Category Archives: Free Speech

After George Floyds death in the summer of 2020, Kelly Latimore, an artist from the community of the Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, received backlash after painting a controversial tribute to Floyds death. The painting consisted of the virgin Mary alongside Jesus, who both bore the facial features of George Floyd. Both Mary and Jesus were Black.

Determined to exercise her free speech and artistic rights, Latimore painted another version. In the same month, this one, too, was stolen. The student government decided that the painting, called Mama, should be banned from the university, citing the religious objections of students who were offended by the painting.

In a formal statement, the student government called the painting blasphemous, offensive and at the very least confusing.

Latimore continued to create iconography after the incident, but was disappointed with the universitys response. In November of 2021, responded to the confusion with his interpretation of the artwork: Many people asked whether the man in the icon was George Floyd or Jesus? The answer to that question is yes.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus asks us to find him in all people, especially those who suffer, as George Floyd did.

Although CUA is private, that does not mean that the administration or student body should be allowed to restrict Latimores religious expression. In the same way that White supremacists were permitted to march with torches on the campus of the University of Virginia back in 2018, students should be allowed to speak freely about their opinions on controversial issues.

In a Facebook post addressing the University of Virginia protest, Mike Signer, the Charlottesville mayor stated, I am beyond disgusted by this unsanctioned and despicable display of visual intimidation on a college campus.

At the time of the UVA protest, one-third of the universitys students were Black. I would argue that this protest could have been viewed as threatening to many students and as putting their education at risk. Nevertheless, the supremacist protestors were still allowed to march due to free speech rights.

In the case of the Catholic University of America, the artists symbolic speech was quickly silenced after some students found it offensive, despite the physically non-threatening nature of the painting.

Although referring to the 1927 case, Whitney v. California, Justice Louis Brandeis words are applicable: the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

This same standard should be enforced in private as well as public schools, to avoid the silencing of minority students.

Although there are some differences between the free speech laws in public and private institutions, students do not give up their constitutional protections by attending a private college.

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Free speech still applies at private institutions - The Record

The University of Californias Berkeley campus has been a hotbed of leftist politics since at least the early 1960s, so it is unsurprising that students at its prestigious law school have long embraced the cause of Palestinian rights. It was shocking, however, when the latest expression of anti-Israel sentiment veered into territory so extreme that even the law schools progressive dean, Erwin Chemerinsky, observed that it could be seen as antisemitic. Although the students had not in any sense established Jewish-free zones, as some overheated commentaries called them, what they did was bad enough. Nine law-school affinity organizations, nominally representing a majority of the student body, adopted a bylaw providing that they will not lend platforms to speakers who have professed or continue to hold Zionist views.

Yes, you read that correctly. The bylaw does not simply prohibit pro-Israel presentations at the organizations events. It bans speakers on any topic who happen to support the existence of Israel a category that encompasses more than 80 percent of the worlds Jews, and includes many Berkeley Law students and faculty. As Chemerinsky remarked in an email to students, Indeed, taken literally, this would mean that I could not be invited to speak because I support the existence of Israel, though I condemn many of its policies. For the same reason, I would also be unable to speak to the student groups about my research on 19th-century abolitionist lawyers, notwithstanding my decades of support for the anti-occupation movement within Israel. (Disclosure: I am a 1973 alumnus of Berkeley Law.)

The bylaw was part of a package of policies promoted by Law Students for Justice in Palestine, in conjunction with the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. It goes far beyond other academic boycotts, which claim to be aimed only at Israeli organizations, because it bars individual speakers on the basis of their beliefs, no matter how unrelated to the subject matter at hand. The American Studies Association, for example, has explained that its BDS resolution does not apply to individual scholars, students, or cultural workers who will still be able to participate in the ASA conference or give public lectures at campuses, so long as they are not expressly representing the Israeli government or universities.

The sweeping prohibition enacted by the Muslim Student Association, Queer Caucus at Berkeley, Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent, and others violates the basic values of free speech and open inquiry, which lie at the heart of law practice and legal education. Thus, a group of Berkeley Law faculty recently issued a public statement condemning the discriminatory bylaw for refusing to accept speakers who have Zionist views or beliefs. The bylaw, they add, is not only wrong but is antithetical to free speech and our community values. By prohibiting speakers who support the existence of Israel, the bylaw would also impermissibly exclude a large majority of our faculty from participating in the work of these organizations.

Law Students for Justice in Palestine defended the prohibition. The group argues that free speech and the exchange of ideas cannot be romanticized when the byproduct of such rhetoric causes harm to marginalized communities, evidently meaning that the background beliefs of a pro-Israel speaker, even if unexpressed, will cause unspecified harm to Palestinians.

The discriminatory consequences of that position, not to mention its sheer ridiculousness, have led to calls for sanctions against the adopting organizations and accountability for the law school, on the ground that discriminatory conduct, including anti-Zionist exclusions, is not protected as free speech and may thus be prohibited under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

That is not so. Writing in The Daily Beast, Dean Chemerinsky explained that the offending student groups have exercised their own First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association. I find their statement offensive, he said, but they have the right to say it. To punish these student groups, or students, for their speech would clearly violate the Constitution. Eugene Volokh, the prominent free-speech scholar at the University of California at Los Angeles, expanded on Chemerinskys position, noting that private groups have the First Amendment right to choose whom to invite as speakers based on the speakers views, even views unrelated to the particular event. Although it might be theoretically possible, Volokh continued, for a university to craft a rule barring student groups from discriminating based on a speakers viewpoint thats unrelated to the topic the speaker is discussing, it would be virtually impossible to carry out in practice.

