Category Archives: Free Speech

During the debate, Labour MP and former shadow media minister Chris Matheson revealed he had learned of the case and had filed a parliamentary question about it only to hear from Boies Schiller Flexner, the law firm handling the case, which has represented various controversial clients including Harvey Weinstein.

Matheson said to Davis: I tabled a written question in this place about their effects on media freedom. I have to tell the House and the Rt Hon Gentleman that I was then contacted by lawyers for the company asking me to withdraw that question. What is his response to their asking me to withdraw a perfectly innocent parliamentary question?

Davis response was stark. First, the lawyers clearly do not understand parliamentary privilege, he told assembled MPs. Secondly, what they are doing will come back to this in a second is trying to repress free speech and transparency in this country.

Gareth Johnson, a junior minister in the justice department, responded on behalf of the government, reaffirming its commitment to bring forward measures to restrict Slapp actions and protect media freedom.

Slapps are wrong. They are a form of bullying. They need to be stopped, and stopped through legislation, he said. First, let me emphasise that investigative journalism is of central importance to a functioning democracy.

We rely on journalists to hold powerful people and organisations to account for our collective good. Lawfare that targets our public watchdogs through aggressive, intimidatory tactics must be stamped out.

Johnson was warned by MPs that such reforms are required as a matter of urgency.

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Slapp cases: David Davis lambasts law firm for trying to 'repress free speech' - The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

From the Founding Fathers to Vietnam War protests, freedom of speech has evolved through each generation. A guest speaker for the Black Lives Matter Speaker Series, Jeremy Woodson is a communications strategist at Idahos American Civil Liberties Union who spoke on First Amendment rights.

While careful to remind attendees that he was not a lawyer, Woodson offered guidance and considerations for students wanting to use their voices on campus.

I believe in student engagement. I believe in young peoples engagement, the ACLU has thought about this a lot, Woodson said.

In the Supreme Court, Tinker v. Des Moines set a precedent for free speech in schools. The case was decided in 1969, the era of the Vietnam War. Junior high schooler Mary Tinker wore a black armband protesting the war, despite a school ban. Tinker was suspended, leading to the ensuing court case.

The final ruling in favor of Tinker set a precedent for students retaining their free speech at school.

The big ruling there from the Supreme Court was students do not shed their First Amendment protections at the schoolhouse gate, you can walk in and theyre protected, Woodson said.

From private to public universities, Woodson explained that there are differences in protections for students, with public schools being tied to the state.

Look at religious universities. Theyre not bound by the same things because theyre not the government, Woodson said.

He also reminded students that organizations must obtain permits to rally on campus. Its not as simple as colleges protect speech.

We know there are attacks on free speech even on college campuses, he said.

While the First Amendment is the basis for protections of free speech set in the Bill of Rights in 1791, Woodson hesitated to commend the Founding Fathers.

It ignores the fact that they were problematic, Woodson said. It ignores the fact that when they drafted some of these things not only were they not talking about everybody there were also discussions on how to exclude people in clever ways.

He finds people glorifying a system and rule set that was made by white men.

When it came to like, (the First Amendment) being upheld, I dont think that there were like, slaves of some of these men that were like, Yes, the First Amendment wins again! He was so smart, Thomas Jefferson, Woodson said. I sometimes think that its problematic to approach this discussion from that standpoint, because history is problematic. And we havent dug into that enough.

A continuation of free speech, Woodson said he always hears the concept of the marketplace of ideas being used to defend the bad ones. Having all ideas out there, the bad and the good, it is argued that the best will win. Instead, Woodson believes the marketplace is something people have unequal access to.

I would love to believe (the marketplace of ideas), Woodson said. But again, we only need to look at history to see how that really plays out.

As for students, Woodson is optimistic in the younger generations power.

We only need to look at history, he said. We know that young people, students, have made great change, because of the space, sometimes hard fought space, to be able to exercise their First Amendment rights.

Haadiya Tariq can be reached at [emailprotected] or on Twitter @haadiyatariq

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ACLU's Jeremey Woodson takes on freedom of speech - Argonaut

In a recent letter , associate professor of English at North Dakota State University, Anastassiya Andrianova, complains that conservative pundit Candace Owens will be speaking at NDSU on Oct. 17. She asserts that Owens promotes bigotry but does not provide a single example, likely because none exist.

Leftists have a filthy habit of calling everything under the sun bigotry in an attempt to poison the well and smear their political opponents without having to address the content of their arguments.

Andrianova claims that questioning the validity of an election and looking for fraud is antidemocratic. I disagree; wanting elections to be free, fair, and open is very pro-democracy. Im sure Andrianova doesnt feel the same way about Russia hosting elections in occupied eastern Ukraine on if those territories want to be annexed or not. I doubt shed call questioning those election results antidemocratic.

