Category Archives: First Amendment

According to recent reports, local legislators have enacted bills in eight states banning the teaching of critical race theory in public schools, colleges and universities. Similar measures have been or soon will be introduced in 20 more.

CRT is an analytic framework that illuminates the manner in which racism and inequality are embedded within society and its structures. The anti-CRT legislative movement targets discussion of racism and bias in the public school system while chilling free speech in violation of the First Amendment.

Significantly, the attack against CRT does not occur in a vacuum; rather, it is part of a pattern of legislative reprisals following 2020s historic racial justice movement and in the aftermath of its presidential election cycle. Indeed, the backlash against CRT is part of a broader GOP response to the political mobilization of communities of color.

In response to the Black Lives Matters demonstrations after George Floyds murder by a Minneapolis police officer, Republican lawmakers introduced more than 80 anti-protest bills across the country. Targeting freedom of expression, some of these measures define a riot as constituting as few as three people and/or expand penalties from monetary fines to multiple-year prison sentences.

Additionally, after historically marginalized communities delivered Democratic victories in November, lawmakers introduced more than 360 voter suppression bills in the first three months of this year, the vast majority by Republicans. Subsequently, in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, the U.S. Supreme Courts conservative majority upheld a voter suppression measure in Arizona signaling likely hostility to similar challenges from other jurisdictions.

In essence, anti-CRT bills are part of a broader pattern of retaliation steeped in race, politics and the law. But are they lawful?

While the courts have not yet considered the constitutionality of anti-CRT measures, a string of cases from the McCarthy era in the 1950s may prove instructive.

During that time, lawmakers enacted Red Scare laws, including those designed to stifle the teaching of Marxism and Communism. Legal challenges to these measures led to the Supreme Court addressing whether the violated the First Amendment. A representative case is Yates v. United States (1957).

In Yates, the high court drew a distinction between advocating for unlawful action and the academic discussion of such a doctrine in the abstract. Indeed, laws that bar academic discussioneven of concepts that a subset of the public deems provocative or controversialwill not survive constitutional scrutiny unless such instruction crosses over into advocacy of unlawful conduct.

It is significant to note that this legal principle is implicit in other Supreme Court rulings. Consider, for instance, the religion clause cases.

In the post-9/11 context, parents have posed legal challenges to classroom instruction about Islam and Muslims in public education. While an entirely distinct legal standard applies in those cases, particularly where allegations of establishment clause violations are involved, the same implicit rule has emerged. The courts consistently defend the academic discussion of such subjects even when viewed as unpopular by a subset of the general population. These courts have reasoned that the classroom is a marketplace of ideas where a robust exchange should yield truth.

As such, anti-CRT bills that bar the discussion of racism and bias in the classroom are likely unconstitutional.

In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court struck down its prior ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson by ending racial segregation in public schools, which began the demise of Jim Crow laws. Significantly, the Brown court reminds us of public educations primary purpose:Today, education is the most important function of state and local governments. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed. In life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.

Essentially, Brown teaches that public education is the foundation of good citizenship in democratic society. As such, if we are to address the scourge of racism and bias in our society and its structures, social change begins with a relevant education.

Indeed, consider the lived experiences of historically marginalized groups in contemporary America. According to the 2019 FBI Hate Crimes Statistics report, historically marginalized groups, including African Americans, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans, Latinos and Muslim Americans, continue to experience disproportionate rates of interpersonal violence. Further, regarding institutional discrimination, African Americans are disproportionately affected by police brutality, racial profiling while driving and stop-and-frisks. And Latinos and Muslim Americans are affected by discriminatory immigration laws also known as structural racism.

As such, good citizens in our democracy require an appropriate critical lens to understand the ways that racism and inequality manifests in interpersonal, institutional and structural contexts. CRT provides that necessary analytic framework.

Engy Abdelkader is a council member of the ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice and chairwoman of the sections Rights of Immigrants Committee. She also is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. She teaches at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law and Rutgers University.

Editors note: This article was adapted from a talk Abdelkader delivered at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law on Sept. 21, 2021.

This column reflects the opinions of the author and not the views of the ABA Journalor the American Bar Association.