I agree with Chemerinsky and Volokh that the nine student organizations have the right to exclude speakers on the basis of perceived political support for Israel, but that is not the end of the discussion. First Amendment principles protect the groups and their leaders from discipline by the university, but that does not mean they are free from other consequences. At a minimum, university faculty of all persuasions should refuse to speak at events sponsored by the nine organizations, so long as their restrictive bylaw remains in effect.

Law students will soon be lawyers, and most will be seeking employment with law firms, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and state or federal judges. In most instances, students political views, no matter how questionable or offensive, should be irrelevant to their future employment, but there is one exception.

Federal judges at every level from the trial courts to the Supreme Court typically hire as many as four recent law-school graduates as clerks, as do California appellate and Supreme Court justices. Serving for a year or two, judicial clerks support their judges by reviewing case records, summarizing documents, conducting research, making recommendations, and sometimes (depending on the judge) even drafting opinions. Judicial clerkships are among the most prestigious jobs a law-school graduate can get, opening many doors for future positions; the higher the court the better.

Crucially, effective clerks are expected to have many of the qualities necessary to good judging: open-mindedness, willingness to entertain unpopular or contrary viewpoints, the ability to set aside preconceptions, and respect for the free expression of others. That being so, how could a judge or justice ever rely on the assessments or judgment of someone who has been unwilling to simply listen to those with whom they disagree on political issues?

The Berkeley students who have promoted or embraced the no Zionist speakers rule have demonstrated utter disregard for the core values essential in a judicial clerk. Their inability to tolerate the mere presence of a speaker who holds uncomfortable beliefs should be disqualifying for a clerkship. The great majority of Berkeley students bear no responsibility for the malicious bylaw, and it would be deeply wrong for a judge to boycott the entire school, as some have foolishly announced they will do in somewhat analogous circumstances at Yale Law School.

But thoughtful judges might well refuse to hire the student leaders who foisted such a discriminatory policy on one of the nations premier law schools. Although the banned speakers would cause no actual harm to marginalized communities, intolerant clerks could indeed work great damage in judicial chambers.

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A Free-Speech Scandal at Berkeley Law - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday quashed two different FIRs registered against BJP leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga and former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Kumar Vishwas by the Punjab Police over their statements against AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal.

A bench of Justice Anoop Chitkara heard the petitions separately and passed two separate orders.

Bagga was booked on charges of making provocative statements, promoting enmity and criminal intimidation following a protest outside the Delhi residence of the AAP convener for his remarks on the film Kashmir Files. He had allegedly criticised Kejriwal for his statement on the movie Kashmir Files.

On April 6, 2022, Bagga had moved the high court seeking the quashing of an FIR registered against him on the complaint of AAP Punjab spokesperson and Lok Sabha in-charge, Dr Sunny Singh Ahluwalia.

The complaint referred to a statement allegedly made by Bagga and said it constituted instigation/incitement to cause violence, use of force or imminent hurt to Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP members in a pre-designed, well-planned and orchestrated manner.

The Punjab Police had booked Bagga under various charges, including promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, etc., doing acts prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony and making statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill will between classes, among others, of the Indian Penal Code.

Seeking that the FIR be quashed, Senior Advocates R S Rai and Chetan Mittal with Advocates Anil Mehta and Gautam Dutt appearing for Bagga contended that the registration of the FIR was wholly mala fide. Ahluwalia intentionally concealed the actual statement and referred only to some parts of it to get the FIR registered, they said.

Appearing on behalf of Punjab government, Senior Advocate Puneet Bali opposing the plea of Bagga while referring to various tweets of Bagga contended that the accused intended to convey misinformation, spread communal disharmony, and create a hostile and vicious environment through them.

Vishwas was accused of levelling imputations about the involvement of Kejriwal with certain nefarious and anti-social elements in an interview ahead of the state assembly polls.

In a separate petition, Vishwas had moved the high court on April 26 seeking to quash the FIR registered against him by the Punjab Police for allegedly giving inflammatory statements against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

On April 12, the Rupnagar police booked Vishwas under sections of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to promoting enmity between groups, criminal conspiracy, publishing or circulating news with intent to create enmity on the grounds of religion or race, etc., on the complaint of Narinder Singh.

Seeking that the FIR be quashed, Vishwas counsel Senior Advocates Chetan Mittal and R S Rai along with Advocates Mayank Aggarwal and Rubina Virmani said that he is a Hindi poet, a founder-member of AAP and a former member of its national executive body. The counsel said that Vishwas was wrongly involved in the FIR and that it was sheer abuse of the process of law and alleged that it was politically motivated.

The counsel for Punjab government, Senior Advocate Bali, in the case of Vishwas argued that the investigation was in a nascent stage when this court had stayed further proceedings in the case. The investigation on crucial aspects of the case is yet to be carried out, and so, if this court proceeds further to quash the FIR, it would amount to not letting the police fulfill its statutory obligation to investigate a crime of serious ramifications.

Hearing the plea of Bagga, Justice Chitkara said, The purported statement of the petitioner is a protest against the statement made by the leader of AAP in power in Delhi and Punjab, where the BJP is in the Opposition. Being a political activist and an official spokesperson of a political party, as a shadow of the incumbent, it was well within his rights to make the people aware of the response of an opposite political leaderAccording to the petitioner, the movie, The Kashmir Files, had exposed the genocide of a minority, i.e., Hindus, in Kashmir. The petitioner put forth his displeasure because the party in power did not accept his demand to make the movie tax-free. It was well within his rights to raise such protests.

