Category Archives: Free Speech

On April 8 and 9, the pianist Valentina Lisitsa was to perform the Rachmaninoff 2nd concerto with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. This week, the orchestra paid out her contract, citing deeply offensive comments she was alleged to have made on her Twitter feed about the ongoing conflict in her native Ukraine.

Lisitsa, 41, who came to prominence through her YouTube videos and who has a huge social-media following, fired back promptly and at some length in a Facebook post (despite, she averred, pressure from the symphony not to go public about the incident). She makes no bones about having taken sides in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine; she is on the side of the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who represent the majority in the Crimea, and vehemently opposed to the current Ukrainian leadership. Her posts on Twitter repeatedly call Ukrainians Nazis and depicts them as a population of idiots and the insane; one purports to illustrate the leaderships faces with a photograph of pigs testicles. The feed also has some racism and overtones of anti-Semitism thrown in for good measure. But, Lisitsa says, she was exercising her right to free speech. The orchestras position is that she went too far.

This is not about political persuasion, says Jeff Melanson, the Toronto Symphonys president and CEO, in a telephone interview on Wednesday morning. He adds, Thats no issue for us. [But] artists using their Twitter or public profile to regularly speak in an intolerant or offensive way about other human beings that, you have to think about. The orchestra invoked a clause in her contract that enabled them to dismiss her.

Theres food here for legitimate debate. But legitimate debate is not necessarily whats fostered in the kangaroo court of Twitter and Facebook. The Toronto Symphony has been besieged by an outcry about free speech, and ultimately had to cancel the concerto altogether (Stewart Goodyear, who was to have replaced Lisitsa, says her supporters bullied him out). Some of the orchestras critics include people who have their own political axes to grind; some appear to believe that Lisitsa is supporting the Ukrainian rather than the Russian side in the conflict; and some include members of prominent newspapers editorial boards: the Toronto Star, for one, has weighed in with a strong indictment.

Few, if any, have mentioned an obvious recent parallel, when Opera Australia dismissed the Georgian soprano Tamar Iveri in 2014 after a lengthy Facebook post was found in which she supported attacks on a gay-pride parade in her native Georgia and referred to gay people as fecal masses. Free speech? Sure, but Iveri found precious few defenders and certainly there were no editorials defending her right to speak out.

The case against Lisitsa is arguably not quite as clear-cut. The Toronto Symphony has amassed a seven-page collection of some of her ripest Tweets, including one that mocks Ukranians in traditional folk costume by comparing them to Africans in tribal dress. There are evocations of Nazi concentration camps and the Ku Klux Klan. Theres no question that its pretty distasteful stuff; digging around in it left this reader, at least, feeling soiled.

But where do you draw the line? You could argue that Lisitsa is writing, clumsily, in the tradition of offensive satire propagated by the magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose right to free speech many in the West passionately defended in the wake of the brutal attack on their offices earlier this year, which left 12 people dead. One of Lisitsas tweets that some found objectionable This is what happens when media gets their news out of a..uh..sphincter, she wrote about a New York Times piece on Russian leaders abandoning Ukrainian separatists included a Charlie Hebdo cartoon, depicting news outlets drinking out of each others rear ends. (In a Twitter exchange, Lisitsa confirmed that she had swapped out the names of the media outlets to make the cartoon relevant to the Ukrainian situation.)

Conversely, you could argue that a musician who uses her podium for this kind of material is not someone you want associating with your orchestra. You could also argue that Lisitsa is propagating hate speech, and that hate speech is illegal in Canada and many other countries.

Theres no doubt its a gray zone, said Melanson in a telephone interview on Wednesday morning.

Whether or not you agree with the symphonys position, they have gotten the worst of it in the social-media war in part through not being more explicit right from the start about the nature of the Tweets they were protesting. In 2014, Opera Australia made it perfectly clear why they were letting Iveri go; by contrast, Melansons initial statement about ongoing accusations of deeply offensive language by Ukrainian media outlets made it sound as if the symphony were responding to someone elses claims which has fueled a lot of speculation about who it was that pressured them to act. Melanson, however, avers that no political pressure, no pressure from donors, no messages from foreign or local governments was responsible for the orchestras decision.