More importantly, and the purpose of this letter, is that Andrianova criticized North Dakota HB 1503 (passed in 2021) which protects the free speech of faculty and students, including student-sponsored guest speakers.

Specifically, what this bill does is require institutions to enact policy within a certain framework:

Andrianova questions if the intent of the legislature was to protect firebrand speakers. The additional fees that student organizations would face without this law usually take the form of security fees because the institution is concerned that a riot might break out in response to undesirable speech. Or at least thats the excuse institutions give when they want to dissuade that undesirable speech. I can say unequivocally that yes, it was definitely the intent of the legislature to protect firebrand speakers.

Thinking legal protections should only apply to a handful of government-approved viewpoints spits in the face of free speech.

Andrianova calls on readers to protest this campus engagement. She says the community should fight hate speech with more speech, but I have seen no evidence or any example that Owens spreads hate at all. I suggest the community listens to what she has to say first before they grab their pitchforks.

William Smith lives in Fargo.

This letter does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum's editorial board nor Forum ownership.

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Letter: Andrianova spits in the face of free speech - INFORUM

Barbara Leedom| Columnist

Words have always mattered, still do, and will even more as the midterm elections approach. Free speech is one of the most important guarantees in our democracy, but it is in peril. Some say free speech has always been dangerous to the speaker and to those to whom speakers direct their remarks.

It took a Supreme Court case to rule on free speech in 1919. In the case Schenck v. United States famed Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes coined phrases still used to define what is and isnt free speech fire in a theater and create a clear and present danger.

The case denied the petition of John Schenck, a man arrested for distributing pamphlets arguing against the legality of the draft. In those days pamphlets were popular methods to spread information and beliefs. Today its social media. Its the hundreds of thousands of blogs and posts and sites and platforms free to access by logging on or lurking in the background.

Users can voice their views, argue with people across the world, dispel misinformation, create misinformation, virtually yell at other users, find dates and mates, conspire with like-minded folks, write nasty things about anyone anywhere and expose themselves to ridicule and defamation. Libel and slander can result in serious, sometimes legal, repercussions.

Nov. 8 is Election Day:Everything you need about voting this fall

Social media sites are ratcheting up their efforts to dispel lies by those who post their opinions as facts.Meta (formerly Facebook), Twitter and TikTok released plans to look carefully at content involving the upcoming November elections. If the watchers at these companies deem content to be false, social media outlets can cancel accounts. Its happened.

According to a Meta fact sheet, the company has hundreds of people focused on the midterms across more than 40 teams and spent $5 billion on global safety and security last year.

Twitter said in a blog post it would label posts with misleading content or claims about voting, including false information about the outcome of an election.

Midterm election: Candidate profiles, voter information and more.

The Stop the Steal people, those who claim the 2020 presidential elections were stolen have no facts on which to base their claims. But that doesnt mean the movement is over. They believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that elections, national, state and local, were somehow rigged. Remember the phone call fromthen-President Trump to Georgias Secretary of State?He said hed won Georgia by hundreds of thousands of votes. Until now no investigations have found there was any manipulation of ballots in Georgia.

Now, after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, there are all kinds of threatening posts on social media sites. The magistrate who signed the arrest warrant and his family have been threatened. Anti-Semitic remarks have appeared on posts. Is this free speech? Is it the duty of the sites owners to take down obvious lies and slurs? Wheres the line between speeches and rants that incite violence? How far is too far?

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People who put themselves out there in public, who risk threats to themselves and their families are brave souls who (mostly) run for election because they want to change programs and policies currently in place in their towns, cities and states. They have whats called platforms in which they promise all kinds of things to everyone. They tout their accomplishments and taunt their opponents. Its politics.

Candidates running for the midterm elections this year best be careful about how they use words to talk about their viewsabout anything. They need to back up their claims, cite verified numbers, not defame theiropponents and tell the truth.

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When candidates talk about their rivals, they better authenticate their remarks with those in authority to verify the truth. Did Candidate A attend only one Governors Council meeting last year? Did Candidate B really take donations from the NRA?

Fuzzy comments distort but are not necessarily true or false. We voters should ask candidates to explain such comments as: He doesnt know what hes talking about. She is the supreme example of a bigot. He cheated. Shes off the wall. Hes been known to attend off-color establishments. Shes been seen at a violent demonstration. Hes all wet. Shes shading the truth. Hes an idiot. Shes just stupid. And so on and so on.

Words matter.

Barbara Leedom is a resident of South Yarmouth. Contact her atbleedom@gmail.com.