On the matter of Vishwas, Justice Chitkara said, There is no prima facie material connecting the incident of April 12, 2022, with the interviews of the petitioner, and there are missing links. Thus, it would not be permissible to expand the scope of the complaint to connect the alleged subsequent incident by fishing the evidence and on the assumptions and suspicions of the complainant.

Giving a clean chit to the two leaders, the high court observed that there cannot be any democracy without the freedom of choice and free speech.

The judge invoked Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which preserves the inherent powers of the high court to prevent abuse of the process of any court or to secure the ends of justice, and issued two separate orders to quash the FIRs and all subsequent proceedings against Bagga and Vishwas.

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No democracy without freedom of choice, free speech: Court - The Indian Express

How do you bring about a free speech turnaround on campus? Maybe, just maybe, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is on the verge of that achievement.

On Sept. 30, 2021, MIT committed what many in American higher education consider a grievous violation of its tradition of free speech and academic freedom. Having invited the distinguished University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot to deliver its prestigious John Carson Lecture, it abruptly disinvited him after progressive activists objected to his critiques of affirmative action and faculty hires based on race and gender.

Significant soul-searching in the MIT community followed. A Working Group on Free Expression was created, and now it has released its 56-page report. The report contains a Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom, which the working group has called on the MIT faculty to adopt.

The proposed statement proclaims that MIT unequivocally endorses the principles of freedom of expression and academic freedom and adds that we cannot prohibit speech that some experience as offensive or injurious. This is exactly right. As Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., wrote, the true test of our commitment to free expression is whether we protect not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

The statement also acknowledges the importance of intellectual diversity, noting that diversity of thought is an essential ingredient of academic excellence. Since great science emerges from challenging accepted beliefs and a competition of ideas, MIT will find renewed strength if it embraces heterodoxy.

Dorian Abbot and all those concerned about his treatment at MIT should also be pleased to read that a commitment to free expression includes hearing and hosting speakers, including those whose views or opinions may not be shared by many members of the MIT community and may be harmful to some. The medicine MIT needs is to invite Professor Abbot back to deliver the lecture it canceled.

The statement could be improved by declaring unequivocally that university leaders should not take positions on pressing social and political issues on behalf of the institution. There are good models for MIT to follow. The University of North CarolinaChapel Hill recently set an example when it reconfirmed its commitment to the Chicago Principles on Freedom of Expression and adopted the Kalven Committee Report, which acknowledges that the instrument of dissent and criticism is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic. In other words, it warns us that presidential virtue signaling is not virtuous. It chills to the marrow the individual who dissents from the institutions professed political position.

The MIT Free Speech Alliance, a group of alumni advocating for reform at the university, is pleased by the development. Chuck Davis, the groups president, said, Its a nice statement. Its not as completely unreserved as the Chicago statement, but were very happy with it.

Davis added, however, that the group still has concerns around its adoption by the MIT community and specifically the administration. He remarked, Weve been clear with the Alumni Association that were going to stay engaged. Think of us as the friendly in-house monitors. We will be keeping an eye on how MIT lives up to the statement while encouraging them to adopt it in some way thats more binding.

The MIT faculty have an important decision to make. They should strengthen the working groups proposed statement and then adopt it. But they and the university administration should also recognize that this is only a first step. If they want MIT to be a gold standard for free expression, and MIT should, then they need to walk the walk and make the vision of the statement a reality on campus. They should start by ensuring commitment to free expression a key criterion in their upcoming presidential search.

Michael B. Poliakoff is the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Follow him on Twitter @PoliakoffACTA. Steven McGuire is the Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Follow him on Twitter @sfmcguire79.

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Poliakoff, McGuire: MIT poised to secure free expression on campus - Boston Herald

There are at least three more questions I want to ask Orhan Pamuk. I tell him that, with an eye on the tiny, blinking clock on a corner of my screen. I dont know, you have only three minutes, he replies.

He is in New York, I am in Delhi, and he has more meetings lined up for Nights Of Plague, his new, 704-page meta historical-fiction and political mystery. Its set on an imaginary island in the last years of the Ottoman empire, during a pandemicthe bubonic plague.

We had barely finished the can-you-hear-me-can-you-see-me routine of most Zoom calls when Pamuk tells me he is a bit jet-lagged. It is 9am Eastern and he has just returned from Paris. But just as I am about to start on my list of questions, he interrupts me excitedly.

I want to show you, look!

Pamuk dips away from the frame for a second before coming back with a book. It isnt Nights Of Plague.

I was in Paris to promote a book. It is this book. I hope it is published in India, he says almost breathlessly. Its not Nights Of Plague, he stresses, just in case I havent caught on. A lot of this book is about India(here) is my days in Goathis is the Bombay train stationYou see?

Also Read: The Orhan Pamuk formula

The book he is showing me is Souvenirs Des Montagnes Au Loin, a just-published sketchbook of sorts, with handwritten and hand-drawn entries. It is, I sense, close to Pamuks heart.

When he was 22, the writer, who had always wanted to be an artist, stopped drawing. On the last page of his 2003 autobiographical memoir, Istanbul: Memories And The City, he recalls how his mother told him never to give up architecture for the one thing he had loved ever since he was a seven-year-oldart. In a country as poor as ours(y)oull suffer terribly if you do, she warns, pleadingly.

The book cover for 'Sourvenirs' shows a page from Pamuk's sketchbook-journal.

Now 70, the 2006 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature notes in a blurb for Souvenirs that he realised about a decade ago that the painter in him had never died. He has been drawing every day since. Its his way of journaling, even talking to himself to sort through his thoughtseven thoughts about the books hes writing.