Read the rest here:
Free speech or hate speech? Lisitsa and the TSO

April 10, 2015|4:46 pm

Protesters against U.S. President Barack Obama's health care overhaul gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington, June 28, 2012. The Supreme Court is set to deliver on Thursday its ruling on President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare overhaul, his signature domestic policy achievement, in a historic case that could hand him a huge triumph or a stinging rebuke just over four months before he seeks re-election.

When Evangelicals are exposed to arguments defending their own free speech and religious freedom, they become more accepting of extending similar rights to their political foes, a new study found.

"Rights, Reflection, and Reciprocity: How Rights Talk Affects the Political Process," by political scientists Paul Djupe, Denison University; Andrew Lewis, University of Cincinnati; and Ted Jelen, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, will be presented this month at the Midwest Political Science Association's annual meeting in Chicago.

The researchers sought to understand if the recent culture war battles between sexual freedom and religious freedom (see, for example, here, hereand here) would lead to greater or lesser division and intolerance among the combatants. (This paper focuses on the conservative side but they suggest they will also be studying the liberal side.)

In an article for the political science blog The Monkey Cage, the authors explain that their research "has identified a fascinating silver lining [to those culture war battles]. We find that evangelical Christians who are exposed to claims about religious rights actually become more willing to extend First Amendment rights to their ideological opponents. That is, the campaign to reinforce religious liberty might actually increase political tolerance in the long run."

(Photo: The Christian Post/Sonny Hong)

Paul Djupe, associate professor of political science at Denison University, presenting "The Choice That Matters: Politics in the Role of Leaving Congregations," at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., Aug. 30, 2014.

The study used a survey experiment. A sample of 2,141 respondents, including 274 Evangelicals and 1,867 non-Evangelicals, were divided into groups exposed to different messages from hypothetical political candidates and clergy. These messages were about pro-life protestors, the Obama administration's birth control mandate, teaching creationism, and a photographer declining to work at a same-sex wedding. Each group had messages based upon either morality, free speech, religious liberty, and a less specific message that was used as the control group. The study also used a number of control measures that are common in studies of tolerance education, ideology, political interest, gender, age, and democratic norms.

The respondents were also asked to identify which groups they either "like the least" or "disagree with the most" from among these options: immigrants, Tea Party members, Muslims, homosexuals, Christian fundamentalists, or atheists. For the full sample, the non-Evangelicals chose Christian fundamentalists as their least liked group, followed by the Tea Party. Evangelicals chose atheists as their least liked group, followed by Muslims and the Tea Party.

The rest is here:
Religious Freedom Debates Make Evangelicals More Tolerant, Study Finds

BENTONVILLE -- Mary Beth Tinker told Bentonville High School students she was "really scared and nervous" when she wore a black armband to her school nearly 50 years ago, touching off a controversy leading to a landmark Supreme Court case.

More than 1,000 students filled the school's Arend Arts Center on Wednesday to hear Tinker speak about her experience and her passion for free-speech rights. Haven Brown, a senior, interviewed Tinker on stage before the audience was allowed to ask her questions.

Tinker was 13 years old in December 1965 when her brother and their friend decided to wear black armbands to school to mourn those killed in the Vietnam War and to support Robert F. Kennedy's call for a Christmas truce. They lived in Iowa at the time.

"I was kind of shy and I wasn't sure I was going to do it because I didn't want to get in trouble," Tinker said.

A vice principal told her to remove her armband, and Tinker did. She was suspended anyway, as was a small group of other students who wore armbands.

The U.S. Supreme Court eventually heard the students' case, and in 1969 ruled 7-2 in the students' favor, saying their form of protest was protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. That ruling is officially known as Tinker v. Independent Community School District No. 21.

Tinker told students she didn't realize what a big case it was until she saw it cited years later in one of her nursing school textbooks.

Tinker said she and her family were the target of hate when news spread about the suspensions.

"People were calling us Communists," Tinker said. "And my mother said, 'We're not Communists, we're Methodists.'"

The School District's argument for suspending the students was they were causing a disruption with their armbands, Tinker said.

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Free speech advocate addresses Bentonville students

Sony Hack Being Used To Target Free Speech
Why did a convicted billionaire pedophile named Jeffrey Epstein that pimped out underage girls to powerful men have 21 contact phone numbers for Bill Clinton... Paramount Cancels Alamo Drathouse #39;....