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Freedom of speech not a ticket to lie, especially during election time - Cape Cod Times

By Greg Varner

Three views of academic freedom were presented by a trio of speakers in the latest Useful Knowledge Workshop hosted virtually by George Washington Universitys Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Dwayne Kwaysee Wright, GSEHDs director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives and assistant professor of higher education administration, presented one of the three hourlong sessions and also moderated for the event as a whole.

Think of todays workshop as a buffet of ideas, Wright said. We want to expose you to different views.

The first session, dubbed Academic Freedom 101, was presented by Jonathan Friedman, director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, a nonprofit devoted to the defense of free expression. With so much energy being spent to portray todays campuses as intolerant of diverse views, Friedman offered a much more nuanced view of where we are and how we got here, as well as tips for encouraging open and respectful exchange on campus. His comments were informed by PEN Americas Campus Free Speech Guide.

Some of the key ideas Friedman presented were that free speech and the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) can be compatible values; that in an open and equitable society, knowledge institutionsschools, universities, bookstores, librarieshave unique obligations to these dual values; and that free speech is under threat in many locations worldwide, with people being imprisoned or even killed for their speech.

All societies, Friedman said, make decisions about how ideas can be expressed. The question is, where do we want to draw the line between total free expression on one side of the spectrum, and total regulation of speech on the other?

The United States is somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, Friedman suggested. He briefly traced the role of various progressive movements (such as those pushing for birth control, sexual liberation, greater secularism, womens rights and workers rights) in the history of free speech gains in the United States. In 1860, Frederick Douglass gave a speech calling for freedom of speech as a bulwark against slavery.

Today, Friedman said, A lot of people are pushing in different directions when it comes to freedom of expression. From the left, there are calls to regulate hate speech or cancel use of language that some find harmful; on the right, there is concern about critical race theory, LGBTQ+ issues and actions deemed by some to be unpatriotic, such as kneeling during the national anthem.

As interpreted by the judiciary, Friedman added, some restrictions on speech are acceptable as long as they are neutrally and consistently enforced. On a college campus, its reasonable to insist that people not walk around shouting through bullhorns at night, so long as theres no explicitly political excuse for the restriction.

Around the world, the United States has the highest allowance for politically offensive speech, Friedman said, and for speech that really comes as far up to, and probably over, the line of decency that most people think of when they think of a civil, respectful society.

Since early in the previous century, there has been an effort to protect the freedom of professors to research and publish; to teach; to express internal criticism without losing their job; and to participate in public debate. Universities have usually been permitted to regulate these matters internally.

A lot of whats happening right now is deeply anti-intellectual, Friedman said. A lot of the people who are showing up at school board meetings and putting pressure to remove books dont seem to be very interested in compromise. In open, equitable, democratic societies, he added, We ought to be able to have open and equitable conversation.

Nonetheless, Friedman said, a degree of friction on campus is a positive good. Respect, he added, entails an obligation to understand what may cause offense and why, to avoid words and actions that do so, even when theres no intention to do so.

Critical race perspective

In the second hourlong session, Wright presented a critical race perspective. The central question he posed is: Whom does the First Amendment protect under our current jurisprudence, and who is left behind?

In a society as big as ours, as diverse as ours, where people have diverse views, we need freedom of speech, he said. In a democracy, if were not allowed to speak, we might as well not be allowed to vote.

After a brief explanation of critical race theory (CRT) as less a single theory than a way of looking at things as a whole, Wright proposed a hypothetical counter-story set in an imaginary state where both CRT and affirmative action have been banned. Wrights scenario illustrated his claim that a ban on CRT or on affirmative action is not neutral, despite the fact that enhancing neutrality is given as a rationale for such bans.

As a lawyer, I truly do believe in free speech, Wright said. I believe that the way to combat speech you dont like is with more speech.

Academic freedom is a special type of freedom of speech, Wright said, enforced more by contract and custom than by the courts. It refers to the ability of teachers, students, and educational institutions to pursue knowledge without unreasonable political or government interference.

If you want a marketplace of ideas, he concluded, maybe you should not restrict the marketplace.

A libertarian view

In the final session, a libertarian perspective was offered by Adam Kissel, visiting fellow on higher education reform at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

People are drawn to the university environment, Kissel said, because they want to take part in a communal search for truth. Privileging another value, such as social justice, over the truth is like being at a religious institution, which chooses its own truth as a starting point.

The university, he said, can be conceptualized as nested spheres of academic freedom. Trustees and university leadership may require faculty members to behave in a certain way; similarly, deans and department heads may impose additional requirements. Each academic discipline imposes its own restraints; in Kissels example, a history professor isnt permitted to teach a chemistry class.

These nested spheres continue downward to the classroom, where a professor exercises considerable freedom within given constraints. Students also have freedom. The best government, in liberal theory, permits maximum freedom for the individual.