Anyway, Pamuk interrupts himself, going on to explain that this unplanned tangent is a way of telling me that he feels close to India and his Indian readers. He pauses and nods. Lets start.

*****

It isnt surprising, perhaps, that Pamuk seems, at least initially, more excited about Souvenirshe had been thinking of writing Nights Of Plague for 40 years and actually started writing it five years ago.

The initial thoughts were about existentialism, about death, an overabundance of death, a pandemic killing people, he says. Oh, and also about an Orientalist representation of Eastern nations, countries and empires where quarantine was hard to impose. I wanted to write against that.

This isnt the first time he has been ahead of the curve. I tell him that critics are calling him prescientthey have done so earlier, too. Oh, meaning they are calling me prophetic? Its a rhetorical counter question. Theres a faint smirk on his face. I mean, thank you to whoever is complimenting me as prophetic, but there is statisticsthat once in 80 or 100 years humanity has pandemics like this; its not a coincidence, he says.

When he began writing Nights Of Plague, his friends wondered if anyone would care to read it. These things have passed. No one will understand quarantine, he recalls some as saying. Three-and-a-half years into writing it, suddenly we had the coronavirus pandemic. Now the same people call me and say you are lucky your book is so topical.

The world is more informed today. But, Pamuk says, people acted exactly (during the pandemic) as they did in the past, just as he had found in his research for the book.

It was the same with his 2002 book, Snow. Before writing it, Pamuk had begun tracking the rise of political Islam. But they didnt see it in America. I am writing my novel and suddenly we are overtaken by history, by such a big event (9/11), which made my novel very topical. In fact, it drove up the sales of that book globally, he acknowledges.

Years before any of us had imagined the possibility of a global virus, Pamuk began extensively researching quarantine, trying to use it as a setting to study how authoritarianism could play out. However, it was only when he began experiencing life starting March 2020 that he realised a fundamental flaw in Nights Of Plague, one he had to address.

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When (the virus) came, I was so afraid. And it made me realise that my God, my characters are not afraid. They are not as afraid as I am, he says. And believe me, the bubonic plague was 10 times deadlier than the coronavirus. It killed one-third of the global population. If you got the bubonic plague, there was no way out: You are dead.

The world is more informed today. But, Pamuk says, people acted exactly as they did in the past, just as he had found in his research for the book. First and foremost was denial, just like now. There is no exception. Good government, bad government, dictators, or the most democratic, they all deny. Then, the second stage is that when you deny, the numbers go up. When numbers go up, people get angry. They blame the government, they blame everyone else. They say the Muslims brought it or the Jews brought it or the Christians brought it, or the people in the next village brought it. Then, there are conspiracies, like oh, did you see this guy, he was putting the plague on in the fountain, or they are poisoning (something), Pamuk notes. We also had that, that also has not changed. In the end, people demand so much that governments are obliged to be authoritarian because thats the only way you can make people (adhere to quarantine), he adds.

The slightly overwritten and meta nature of Nights Of Plague lends well to this universality of experiences across countries and centuries. It is what fiction, ideally never myopic, hopes to achieve. Yet the book has come under fire in Turkeysome parties have been offended by one of its characters, Major Kamil, saying the character is an attempt at lampooning Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey.

Reading Nights Of Plague in another country, however, one of the major, most continuous strands is of Pamuks thoughts on the discourse of nationhood. The story is about the formation of a secular nation state after the empire dies. The Emperor, whether you call him a Shah or a Badshah, or a Kaiser, or a King or a Sultan, it doesnt matterbut he has godly qualities, he is a sort of a shadow of a god. And once hes gone, you have to invent a secular god in a way.

Nights Of Plague tries to chronicle just thisthe invention of secular mythologies because you need these sacreds to motivate peopleso that in the next war they are dying or killing for the flag, for the land, for the country, when earlier they used to die for the Emperor only, Pamuk adds.

*****

Yet the reaction of his detractors is understandable to some extentlike Kamil, Atatrk, too, was once a young military man, critical of the Ottoman empire; he later quells opposition to establish Turkey, while Kamil breaks Mingheria away from the fast-fading empire. But Pamuk holds his ground: Since I have so many enemies in Turkey, they will say this is Kemal Atatrk. But my character, by his physical (attributes), his outlook (is different from him). In Turkey, Islamists attacked Kemal Atatrk because he enjoyed alcohol. My character does not touch alcohol. But this is not enough. They are just angry, anything is (good as) a source of attack at me, he says.

Nights Of Plague, by Orhan Pamuk, Penguin Random House India, 704 pages, Rs. 799.

He has faced this for so long that I wonder what he thinks is a productive way to be angry at someones work, and what the acceptable limits of backlash against creative expression or opinion might be. Pamuk calls this the issue of our times; it is a paradox, he says, quoting German philosopher Immanuel Kants antinomies. He goes over a range of scenarios, both hypothetical and real, and how he feels, how he responds through each. A few more detours later, he pauses. Free speech is a valuethe biggest that I believe in. And if that includes some insults to me, I accept it, he says.

Maybe it was, as he had warned me at the start, the jet lag; maybe he was just in a hurry to wrap up, but it seemed that for the moment, Pamuk was tired of politics and pandemics. When I ask him what he thinks might come of the pandemic novel in generalthe sub-category has been growing, perhaps an inevitable and natural consequence of recent experiences and traumas Pamuk doesnt miss a beat. I dont know, he says. I never wrote about it because its topical.