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Are government bans on the teaching of critical race theory unconstitutional? - ABA Journal

As they reel from revenue losses connected to the pandemic, many colleges and universities are racking up other costs not likely to turn up in their glossy brochures or as line items on staggering tuition bills: untold millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements for allegedly violating the rights of students, professors, and applicants on free speech, admissions and other matters as the schools pursue social justice causes.

Harvard Universitys legal costs fighting a continuing 2017 challenge to its racial admissions practices have surpassed $25 million, the cap of its primary insurer, and it is now suing a secondary legal insurer, the Zurich American Insurance Company, over its refusal to pick up the tab going forward.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had spent more than $16.8 million by the end of 2018, and its costs have only grown as it, like Harvard, continues defending admissions policies allegedly favoring blacks and Hispanics over whites and Asians.

Challenges to alleged free-speech violations, which have plagued universities for decades, continue to grow with a heightened grievance culture.

The University of California San Diego in 2019 paid nearly $1 million after a four-year court fight over its move to defund student media because of a school newspaper piece satirizing safe spaces.

Cases of male students and others challenging sexual misconduct and harassment charges cost colleges an average of $187,000 each to defend, said Ed Bartlett, president of Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), a group that advocates due process for those accused under Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination. In cases where the schools lose, he said, the average settlement imposed is $750,000, bringing the annual cost to $41 million for universities.

Bartlett and others say courtroom challenges over First Amendment rights, alleged Title IX violations, admissions standards and perceived cultural protocol miscues reflect an aggressive effort by schools to enforce disputed social policies and the growing influence of administrators who carry them out.

The number of administrators has exploded since the late 1990s, prompting many in and outside of academe to blame administrative bloat for the legal trouble. Bureaucrats now outnumber faculty 2 to 1 at public universities, double the ratio in the 1970s.

Onerous federal requirements have played a role in the administrative growth. Compliance with safety measures, Title IX, diversity, NCAA rules, accreditation and health mandates all take an army of paper-pushers and more to stay in compliance.

Management of department operations at colleges and universities at one time was part of the job of tenured faculty, who served on committees that ranged from curriculum to career advice.

Administrators are now making key decisions, many outside the scope of faculty, said Keith Whittington, who chairs the Academic Freedom Alliance, a group started this year to provide legal assistance to faculty facing problems related to First Amendment issues. These are people less sympathetic to academic freedom concerns, and many have no idea of academic freedom.

Mired in policy that leaves universities increasingly legally and financially exposed, administrators are sometimes seen as driving schools in the wrong direction.

The pandemic increased the numbers of First Amendment cases and complaints, adding to the legal cost burden placed on colleges, said Adam Steinbaugh, of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a group that represents faculty and students in First Amendment cases against universities.

College shutdowns afforded people plenty of time to dig into other peoples backgrounds through social media, finding old posts that gave them a reason to complain to administrators.

But even before the virus, schools caved in the face of hot-button cases in which some party or other felt threatened.

Calling this to the attention of administrators, who are risk averse, means finding a way to punish this, and thats usually through censorship, Steinbaugh said.

The University of Californias Berkley campus in 2018 settled a lawsuit with a conservative student group that battled tougher rules and security fees levied on right-leaning speakers on campus. As part of the settlement, the university paid $70,000 to cover the plaintiffs legal fees, in addition to its own legal costs.

Cal Polys Pomona campus paid $35,000 in legal fees to a plaintiff and its own legal costs before it agreed to beef up its weak free speech policies in 2015. The lawsuit was filed after two administrators refused to consider a complaint from a student who wanted to hand out flyers promoting veganism.

Iowa State University paid nearly $1 million over the course of four years as it fought a free speech case, ending in 2018 when a judge ordered the school to pay $600,000 in damages to two plaintiffs (part of the $1 million. They had used the schools logo on a shirt advocating marijuana law reform.

In some cases, administrators acknowledge that they understand the Constitution, yet insist college speech codes take precedence.

At the University of Iowa, Business Leaders in Christ, a Christian group, was denied access to on-campus facilities because in its mission statement it defined marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.

In a deposition, Bill Nelson, an associate dean at the university, acknowledged that suppressing speech proclaiming a belief in traditional marriage would be a violation of the First Amendment. But at the same time, allowing the speech violated the schools human rights policy.