You get to say what you want, and what you say is protected, just like any other person, Kissel said. The point is to be able to argue together and think together. We need one another to challenge our ideas and see mistakes in our own reasonings so that we can try to do better. Reasons and reasonings are what matters. Even when an opponent is entirely wrong, he added, it can help us sharpen our arguments.

The workshop concluded with a question-and-answer session hosted by Wright and Christy Anthony, GWs director of student rights and responsibility. What, Wright asked her, should students know about academic freedom?

If I had the ear of every student, I would want to share a couple of things, Anthony said. GWs statement on student rights and responsibilities explicitly states that academic freedom is not only freedom to teach and research, but also freedom to learn; and it is viewed as a requirement for a full exploration of ideas, sometimes even offensive ideas.

As with any form of speech, she added, there are limits. Freedom of speech is not a limitless right, neither for faculty nor for students, but it is a preeminent value of the institution. Fully exploring ideas, and controversial ones, is essential for learning.

See more here:
Three Perspectives on Academic Freedom | GW Today | The George Washington University - GW Today

Will Bunch| The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

The one contribution that the Proud Boys the mostly white-boy street thugs who arrived on the scene around the same time, not coincidentally, as the political ambitions of their hero Donald Trump and the movement's Canadian founder Gavin McInnes have made to the canon of modern intellectual thought is that society needs a bloody punch in the nose.

"I want violence," McInnes, who has clung to a veneer of respectability for also founding the magazine that became Vice, proclaimed on his talk show in the spring of 2016, as Trump was claiming the GOP presidential nomination. "I want punching in the face. I'm disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough." Those words came just before McInnes publicly announced he'd organized his followers into the Proud Boys gang.

McInnes was presumably less disappointed over the next six years as he watched his ambitions translated into blood-soaked bedlam first in street clashes with leftists, like a 2018 brawl outside a GOP-sponsored event in Manhattan (for which two Proud Boys were sent to prison), and ultimately for the group's critical role in the Jan. 6 insurrection that aimed to keep Trump in power, a day that left five dead and scores wounded.

More:Penn State officials criticize student group's event with Proud Boys founder

More:Judge: Proud Boys leaders dangerous, must be jailed before trial in Capitol attack

More:Did Secret Service drop the ball before Jan. 6?

The government of Canada got it right, in my opinion, when it listed the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization.

But last week, the leadership of Pennsylvania's flagship state-supported university, Penn State, went in a different direction citing free speech grounds for allowing McInnes to co-headline a campus event on Oct. 24 that's being billed as "a comedy show." The program called "Stand Back and Stand By," which was Trump's televised message to the Proud Boys weeks ahead of Jan. 6 is even being supported by some $7,522.43 in student-activity funds, which will mainly be an "honorarium" to McInnes and co-host Alex Stein.

"As a recognized student organization, Uncensored America has the undeniable constitutional right to sponsor this presentation on our campus," three high-ranking Penn State administrators wrote of the group backing McInnes' appearance, adding the seemingly obligatory disclaimer against the "repugnant and denigrating rhetoric" of the Proud Boys founder. In this instance, I think Penn State's leadership is getting it terribly wrong.

Liberals and conservatives can or should, anyway agree that free speech on campus has not only become a fraught issue in the 21st century, but that we've been struggling mightily to get it right. My own personal views on university discourse were shaped as a boomer growing up in the shadow of the 1964 Berkeley Free Speech movement, in an era in which administrators sought to treat students as children, not as adults with political free expression. It was fitting that the Berkeley protests, while led by folks on the left like Mario Savio, also had support from campus conservatives.

Exhibit A: That lofty ideal is struggling today. Many young people have come to see what some call "free speech" as a cover for maintaining noxious hierarchies like racism or misogyny with someone like a Gavin McInnes serving as Exhibit A. I've applauded the college kids who've showed up to protest the toxic views of such right-wing speakers, but yet I also feel it crosses a line when speakers are shut down altogether, or when activists steal copies of a campus newspaper.

I'm on record with columns criticizing the students at Berkeley, of all places who silenced the odious Ann Coulter in 2017, and the University of Missouri communications professor who bizarrely blocked journalists from covering a protest in 2015. My grossly unrealized fantasy is a new campus paradigm around speech one that allows oxygen for activists to beat down racism and sexism while also upholding the Spirit of 1964.

At the core of this debate is a staggeringly simple notion: That colleges and universities were created to study, formulate, and debate ideas especially controversial ones. The even greater ideal is the most noble concept that intellectual discourse not violence is the one true and moral way for humankind to solve its problems. Which is what makes Penn State handing a microphone to a violence advocate like McInnes and tossing some of its tapped-out students' cash his way in the process such a mockery of academic freedom.