He continues: In fact, I was thinking when I was writing (Nights Of Plague), I was asking this question, did people after World War II read war novels? Once humanity suffers and that period ends, people dont want to read about those horrors immediately; they want to read about rosy, flowery loves storiesthey want to forget the horror, this is my experience. Then he adds a thought that sums up not only his clever enmeshing of politics and pandemics, but one that has me expecting more works with quarantine as a launchpad for sociopolitical commentary: In isolated situations, history concentrates in more dramatical ways.

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Free speech is the biggest value I believe in: Orhan Pamuk - Mint Lounge

The Maestro: Richard Pryor, widely considered one of the greatest comics of all time, frequently pushed the boundaries of comedy. (Getty Images)

Pollstar just published its first issue devoted entirely to the business of live comedy, which is thriving. Looking at Boxoffice data, Pollstar has quantified why we are currently amid something of a comedy Golden Age with record-setting grosses and ticket sales. Yes, theres room for an academic debate on whether todays comics transcend previous generations talents and ability to make us all laugh, but what cant be argued is that the live comedy business is skyrocketing.

What also cant be argued is that the medium has surely changed, the most drastic difference being the way comics communicate with their audiences, with direct lines via social media, podcasts and video streaming platforms.

Previously, You needed a third party to validate your existence, whether it was Carson or a radio show or something, no one would know you unless somebody else, some other entity put you on, says Brian Dorfman of Outback Presents, which produces tours and shows for many of the most popular comedians today. Now with podcasts, TikTok, all these things, comedians can get their own platform. Comedians are doing it themselves. I think its just absolutely a fantastic time for comedy.

In addition to streaming, many comedians have cultivated devoted followings largely via social media and podcast platforms and are able to reach fans directly and have the type of experience and skills to successfully create content and market themselves already. This has helped lead to seemingly overnight touring success for comics who have been writing and performing comedy for 20 years and are now at the top of their game.

With that exposure and reach has also come the ability for fans or critics, or an angry Twitter mob to respond in a similarly instant and unfiltered way. Cancel culture has led to high-profile firings or ridicule of public figures who may be caught saying or doing something embarrassing or offensive in their personal lives, or choosing to share opinions some may deem sexist, racist or otherwise offensive.

In the case of comedy, however, cancel culture at worst can be an attempt to arbitrate what an audience should find funny, and places judgment on a comics personal character based on their material. While complaints of political correctness and censorship are nothing new to the live entertainment business, those operating in todays comedy business note a challenging dynamic.

Looking back to the 90s versus now, Its definitely night and day, Gabriel Iglesias told Pollstar during an interview for the cover story. If you said something that was a little off color, it wasnt taken seriously unless you said something that was blatantly hateful or came across as very, Whoa, you know? Acknowledging that hes fortunate to have developed a supportive fanbase and isnt still trying to find his comedic voice, Iglesias says the impact of cancel culture is clear in todays comedy scene.

I see other comics struggling with society and the rules, because things are changing too quickly. People dont have time to adjust, he said. Iglesias tells a story of wanting to buy a meal for a family outside a McDonalds parking lot, when the manager corrects him. He says, You know, you cant say homeless anymore. It caught me off guard who complained? The proper term is unhoused. Im like, you know what? Just stop it.

The story can be an example of navigating the current free speech landscape. If youre coming from a good place, even if you make a mistake, if its not something thats intentional, youre not trying to be hurtful, youre not trying to be disrespectful, you get a little leeway. Dont get me wrong, there are some people that are totally going for it and thats their gamble. Thats their choice to be that way and do what they do, but yeah, so much has changed.

In finding a particular comic offensive or not funny, You might just have a different taste, Outbacks Dorfman adds. Some are dirty, some are clean, some are really bold, some are political, some are all sorts of goofy. Its niched out. But just because they say something doesnt mean its wrong.

A comedians job is to find the line, Dorfman adds. As long as theres an attempt at humor, hes doing his job. You can say whatever you want about cancel culture, but I say its absolute bullshit, because these guys have never sold more tickets. So you tell me, whats more important, the trolls on the internet or your fans?

Those on the talent side of the live comedy space feel passionately about the issue and stand behind their clients, which is part of any representation process.

You know what youre getting yourself into as an agent or manager when you start representing any type of client, says 33 & West agent and co-founder JJ Cassiere, who has quickly grown a sizable comedy division at the independent agency that has roots in rock and metal bands. He says that when representing talent of any kind, an agent or manager needs to believe in a clients material or be able to separate business from personal opinion.

You know what theyre about, what their views are and you should be able to vet them. If youre not doing your due diligence, thats on you, said Cassiere, whose clients include Eddie Griffin, Tony Hinchcliffe, Eric DAlessandro, Eric Neumann and Steve Hofstetter.

The trend of cell phone lockers being used during comedy sets, while initially to keep new material from going public, can also be a way to prevent comedians from being vilified for material they are still working on and from audiences that otherwise wouldnt be interested in attending a particular set.

Adding that requirement to a show is worth it to the comics sometimes, said Cassiere, who noted that well-known comedians with strong fanbases have been dropped by talent agencies for fear of being canceled. Its good to have new fans and new people to check you out, but its become people recording comics because theyre offended by it and then bitching about it.

He says the proof is often in the pudding, with ticket sales and happy audiences attending comedy of all types.

Our acts do full weekends at the top clubs in the country, they can do high-profile casinos, PACs and theaters, Cassiere said. Comedy is on fire right now and its not going to slow down.

With comics already in a vulnerable position to be on stage with just a microphone and spoken word to carry them through a whole set, extreme opinions can lead to fans acting aggressively or violently at a show, such as at a recent Dave Chappelle performance when an audience member rushed the stage with a weapon before being apprehended.