You can't really distinguish those, right? There's no logic in those two positions, correct? an attorney representing Business Leaders asked Nelson.

Right. I am getting myself very confused, said Nelson, who later asked for a break because he was experiencing anxiety.

Nelson, who did not respond to an email seeking an interview, has been with the university as an administrator for 18 years.

Tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees later, Business Leaders in Christ prevailed in the case.

Resistance from schools to settle cases, despite awareness of laws that prohibit selective censorship, results in longer court cases and higher legal expenses.

The fees can be lofty, particularly when universities retain the same corporate counsel that Fortune 500 companies or other large private groups use.

Harvard, for example, went with WilmerHale, which has represented Oracle and Morgan Stanley. The University of California has used Munger, Tolles & Olson, which has represented Merrill Lynch and mega entertainment group Creative Artists Agency.

WilmerHale in 2015 was billing at $1,250 an hour at its highest rate. An attorney at Munger can run between $695 an hour for an associate to $1,300 an hour for a senior, top-of-the-chain litigator.

Colleges can go to a local firm for a fraction of that, said a person close to the admissions lawsuits. But they retain the best and spend a fortune.

With higher education reeling from the pandemic, schools have imposed hiring freezes, budget cuts and layoffs, while pleading for more state and federal funding, even as they spend money fighting often-preventable lawsuits.

Last years $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package included $14 billion to universities and another $39.6 billion in funding was added in a subsequent measure earlier this year. But many schools say that isn't enough.

In February, school leaders from Iowas public universities lobbied for more money from the state legislature, insisting state funding cuts along with the pandemic have left the schools in a financial pinch.

In California, Our campuses face soaring costs and mounting revenue losses associated with the pandemic, putting our students' well-being and success at significant risk, Former California State University Chancellor Timothy White told a U.S. House education subcommittee last year.

Universities have implemented a variety to ways to try and stem or manage legal costs. They call in consultants who advise administrators on how to handle Title IX situations and other challenges to policies.

Its hard to tell if these consultants and policies have any effect, but there is a free speech policy that applies to universities already, said Eric Baxter, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a law firm that has won several cases against universities.

Its called the First Amendment."

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Colleges Learning Costly Woke Math in the Courtroom School of Hard Knocks - 69News WFMZ-TV

Our mission: providing resources to help the public understand how their First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition work, and how they can be protected.

The First Amendment Centers nationally recognized experts David Hudson, Lata Nott, and Gene Policinski regularly provide the media with information and commentary on First Amendment and free expression issues. Interested in contacting one of our experts? Please email [emailprotected] or call 202/292-6200.

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Some of the victims who survived the Capital Gazette shooting say they also think something bigger and broader was attacked too the First Amendment.

In literal terms, theres no denying that the five people killed inside the Capital Gazette newsroom three years ago were targeted specifically for being employed by the newspaper.

But after having time to reflect, some of the victims who survived say they also think something bigger and broader was attacked too the First Amendment something they worry is under continued attack today.

Former Capital Gazette reporter Selene San Felice, who now works for Axios in Florida, said it was an attack on the First Amendment, but the First Amendment is still being attacked even if people arent shooting us, she said.

She and photographer Paul Gillespie cited the low wages many community news outlets pay as well as the steep decline in jobs and publications that still exist as ongoing threats to the news industry as a whole, and the First Amendment in particular.

Local news is so important to this country, Gillespie said. Were in the hearts of these neighborhoods all across our country telling stories of our neighbors. Us closing down as much as we have, like all across the country losing journalists, photojournalists, its a great loss and once were gone its going to be sad because no one is going to be out there covering your kids football games or community issues, the city council meetings and all that stuff.

San Felice said one reason shes still in the journalism industry is to help honor the spirits of the five people who were killed, including her former editors and mentors Rob Hiaasen and Gerald Fischman.

A shooter cant take down a newspaper, she said. Newspapers will always be around in some form, journalists will always be around in some form so no matter many of us you kill there will always be more of us to tell the truth.

Anne Arundel County States Attorney Anne Colt Leitess said, in her opinion, truth is what was really attacked.

The First Amendment allows people to say things the Capital did and the problem is the defendant could not handle the truth and he wanted to twist it into something else, she said.