Indeed, it's telling that, according to reporting by the Huffington Post's Andy Campbell also author of the just-published history of the group, We Are Proud Boys the Penn State organizers essentially fibbed in claiming that McIness has mostly "veered away" from recent direct ties with the Proud Boys. Instead, Campbell presents evidence that McInnes is continuing to play a leadership role, as the Proud Boys' leader at the time of Jan. 6 insurrection, Enrique Tarrio, remains sidelined as he awaits trial on sedition charges.

The lack of daylight between McInnes and the Proud Boys organization means that Penn State is platforming a fascist-style, increasingly paramilitary type group that criminal investigations are showing was deeply tied to the idea of a violent coup against the U.S. government certainly on Jan. 6, if not today. Last week, another leader, Jeremy Bertino, pled guilty to seditious conspiracy and admitted the Proud Boys were fighting to block the peaceful transition of power to President Biden, stating in his plea that members "were willing to do whatever it would take, including using force against police and others, to achieve that objective."

What's to debate?: Given that, can Penn State platforming a Proud Boys founder and leader be justified as part of the open exchange of ideas? Not when the group has failed to espouse anything worthy of intellectual debate during these six years. That is, of course, unless you find academic worth in rank misogyny Campbell and others have documented the hatred for women that flows from McInnes and his followers, who call themselves "Western chauvinists" and the notion that America's moral problems can be solved with a few right hooks.

I reached out to the Philadelphia political activist Gwen Snyder, a leading researcher of right-wing, antidemocratic involvement in political activity here in the city and elsewhere. For her work in highlighting the Proud Boys' activities, group members chose to "intellectually engage" with Snyder over the years by visiting her home, badgering her neighbors, putting up Proud Boys' stickers outside her home, and finally posting her photo online with the threat that she was "done in Philly." A member of the Proud Boys then-40-year-old Kyle Boell of Northeast Philadelphia was arrested in 2021 and charged with harassment and making terrorist threats against Snyder.

"They made violent threats against my family, they dared each other to rape me in their national Telegram chat," Snyder told me. "All because I spoke in ways they didn't like." Not surprisingly, Snyder sees the group gaining a platform at Penn State as part of a strategy that doesn't advance free speech, but destroys it.

She said that "to offer the founder of this violent white supremacist gang a platform in the name of 'free speech' isn't just ridiculous, it's part of the broader fascist project of abusing the language of liberal democracy ('free speech,' 'tolerance') in order to ultimately make that language meaningless. It's not just hypocrisy. It's their strategy for systematically undermining these values."

Exactly. What's more, it's hard not to think that McInnes and his allies didn't choose both their location State College, on a campus surrounded by the counties that went so heavily for Trump in the last two elections and the timing (15 days ahead of two of the nation's most-watched midterm elections) with the idea not of winning converts through their "humor," but with the hope of fomenting even more violence. That would be an awful stain on the Penn State community.

No wonder that so far more than 1,400 signers with the Student Committee for Defense and Solidarity at Penn State have demanded that the university reverse course and cancel the campus event, arguing that the school should not be "platforming fascists." I hope their effort succeeds.

The Proud Boys are not some random group. They sit at the heart of a movement to undermine American democracy the very thing that allows open academic discourse at Penn State to exist in its first place. The only thing worse than watching this demolition take place would be writing a $7,522.43 check to the wrecking crew.

Will Bunch is national columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Read more here:
Proud Boys' only 'idea' is violence. Penn State is wrong to give its leader a platform - York Dispatch

Your free speech is on the docket during this Supreme Court term Oct 14, 2022 by Casey Mattox

October is the best month of the year. Its a fact. The weather is the best, the leaves are changing, football is in full swing, and the U.S. Supreme Court returns to session.

The Court has only filled about half of its case load for the 2022-2023 term. And it already looks like a significant year for free speech at the Supreme Court.

Here are the cases Im watching:

Can Colorado compel a web designer to design custom websites celebrating same-sex marriage contrary to the artists sincerely held religious beliefs?

Background:Colorado and lower courts agreed that they were compelling 303 Creatives owner, Lorie Smith, to speak. Colorado also agreed that Smith doesnt discriminate on the basis of the customers classifications, including sexual orientation, but decides on her clients based on the requested content.

In other words, she serves customers regardless of their orientation for various projects. But she declines to create tailored website content for views that go against her own. Nevertheless, the 10th Circuit held that the compelled speech here was justified by Colorados interest in combatting discrimination.

Free Speech Implications:As my AFP colleague Cindy Crawfordwrotelast year,

Displacing long-held understanding of First Amendment protection of free speech to compel speech on demand whenever government declares that certain messages must be delivered would place all expressive professionals at risk.

