sens. Kennedy and Klobuchar to craft improvements to S. 673, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA).

Your dedication to robust community journalism and the First Amendment is immensely appreciated and we are hopeful that, once in law, this measure will meaningfully advance our interest in negotiating effectively with individual Big Tech firms regarding the terms of use for our content.

While much work remains on this front, know that Texas broadcasters are grateful for your leadership and diligence in helping to address our concerns.

See the letterhere.

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Original post:
Texas Broadcasters Thank Sen. Cruz for Dedication to First Amendment, Effort to Rein in Big Tech - Senator Ted Cruz