Journalism is an opportunity for truths to be told, she said. I can see why people think this is about journalism. It is about truth whether its someone speaking the truth to someones face, on television, in the newspaper, the truth was attacked that day.

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Some Capital Gazette shooting victims say they werent the only targets, 1st Amendment was - WTOP

A federal judge last week ruled the Marquette County sheriff violated the First Amendment rights of a teenage girl with whom he threatened arrest over her social media posts about COVID-19, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.

The posts, which Amyiah Cohoon shared on her Instagram account in March 2020, detailed her experience with what she believed to be a case of COVID-19. Cohoon had been hospitalized shortly after returning from a school band trip to Florida. Though she tested negative, Cohoon said her doctors believed she likely had the virus previously.

A member of the Marquette County Sheriffs Office visited the Cohoon home on March 27 and said Sheriff Joseph Konrath had ordered the posts to be taken down due to the lack of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the county. Cohoon complied but later sued the sheriff with support from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty.

U.S. District Court Judge Brett Ludwig on Sept. 24 issued his decision, writing that the First Amendment is not a game setting for the government to toggle offer and on. It applies in times of tranquility and times of strife. While defendants in this case may have believed their actions served the greater good, that belief cannot insulate them. Demanding a 16-year-old remove protected speech from her Instagram account is a First Amendment violation.

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Judge: Sheriff violated First Amendment with jail threat over COVID posts - Wisconsin Newspaper Association

Avera's Dr. Michael Elliott joins us for a South Dakota COVID-19 update.

We wrap up our September spotlight with an in-depth conversation about libraries, censorship, and the First Amendment. Deborah Caldwell Stone is director of the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom. She joins us during national Banned Books Week.

TheTriTonesof Mitchell won the South Dakota Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's Battle of the Bands on Friday. The event was restricted to high school musicians. TheTriTonesare a 10-member jazz fusion band.

Dr. Keith Mueller, the Gerhard Hartman Professor and head of the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Iowa, presents "Delivery of Health Care in Rural Areas" tonight at 7:00 p.m. at the Sherman Center at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell. He joins us to discuss current challenges to rural health care service.

The World Archery Championships concluded in Yankton on Sunday. The Archery World Cup takes place tomorrow and Thursday at Riverside Park in Yankton with the top 32 archers in the world competing.

In the Moment airs live at 12CT/11MT. The audio from the day's show is attached soon after the show airs.

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Libraries, censorship, and the First Amendment | SDPB - SDPB Radio

NEW YORK (AP) Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to restore his account, which the companysuspended in Januaryfollowing the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Trumps attorneys on Friday filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Miami seeking a preliminary injunction against Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey. They argue that Twitter is censoring Trump in violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the motion.

Twitter declined to comment Saturday on Trumps filing.

The company permanentlybanned Trumpfrom its platform days after his followers violently stormed the Capitol building to try to block Congress from certifying Joe Bidens presidential win. Twitter cited concerns that Trump would incite further violence. Prior to the ban, Trump had roughly 89 million followers on Twitter.

Trump was also suspended fromFacebookand Googles YouTube over similar concerns that he would provoke violence. Facebooks ban will last two years, until Jan. 7, 2023, after which the company will review his suspension. YouTubes ban is indefinite.

In July, Trumpfiled lawsuitsin the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against all three tech companies and their CEOs, claiming that he and other conservatives have been wrongfully censored. The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed as part of Trumps case against Twitter.

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Trump lawyers cite First Amendment in asking judge to force Twitter to restart his account - NewsNation Now

In September, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press welcomed Annie Kapnick as a litigation fellow, a role in which she will draft friend-of-the-court briefs, conduct legal research and assist with the organizations litigation efforts.

While a student at Harvard Law School, Annie says she became interested in First Amendment litigation and its intersection with technology.

I was looking for an organization that focuses on a broad range of media litigation topics, including complex technology-related First Amendment issues, and a commitment to increasing government transparency, she said. The Reporters Committee has an excellent litigation team, theyre working on some really exciting issues and have their toe in all the important cases that are happening right now in the First Amendment arena.