We must protect an artists right to full freedom of expression, period, said Gershs Rick Greenstein, longtime agent for Chappelle, in a response to a list of survey questions from Pollstar. The comedian, widely regarded as one of the best of his era, has been in hot water for sharing opinions and making jokes related to transgendered people. While many defended the material as thought-provoking, many also felt it was in bad taste and potentially harmful. A recent gig at First Avenue in Minneapolis was moved to another venue in town in response to the outcry.

There must be dialogue and there will be discourse but freedom of expression cannot be silenced, especially in the arts, Greenstein added. In regards to security, all appropriate protocols are available to be taken into account and when and where appropriate will be utilized accordingly. Cant take anything for granted these days, but it is a fine balance as these are comedy shows and you dont want to have a police state per se, but the artist and their content must be protected.

Noting the difficulty of being a performing comedian, Outback Presents President Mike Smardark, Brian Dorfman and brother/partner Andrew Dorfman are setting up the Comedy Gives Back Foundation to assist comics with living expenses, health insurance and mental health resources.

While still putting together the actual funding vehicle, Dorfman says theres ample support for the performers.

The easy part once we get it done is to raise the money, Dorfman says. Most of the important voices you hear on a daily basis are comedians. It 100% is a noble profession, and its a hard gig til you get there. It takes a long time to make it big, or also not to make it.

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The Free Speech Conundrum: The Comedy Industry Contends With Cancel Culture - Pollstar

A job applicant says that she was asked about her political beliefs and marital status during an interview with Rockwell Farms Nursery in Rogers, Ark., in a now-viral TikTok.

In the video posted by TikToker and Florist Lady Botanical (@lady_botanical) on Oct. 11, she shares a clip of her sitting in her car after an interview with a local nursery, where she alleges she was asked to disclose whether she has any children, is married, or if she believes in free speech.

Upon coming into the interview, they didnt ask me too much about my experience with plants. I did, however, get asked if I had any kids, if I was married or if I was a liberal or conservative, she says in the clip. When I said that I leaned more towards the liberal side, I was then asked if I believed in free speech.

She notes that you cant legally ask a prospective employee about their political beliefs and personal life, saying that she plans to contact the labor board.

For the most part, I thought everyone believed in free speech, she continues. I assume hes asking me if he calls someone a slur that Im not going to get offended or say anything.

The Daily Dot reached out to Rockwell Farms Nursery via email and Facebook direct message but was not met with a response prior to publication.

The video has reached over 274,000 views as of Wednesday, with commenters putting the business on blast for their alleged discriminatory interview practices.

All of those questions are illegal and discriminatory. Find yourself a lawyer. Enjoy the time off, one user suggested.

Good for you. That is SO illegal. I cant imagine what its like working there, another said.

Other users said they left bad reviews on the nurserys Facebook page; however, the reviews tab was disabled as of 4:37 p.m. CST. On Google, others wrote scathing reviews calling the establishment trash and vile, warning prospective customers and employees to avoid the business.

Isnt interesting how a trash nursery is asking applicants about their political affiliationThat is against the law! I will be making SEVRAL complaints. Have the day you deserve!!, one reviewer wrote.

Dont shop or apply here! They discriminate and ask illegal questions in the hiring process! another said.

The Daily Dot reached out to Lady Botanical via Instagram direct message.

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*First Published: Oct 13, 2022, 6:50 am CDT

Rebekah Harding is a freelance reporter for the Daily Dot. She has digital and print bylines in Mens Health, Cosmopolitan, SheKnows, and more.

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I was then asked if I believed in free speech: Applicant says garden center asked if shes liberal or conservative during job interview - The Daily Dot

1. FIRE ranks MSU in top 5 nationally for support of student free speech  Mississippi State University
2. Just released: The 2022-2023 College Free Speech Rankings  Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
3. Columbia University is worst college in nation for free speech: report  New York Post
4. The free-speech allergy in academia | Opinion | oleantimesherald.com  Olean Times Herald
5. These are the top 10 worst schools for free speech this year  Campus Reform
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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FIRE ranks MSU in top 5 nationally for support of student free speech - Mississippi State University

On Wednesday, September 14, 2022, at 10:00 a.m. ET, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, will hold a hybrid hearing to examine how the fossil fuel industry is weaponizing the law to stifle First Amendment protected speech and stymie efforts to combat climate change by abusing Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participations (SLAPPs) and anti-protest laws.

Since the 1980s, SLAPPs have been used by powerful entities and individuals to silence critics through costly, lengthy, and often meritless litigation. These lawsuits have recently been employed by the fossil fuel industry to target environmental activists and non-profits by claiming defamation, trespass, and even racketeering to deter them from speaking out against proposed fossil fuel pipelines and other projects that contribute to climate change.

In response to increased protest activity surrounding fossil fuel pipelines, 17 states have enacted anti-protest laws as of June 2022, labeling them critical infrastructure protection laws. These laws are selectively enacted and enforced to target environmental activists and protect corporate interests.

The fossil fuel industrys use of SLAPPs and support for anti-protest laws not only stifles free speech, but also serves as another form of disinformation about climate change. After years of spreading denial and disinformation, fossil fuel companies now acknowledge the existence of climate change but are attempting to ensure their greenwashing narrative dominates by silencing opposing views.

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Free Speech Under Attack (Part III): The Legal Assault on Environmental Activists and the First Amendment - House Committee on Oversight and Reform |

In August, the author Salman Rushdie was stabbed in the neck. The novelist has spent decades living under the threat of a hit put out by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. The religious directive was a response to Rushdies novel The Satanic Verses, which Khomeini regarded as blasphemous. For many, the attack was an opportunity to reflect on the importance of free expression, and a reminder of the clear distinction between speech and violence.