And Smith partnered with Jack Phillips (you might recognize his name fromMasterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commissionor from recentlybeing sued again) to write aUSA TODAY op-ed, asserting that no one should be forced to speak messages that violate their core convictions.

Although not principally a First Amendment case, this case could affect free speech online, as its related to the legal protection afforded to social media platforms and search engines.

And with the Courts decision to hear a similar case,Twitter v. Taamneh, the Courts decisions in these cases could significantly affect the platforms liability for their users speech and thus how they moderate user content.

Background:After Nohemi Gonzalez was killed in a 2015 ISIS terrorist attack, her family sued Google, claiming that YouTube (which is owned by Google) hosted videos in which ISIS radicalized viewers and incited violence. Google pointed to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in its defense, a law that shields platforms from liability for their users speech online.

Free Speech Implications:Withother major cases working their way to the Court dealing with state laws regulating social media platforms, these cases and 303 Creative (applying of a state law to production of website content) are likely to have broader implications for the future of free speech online. See the sevenprinciples for reforming Section 230 that dont include policing online speech.

Finally, the Court is being asked to take up an intriguing case about parody that also gets at a major problem for anyone seeking to hold government accountable for violating First Amendment rights qualified immunity.

Yes, the same legal doctrine that is most often associated with police officers use of force applies to all kinds of government officials even university officials decisions to censor student speech. AsIve written before, qualified immunitymust end. But the underlying First Amendment issues are also interesting.

Background:After Anthony Novak created a parody Facebook page to make fun of his local police department, the police department charged him with a felony and searched his apartment. After Novak was found not guilty by a jury, he tried to file a civil rights lawsuit against the officers, but the 6th Circuit granted the police officers qualified immunity.

Free Speech Implications:If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that an individual can mock the government without fear of being arrested, as the Institute for Justice hasnoted.

If we must continue the judicially invented doctrine of qualified immunity, it should not apply where government officials were under no threat and had to make no split-second judgment and nevertheless undermined First Amendment rights.

One fun note about Novak v. City of Parma: The Onion, a satirical website, filed a friend-of-the-court brief,thats well worth a read: Americans can be put in jail for poking fun at the government? This was a surprise to Americas Finest News Source and an uncomfortable learning experience for its editorial team.

The brief also called the federal judiciary total Latin dorks. I mean, veritas.

Original post:
Your free speech is on the docket during this Supreme Court term - Americans for Prosperity

Freedom of speech is a bedrock of American society and one of the most fundamental rights protected both by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1 of the Connecticut State Constitution. While those freedoms are sacrosanct when speaking as a private citizen, there has been ongoing tension regarding the extent those rights apply, or can be abridged, in the employment setting.

The Connecticut legislature attempted to adjust the balance with adoption of an amendment in this last legislative session, to strengthen rights of employees. Since its adoption, this statute, commonly known as Connecticuts free speech statute, has prohibited employers from disciplining or discharging employees for exercising their rights to free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association and freedom from the requirement to listen to speech. The statute exempts free speech rights if the speech substantially or materially interfere(s) with the employees bona fide job performance or the working relationship between the employer and the employee. That is, a worker does not have the right to speech that interferes with job performance.

In order to state a claim under this law, an employee would have to show that he or she had been disciplined or discharged due to exercise of free speech rights, was speaking as a private citizen, rather than as part of his/her employment duties, that the speech was a matter of public concern, rather than simply about wholly personal matters, and that the speech did not interfere with his or her job functions or relationship with the employer.

One hot button issue is whether an employer can require workers to attend, under threat of discipline or discharge, meetings at which the employer, or its representative, communicates the employers opinion concerning religious or political matters, or requires the employees to listen to speech or view communications about these personal matters. You cant, for example, require workers to view a candidates political advertisements.

The most recent amendment to the statute, effective on July 1, outlawed such meetings, while clarifying that the act does not prohibit any communication of information that may be required by law, necessary for performance of job duties, or casual conversations between employer and employees. The legislature also made the statute actionable for the threat of discipline or discharge, thereby broadening grounds for recovery.

To the apparent detriment of employees, the amendment eliminated the remedy of punitive damages, substituting language allowing recovery for the full amount of gross loss of wages or compensation, with costs and such reasonable attorneys fees as may be allowed by the court.

Overall, the amendments raise some thorny issues for employers.

Insofar as a business may have policies relating to social media or generally regulating employee behavior, the business should review the policies to determine whether they conflict with the protections afforded by the updated free speech statute. And while the recent amendments seem to have been intended to define improper meetings to apply very specifically to political and religious matters, there is some confusion as to whether the new language is in conflict with convening so-called Captive Audience meetings, which traditionally have been allowed for an employer to share views about union organizing.