Before attending law school, Annie worked in finance for three years. The experience working in the corporate world helped her realize her desire to work at a nonprofit organization.

I wanted to find a career I could actually be passionate about, and feel like I had more impact on the world, Annie said. I think working at a nonprofit specifically was something that was always a goal of mine going into law school.

A New York native, Annie graduated from Stanford University in 2015 with a B.S. in management science and engineering, with interdisciplinary honors in international security studies. She then returned to New York to work in finance, before attending Harvard Law School, where she was executive submissions editor of the National Security Journal, a James Vorenberg Equal Justice Summer Fellow and a research assistant for Professor Martha Minow.

She graduated cum laude this past May before joining the Reporters Committee.

Annie Kapnick is not admitted to practice law.

The Reporters Committee regularly files friend-of-the-court briefs and its attorneys represent journalists and news organizations pro bono in court cases that involve First Amendment freedoms, the newsgathering rights of journalists and access to public information. Stay up-to-date on our work by signing up for our monthly newsletter and following us on Twitter or Instagram.

Photo by Anna G. Bahn

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Annie Kapnick joins Reporters Committee as litigation fellow - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Jaffer also reminded participants that in the weeks after 9/11, the U.S. government rounded up hundreds of immigrants, most of them Arab or South Asian, almost all of them Muslim, falsely intimating to the public that they were connected in some way to the attacks. In the months and years that followed, the courts granted the government new authorities, creating national security exceptions to important human rights protections. All of us should have been quicker to recognize that those were not national security exceptionsthat they were effectively Muslim exceptions, he said.

Part of the challenge at the time, suggested Elisa Massimino, former president and CEO of Human Rights First, was that following the attacks the government deliberately hid its true agenda. She recalled a visit to the Justice Department shortly after 9/11 to discuss with officials those individuals being rounded up: We were looking for some sign that there was a strategy related to national security behind any of it. We said, Surely you're not just randomly rounding up people who are Muslim or [who] seem Muslim to somebody and hoping that you're going to catch some terrorists. And that is precisely what they were doing.

But, as Massimino added: I think my navet was really that there was some level of competence inside the government on these issues. And that early meeting just completely stripped that away. There was no strategy behind that. It was just fear-driven prejudice.

ACLUs Executive Director Anthony Romero expressed similar bitterness over the governments framing of national security policies as part of the fight against terrorism in order to bypass conventions for international human rights and domestic law enforcement. The war on terror paradigm was one we fought. But I wish we had just never fallen prey to the use of it, he said. Once [we had] the full evidence of the commission of torture and the fact that [the government] had acted so unlawfully we should have impeached the bunch of them.

Added Roth: The one point where I think we made a mistake is that we allowed the discussion to be exclusively about torture, rather than ... cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. [We should have] gotten people to think about humane treatment, you know, do you want the cop in your local precinct interrogating you with these techniques?

The panelists link between national security and policing did suggest that, amid burgeoning social justice movements and intersectional awareness, a more effective response may be possible.

The context [after 9/11] was really around the surveillance of Muslim communities, argued panelist Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the 2017 Womens March and former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York. [There were] a lot of moments where the movement could have initially engaged in solidarity and looking at the connections between national security and the policing apparatus in the United States, and how it impacts people of color. We could have had one big whole conversation that really could have built a lot of power.

Sarsour concluded: What I hope that we have now is this idea that we can't have these silo fights anymore. We're not going to talk about criminal justice reform without also talking about national security reform.

A. Adam Glenn is a writer/editor at the Knight First Amendment Institute.

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Are Human Rights Violations Becoming More Difficult to Hide? - Columbia University

This week, video sharing service YouTube announced that it would take steps to remove content from prominent COVID-19 vaccine skeptics including Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As first reported by The Washington Post, under its new policies, YouTube will ban any videos that make the claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health officials are ineffective or dangerous.

The video service has already enacted similar measures against accounts that have been sharing misinformation about COVID-19.

Developing robust policies takes time, Matt Halprin, YouTubes vice president of global trust and safety told the paper of record. We wanted to launch a policy that is comprehensive, enforceable with consistency and adequately addresses the challenge.

YouTube and other social media platforms have long been used to share conspiracy theories, and many of these from flat earth to the moon landing to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (uncle of the aforementioned Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) have been considered essentially harmless, even if those making and potentially watching them were actual believers.