For others, it was an opportunity to remind others of the clear distinction between speech and violence, which is something that all those snowflake libs, who are sort of like the fanatic who stabbed Rushdie in the neck, should take to heart.

We live in a culture in which many of the most celebrated people occupying the highest perches believe that words are violence, Bari Weiss wrote on her Substack, citing no one in particular. In this, they have much in common with Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. She added that of course it is 2022 that the Islamists finally get a knife into Salman Rushdie. Of course it is now, when words are literally violence and J.K. Rowling literally puts trans lives in danger and even talking about anything that might offend anyone means you are literally arguing I shouldnt exist.

As an outlet, The Atlantic attempts to provide readers with a broad spectrum of perspectives based on shared values. One of these values is freedom of speech, a principle to which I and all of my cherished colleagues are deeply committed. The assassination attempt on Rushdie was a direct attack on that freedom, and it should be no surprise that writers here have a great deal to say about it. But I must respectfully disagree with some of my colleagues about the conclusions they have drawn from the attack, linking contemporary left-wing discourse with a fundamentalist theocrats call for assassination.

Read: Rushdies challenge to Islamic orthodoxy

My colleague Graeme Wood pointed to Jimmy Carters 1989 op-ed criticizing Rushdie to argue that over the past two decades, our culture has been Carterized. We have conceded moral authority to howling mobs, and the louder the howls, the more we have agreed that the howls were worth heeding. He acknowledged, however, that since the attempt on Rushdies life, almost no one has advanced these arguments, meaning a link between the emotional injury of blasphemy and the very literal violence of murder. If our society were truly Carterized, I would have expected instead to have seen some prominent American figures make the argument Carter did decades ago.

Another one of my colleagues, Caitlin Flanagan, settled for an exegesis of the views of the Twitter user @MeerAsifAziz1, whose account no longer exists. She argued that the culture of free speech is eroding every day, and offered a hypothetical example: Ask an Oberlin studentfresh outta Shaker Heights, coming in hot, with a heart as big as all outdoors and a 3 in AP Bioto tell you what speech is acceptable, and shell tell you that its speech that doesnt hurt the feelings of anyone belonging to a protected class.

Ill make no secret that I believe the focus on the misguided egalitarianism of undergraduates at private colleges has been disproportionate. People like this exist, though, and its fair to criticize them. What I frankly find puzzling is presenting this hypothetical student as the avatar of the idea that dangerous speech and ideas must be suppressed, when in statehouses and governors mansions, politicians who have the authority to enforce their ideas about censorship with state power are actually putting them into practice. Unlike the hypothetical Oberlin student, these officials are real, and the threat they pose to free speech is not only clear and present, but backed by a certain level of popular demand.

I agree with Weiss and Wood and Flanagan that there is a bright line between speech and violence that must be respected, and that trying to kill someone for offending you is monstrous. Speech is not violence, and to argue so is to imply that violence is an appropriate response. The unacknowledged reality of these three essays, however, is that what I just stated remains the broad, widely held consensus in American life, from right to left. Americans simply do not live under anything resembling the kind of repression in which people are killed for blasphemy with state or popular support.

Caitlin Flanagan: Americas fire sale: Get some free speech while you can

Weiss, Wood, and Flanagan also noted the objection of a group of writers and thinkers to the PEN association bestowing an award on Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical publication that terrorists attacked in 2015 over its caricatures of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, murdering 12 people, including several staff members, police officers, a maintenance worker, and someone who was visiting that day. The letter signers described the massacre as sickening and tragic while criticizing PEN for valorizing selectively offensive material: material that intensifies the anti-Islamic, anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.

Weiss attacked the civic cowardice of those who objected, while Flanagan wrote that these writers were pressuring the organization to abandon its mission of protecting freedom of expression. Wood described the writers position as muddling the distinction between offense and violence, and between a disagreement over ideas and a disagreement over whether your head should remain attached to your body.

I would not have signed that letter if asked, not only because I do not sign open letters, as a matter of preference, but because I believe that blasphemy is a human right, and that the message that PEN was sending with the award was an endorsement not of Charlie Hebdos content but of the staffs bravery in the face of an attempt to silence them through murder. But just as I have no objection to the award, I have no issue with people criticizing it because they do not want it to be interpreted as an endorsement of the racist caricatures Charlie Hebdo is known for, even accepting that they are intended with a layer of irony. (Im not sure how many of the people disseminating these images are aware of the irony.) These may be mutually exclusive positions, but both are consistent with respecting free speech. Indeed, both the writers of the letter and its critics are arguing that there are things you can say but should not.

One of the significant measures of free speech in a given society is how people deal with blasphemywhether religious offense provokes state censorship or violence. America has a relatively strong record in that respect in comparison with much of the rest of the world, while clearly faltering in others. The suggestion here, however, is that the writers who objected to the award granted to Charlie Hebdo are in some sense justifying the massacre, and therefore defending the notion that violence is an appropriate response to offensive speech. But surely one can defend the right of Nazis to publicly protest while rejecting the tenets of national socialism. If I cannot defend the fundamental right of a speaker to be offensive while objecting to their speech, then what am I actually defending?

In this case, the rights being asserted seem to be the right to be offensive, and the right of the offended to shut up and like it. The former combined with the latter is not an assertion of the right to free speech so much as a right to monologue, which I do not recognize.