One thing abundantly clear, however, is that in these times of heightened tensions regarding political and religious discourse, it is ever more complicated for employers and employees to navigate free speech issues in the workplace. However imperfect, Connecticuts free speech statute provides both employers and employees with some guidance on how to thread the needle.

Attorney David A. Slossberg leads the business litigation practice at Hurwitz, Sagarin, Slossberg & Knuff. In addition to representing clients in court, arbitration and mediation, he is a sought-after mediator, arbitrator and special master in complex business disputes. He can be reached at dslossberg@hssklaw.com.

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Today's Business: Navigating free speech issues in the workplace - New Haven Register

The below is a direct excerpt of Marty's Bent Issue #1272: "De-banking as an attack on speech." Sign up for the newsletter here.

On October 12, Candace Owens made the world aware of the fact that Ye West, more commonly known as Kanye West, had his corporate bank account shut down by JPMorgan Chase. This move is seemingly a reaction to comments Ye made over the weekend on social media. I have to concur with what Owens says in the second tweet above. I do not care what you think about Ye, but I do care about what you think of one of the largest banks in the world abruptly rug-pulling his multibillion-dollar companys bank account.

This all comes on the heels of PayPal attempting to implement a $2,500 fine on any users it deems to be exhibiting wrongthink. PayPal was forced to quickly detract their policy and pretend like it was an accident after they felt the wrath of their customer base calling out the insanity of a fintech company attempting to dictate what is and isnt acceptable speech. Zooming out from the particular saga with Ye and what he said, I think its important to identify the accelerating trend of incumbent companies, with insane amounts of entrenchment and influence across the banking and payments sectors, attempting to pick and choose who can and cannot receive, hold and send money within their hyper-surveilled systems based on political or personal beliefs.

Like it or not, freedom of speech is a cornerstone of the republic here in the United States. Actions like the one made by JPMorgan Chase against Ye and attempted by PayPal before they were forced to save face are an encroachment on freedom of speech. Obviously, JPMorgan Chase and PayPal didnt prevent Ye or PayPal customers from speaking their minds. However, moves like this attack free speech in a more insidious fashion by incentivizing self-censorship by individuals who become afraid to speak their minds because they do not want to be deplatformed and demonetized by the technocratic goliath they have become dependent on to operate throughout the economy on behalf of their businesses and themselves.

This type of control is exactly what the incumbent power structure wants. Trying to eliminate free speech via the political process is an idea that is dead on arrival here in the U.S. Those in power do not want dissent propagating throughout the populace. Those same people are far more protected from the political backlash that would come with trying to legislate what can and cannot be said. The last few years have taught us that this is exactly the playbook the entrenched power structure is running in order to get what they want. This was made abundantly clear when people who exhibited perceived wrongthink during COVID-19 lockdowns and the ensuing vaccine rollout were deplatformed and demonetized across the web.

Thanks to Alex Berenson suing Twitter after being kicked off the platform, we have cold, hard evidence that the White House was actively pressuring those in charge of the bird app to kick him off the platform because he was delivering facts that went against the controlled narrative they wanted the public to believe. Again, whether or not you agree with Ye, Berenson or any of the potential PayPal users who may have said things in opposition to the majority, you would have to be an absolute moron to not view this trend as a direct assault on freedom of speech. Do you really want the people who are so obviously completely detached from reality who sit at the top of the power structure in this country dictating to you what is and isnt reality?

What has become abundantly clear over the last few years is that the systems that exist today need to be completely abandoned in favor of systems that make it impossible for the people who told you we needed two weeks to flatten the curve, and Iraq is harboring weapons of mass destruction, and this vaccine is safe, effective and will prevent spread, and crack cocaine should be prosecuted differently than powdered cocaine, (among many other falsehoods) to have control over any essential part of speech and the movement of money. In the realm of money how people hold it, how they receive it and how they send it Bitcoin is the new system that is being built to prevent the power structure from nudging us into a future built on self-censorship as a means of self-preservation.

If JPMorgan Chases actions against Ye and PayPals attempted actions against their user base mean anything, it is that bitcoin provides an extreme amount of value to a human race in desperate need of a solution to this growing problem. Bitcoins value is driven by the utility provided by its distributed peer-to-peer nature and the fact that any individual who is so motivated can take complete control over their money: How they receive it, how they hold it and how they send it. I hope this message reaches Ye and he thinks seriously about ditching a banking system that has abandoned him in favor of a distributed system that will have no idea who he is or what he has said. It only knows whether or not he possesses valid UTXOs and the private keys necessary to move them throughout the timechain.