By: Lowe Webb

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Sony Hack Being Used To Target Free Speech - Video

Virginia Cop-Insulting Someone on Facebook Is Not Free Speech
The President of the Virginia Fraternal Order of Police said, "Free speech doesn #39;t say you have the right to insult somebody," and that using bad language online should also be considered a...

By: THElNFOWARRlOR

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Virginia Cop-Insulting Someone on Facebook Is Not Free Speech - Video

Bullied by Communist Chinese operatives here in Canada
Ezra Levant reports for TheRebel.media: Besides being a successful media and broadcasting entrepreneur in Canada, Joe Wang campaigns to support free speech and democracy in China. Recently,.

By: Rebel Media

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Bullied by Communist Chinese operatives here in Canada - Video

Jews in Europe in the wake of terror attacks
World Insight returns to Denmark more than six weeks after the capital Copenhagen was rocked by a terrorist attack. An Islamist gunman opened fire on a free speech forum and a Jewish synagogue,...

By: CCTV News

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Jews in Europe in the wake of terror attacks - Video

An advocacy group has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop teachers unions in California from using member dues for political purposes unless individual instructors provide their permission.

The effort, if successful, could weaken the influence of these unions by limiting their spending.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court by StudentsFirst, a Sacramento-based organization that has opposed candidates and measures backed by teachers unions nationwide, while also working to pass laws that curtail union power.

In the suit, four teachers, including two from the Los Angeles Unified School District, assert that union rules and state laws violate their 1st Amendment rights to free speech because they cannot belong to the union unless they allow a portion of their dues to be spent on political activity. The teachers claim they should be able to join without subsidizing viewpoints they may oppose.

As part of protecting the right to free speech, the 1st Amendment does not permit forcing an individual to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support, the suit states.

The defendants are the two largest teachers unions in the country as well as the two largest in California. Also being suedare two union locals where three of the teachers work, including United Teachers Los Angeles. The suit also names the superintendents of L.A. Unified, West Contra Costa Unified and Arcadia Unified school districts.

Union leaders characterized the legal action as an attempt to limit what labor can accomplish against well-funded business interests and other opponents by cutting off funding.

Thislawsuit is attempting to use the 1st Amendment to stifle speech, not enhance it, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement.

In California, although teachers are not compelled to join a union, they must pay a portion of membership dues as agency fees to cover their estimated share of costs when the union negotiates contract terms on their behalf.

The remaining portion, which the plaintiffs pegged at 30% to 40%, can be spent on political activities. Union leaders pointed out that contributing this portion is optional.

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Teachers sue to join union without paying for political activities

How should a university president balance the Constitutional right to free speech against the responsibility to ensure students feel safe on campus after finding something as shocking as a noose, for example, hung by an undergraduate at Duke University?

Many students have demanded a strong response to show the university will not tolerate bigotry, while others caution that the First Amendment protects even the most hateful of speech. In every recent case, university leaders have unequivocally condemned the speech in question. But their other actions have varied.

Riley Brands, the editor-in-chief ofThe Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin, has this take:

Just this semester, several racially-charged incidents have shaken universities. These incidents have tested university leaders resolve to promote an inclusive learning environment on their campuses.

In at least one case, a university president has been bold and stated unequivocally his intolerance for intolerance.

In others, however, fear or weakness has held university presidents back.

Last week, University of Maryland President Wallace D. Loh announced that a vile e-mail sent by a fraternity member violated no university rules and was protected by the First Amendment. The e-mail contained racial slurs and dismissed the idea of sexual consent.

Read more about the e-mail here.

In early February, my paper,The Daily Texan, broke the story of a racially insensitive party at the Phi Gamma Delta, or Fiji, fraternity house just off campus. The theme party, which the president of the fraternity told us was western, saw attendees in hard hats with the names Jefe and Pablo Sanchez written on them as well as reflective vests and work gloves. Some at the party said the theme was border control.

The uproar online was swift and vigorous. Many called for severe action against the fraternity.

Excerpt from:
Student: University presidents should take stronger stances against racism

IGN Censors free speech in it #39;s comments section
This is insane. IGN no longer censors cursing, but feels the need to censor free speech when it #39;s something they don #39;t agree with. Someone needs to remind them of something called free speech.

By: The Goof

Link:
IGN Censors free speech in it's comments section - Video