The American culture of free speech is indeed under threat, as Flanagan argued. Free speech requires a robust exchange of views without the coercion of threats and violence, and self-censorship in response to social pressure is a genuine risk. Yet by definition, there is no free speech if one person is allowed to make an argument and another is not allowed to object to it. Nor has there ever been a time in American history when freedom of speech was not threatened with proscription by the state, or when one could express a controversial opinion and not risk social sanction. In short, the culture of free speech is always under threat.

In almost every era of U.S. history, the bounds of free expression have been contested. In the founding era, patriots tarred and feathered royalists. Before the Civil War, southern states passed laws that could be used to prosecute the dissemination of abolitionist literature and sought to prevent the Postal Service from delivering antislavery pamphlets, saying they would foment insurrection by the enslaved. Mobs followed the abolitionist Frederick Douglass across the North, throwing rotten eggs, stones, and menacing slurs at the orator at speaking events. After Reconstruction, white supremacists destroyed the office of Ida B. Wellss newspaper, The Free Speech and Headlight, following the publication of an editorial arguing that lynchings of Black men accused of raping white women were in fact punishment for consensual relationships. The Red Scares of the 20th century saw Americans forced from their jobs and prosecuted for leftist beliefs or sympathies on the grounds that those were tantamount to a commitment to overthrowing the government. Out of that crucible emerged a civil libertarian concept of free speech that many have mistaken for timeless rather than a product of a certain history and a particular arrangement of political power. The idea that certain forms of speech or expression justify or provoke violence, let alone that blasphemy does so, is not an invention of modern social-justice discourse.

Every generation faces a different challenge when it comes to freedom of expression. Ours includes not only the widespread and growing campaign of state censorship led by Republican lawmakers, but a social-media panopticon that can both deny us the privacy necessary to come to our own conclusions and inhibit the courage necessary to express them. Most of us are not meant to be privy to every misguided utterance of a stranger, nor are we meant to have our errors or worst moments evaluated publicly by people who learned of our existence only as the focus of political propaganda, as the subject of ridicule, or as acceptable targets in pointless feuds between online cliques. (Although it must be said, there are those who thrive in such conditions, and have successfully exploited them for fame, profit, and status.)

Yet, as Aaron R. Hanlon recently wrote in The New Republic, this wave of censorship laws in Republican-controlled states bears scant mention among many of the most prominent self-styled defenders of free speech, or at least, far less than the tyranny of the ratio. But we do not become little Rushdies when our inboxes and mentions are inundated with deranged filth from disturbed strangers, as a result of the public-facing profession we chose and the technological advancements that make us more accessible to such people.

It is not minimizing the power of digital mobs to say that spending decades with the state-backed threat of an assassins blade at your throat is coercion of a different magnitude. The wrath of an online mob can be harrowing: harassment, outrageous falsehoods, and threats are not pleasant to bear, and can threaten not just your mental health but your livelihood, and in extreme cases your safety. To pretend that seeking to avoid such an experience does not condition what people say and how they act would be foolish. But to pretend that this is a left-wing ideological phenomenon rather than a structural one, when educators, medical providers, election officials, and others from all walks of life are being driven underground by right-wing influencers who can conduct a mob like an orchestra, would be equally foolish.

The United States is living through the largest wave of state censorship since the second Red Scare. Beyond the plague of education gag laws restricting the teaching of unpleasant facts about American history, conservative judges seek to rewrite constitutional free-speech protections to punish the liberal media, and conservative states pass laws against public protest and immunize from liability those who would run over protesters with their cars, while law-enforcement organizations hope to use civil lawsuits to sue demonstrations against police brutality out of existence. Conservatives have sought to fire librarians and purge public libraries of books they deem controversial by categorizing them as obscene, as state officials try to punish teachers who provide their students with public information that allows them to access samizdat from libraries in states where it is not forbidden. Not only do abortion bounty laws seek to enforce silence around reproductive health, lest a person discussing the subject prick the ears of some snitch seeking a payday, but the overturning of Roe has coincided with explicit attempts to criminalize speech about abortion. In the strongest labor market in a generation, billionaires seek to use their power and authority to crush workers organizing for better conditions and a living wage.

Adam Serwer: The myth that Roe broke America

There is no shortage of major free-speech issues to address in America today, but many of us in the writing profession are primarily concerned with our social-media experience, because that is what we most directly and frequently encounter. Instead of recognizing that the warped behavioral incentives created by social media are a structural problem, we tend to blame the people online who annoy us the most. In many cases, those defending free speech are not defending freedom of expression so much as seeking the power to determine which views can be publicly expressed without backlash, and which can be silenced without reproach. When we speak of an idealized past without chilling effects, we are simply imagining a time when the social consensus was repressive and stifling for someone else.

These conflicts are far more complex precisely because there is no clear line where social pressure from those exercising their rights of free speech and association crosses over into censoriousness. State censorship and violent compulsion are relatively easy to identify and oppose, if not always easy to prevent. When does accountability become harassment? When does protest become coercion? What views should be acceptable to state in polite society, and which should be appropriately shunned by decent people? When does a voice of criticism become the howl of a mob? When does corporate speech become corporate censorship? No society in human history has ever had simple answers to these questions. In a free society, sometimes people will choose to be horrible, and there is little to do other than make a different choice and counsel people to do the same.

Presenting these dilemmas as similar to an attempt to silence someone with a theocratic death mark is trivializing, and ahistorical. There has never been a golden age when anyone could say what they wanted without consequence, only eras in which one shared perspective was dominant. Though nostalgia may cloud our perceptions, those times were no more free, even if politics, ideology, or self-promotion might compel us to remember otherwise.

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Salman Rushdie, Free Speech, and Violence - The Atlantic