More here:
Why Kanye West And Other Free Speech Advocates Need Bitcoin - Bitcoin Magazine

Alongside unruly nasal hair, erectile dysfunction and a penchant for elasticated trousers, another lurking hazard for the ageing male of our species is a precipitous descent into batshit political craziness. The symptoms can be particularly severe for those in the public eye. Van Morrison and Eric Clapton, who are both 77, have embarrassed themselves with their antics over Covid restrictions. The flirtation of Morrissey, who is 63, with English nationalist iconography coagulated into support for deeply unpleasant far-right figures.

A gentle glide to the ideological right over the course of ones allotted lifespan was common long before whoever it was (accounts differ) coined that aphorism about the man who isnt a liberal at 20 having no heart and the man who remains a liberal at 40 having no head. Many a fresh-faced young revolutionary has curdled over the decades into a gammon-complexioned old codger shaking his stick at the evil clouds of wokeness or some other newfangled nonsense.

John Cleese apparently believes his forthright views on cancel culture would inevitably get him cancelled by the BBC. The 82-year-old imparted this opinion, unhindered, to the BBC on Mondays Today programme

Which brings us, inevitably, to the news this week that John Cleese will cohost a programme on GB News, the right-wing TV channel that provoked derision from opponents during its chaotic start-up phase but now seems to have found a comfy niche in British broadcasting. Whos laughing now?

[John Cleese has a faulty sense of humour about the Irish]

Cleese, a member of the British Labour Party during his Monty Python and Fawlty Towers glory years, apparently believes theres no point in talking to the BBC about making such a programme, as his forthright views on cancel culture would inevitably get him cancelled. The 82-year-old imparted this opinion, unhindered, to the BBC on Mondays Today programme, on Radio 4. In a previous appearance, also on the BBC, he expressed the (perfectly reasonable) opinion that there wasnt enough debate about issues of free speech these days. Then, when asked politely about a free-speech controversy surrounding the US comedian Dave Chappelle, he curtly terminated the conversation. Its hard to tell whos cancelling whom sometimes.

Cleese says he is being censored because the British broadcasting establishment shows no interest in giving a weekly prime-time platform to the political opinions of an octogenarian comedian whose best work lies well behind him. He will have the chance to expand on this view in his forthcoming Channel 4 series, Cancel Me. But its too easy to mock this glaring cognitive dissonance. And some perspective is required. Cleese has not led chants against a health minister in the midst of a pandemic, like Morrison. Nor has he expressed support for the far-right For Britain party, like Morrissey.

Graham Norton offered a thoughtful critique of the whole cancel-culture concept, saying that it must be very hard to be a man of a certain age, whos been able to say whatever you like for years, to know there is some accountability

Judging by his public utterances over the past 15 years or so, Cleese seems to have moved incrementally from being a Liberal Democratsupporting fan of Barack Obama to being a Brexit-supporting opponent of (his words) so-called political correctness. He misses the Britain in which he grew up. He doesnt like the way young people carry on. That all puts him somewhere on the centre-left of the modern Conservative Party.

His cohost on GB News, the satirist and author Andrew Doyle, is a sometime provocateur and trenchant critic of what he sees as the excesses of social progressivism but doesnt dabble in the sort of disinformation or dog whistling favoured elsewhere in right-wing media.

That cant be said of all of GB News output. Last week another of its presenters, Mark Steyn, allowed the author Naomi Wolf to claim unchallenged that women were being harmed by Covid-19 vaccines as part of an effort to to destroy British civil society and to compare doctors support for the vaccine roll-out to the behaviour of the medical profession in Nazi Germany. Steyns unsubstantiated claims in previous shows that vaccines cause every conceivable kind of damage are already being investigated by the UK media regulator. Tackled about this in his Today interview, Cleese waffled unconvincingly about differentiating factual reporting from opinion.

[Graham Norton: I wanted out, out, out of Ireland]

Judging by the quality of these and other contributions, its hard to see what Cleese brings to the table apart from his famous name. For a saviour of free speech, hes not very articulate on the subject. Discussing all this at Cheltenham Literary Festival this week, Graham Norton offered a thoughtful critique of the whole cancel-culture concept, saying that it must be very hard to be a man of a certain age, whos been able to say whatever you like for years, to know there is some accountability. Norton also talked about how being that bloke off the telly causes his (and presumably Cleeses) voice to be artificially amplified. Once in a blue moon that can be good, but most of the time its just a distraction. Its for clicks or whatever. Graham Norton slams... Graham Norton defends... Graham Norton weighs in on... And, actually, Graham Norton shouldnt be in your headline.

Inevitably, the headline on every report of his comments was a variation on Graham Norton slams John Cleese.

Read more here:
John Cleese: He's not the free-speech messiah, he's a very naughty boy - The Irish Times