However, some of the more recent conspiracies to gain traction have included the infamous pizzagate, which served as the catalyst for the QAnon movement, and of course COVID-19 fromits origins as well as vaccines. For the most part, this type of information has been allowed, even if in some cases it has been tagged as potentially misleading.

This week however, YouTube has stepped up to ban the spread of what it calls COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.

Working closely with health authorities, we looked to balance our commitment to an open platform with the need to remove egregious harmful content, YouTube said in a Wednesday statement posted to its blog. Weve steadily seen false claims about the coronavirus vaccines spill over into misinformation about vaccines in general, and were now at a point where its more important than ever to expand the work we started with Covid-19 to other vaccines.

The question is of course what sets one conspiracy apart from another?

Well, that is up to the platform to draw the line, and that can be difficult, but it generally seems to be where people could get hurt or sick, said Dr. Kurt Braddock, assistant professor of Public Communication at the School of Communication, American University.

The platform may be slow to react, but they do seem to move when there is the potential for violence such as after the January 6 riots at the Capitol, Braddock told ClearanceJobs.

There have also been concerns in the past year that as more Americans get their news and information from social media that not enough has been done to stop the spread of misinformation and even disinformation. However, here is where the platforms have in recent months increased the efforts to stop the spread of content they see as misleading or potentially harmful.

Social media platforms removal of high-profile individuals spreading disinformation has a discernible effect on what general users see online, explained Dr. Saif Shahin, assistant professor, School of Communication at American University.

A few influential accounts tend to drive the bulk of online traffic as what they post is recirculated by hundreds or thousands of other accounts or by malicious bots. Facebook reported a marked decrease in exposure to disinformation after it began clamping down during last years election. In my own research, I have found this to have happened on Twitter as well, Shahain added.

One common complaint from users on the social platforms has been that this is a form of censorship or that it somehow violates ones First Amendment rights. Neither argument holds water, said the experts.

YouTube is a privately-owned platform, of course; its parent company is Google. As such, the First Amendment does not apply to it, because the First Amendment only applies to the government, said Bob Jarvis, lawyer and professor of Law at Nova Southeastern University.

Thus, while the government cannot ban speech except in very specific circumstances, such as speech that imperils national security private individuals and companies are free to ban any speech they wish for any reason, or no reason, at all, Jarvis told ClearanceJobs. The foregoing is not debatable it is, as lawyers like to say, black letter law.Moreover, the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 held that even when a private company provides a platform for others to speak a traditional government function the First Amendment does not apply.

However, there will still be those that attempt to argue that the platforms are so universally used that blocking anyone is still a form of censoring.

Any kind of argument about this being First Amendment or about censorship remains a non-starter, and those who believe these videos want to have a debate, but that isnt the case, added Braddock. These companies can do what they want to do.

However, a case could be made that even if it is legally true, it may not always be in the best interest of the greater good.

Credibility of all content suffers in this dystopian age. Now that carriers openly affirm that they eliminate select material to protect it from criticism, everyone must doubt what we read and wonder what was omitted, warned Jim Purtilo, associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland.

Science is the greatest victim of all, Purtilo told ClearanceJobs. Science is driven by disciplined questions and data, so when corporations or officials aggressively quash our opportunity to challenge views they diminish the quality of our conclusions. The crucible of science burns away nonsense and gives us greater confidence in what remains; censorship stops this quality improvement process in its tracks.

While activity on social media can potentially reflect badly on ones character, unless that activity could put an individual in a compromising situation, it may not actually impact security clearance. That is true even if said activity resulted in that person being banned from a platform such as YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook.

It is highly unlikely the ban itself would impact someones security clearance, said attorney Bradley P. Moss, Esq, of the Law Offices of Mark Zaid.

What the person did to get banned, on the other hand, is a different situation, but even that is still pretty farfetched, Moss told ClearanceJobs.

Even if its unlikely to impact your security clearance, posting conspiracy theories probably isnt a good way to land a job.

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Conspiracy Theories and Your Clearance: Should You Be Worried if You Get Banned from YouTube Like Robert Kennedy Jr. - ClearanceJobs