Category Archives: Free Speech

It was 3 December 2021, and South College, Durham University, was having its Christmas formal. Formals happen every week here, says Miatta Pemberton (not her real name), who is in her second year at the college. Its a longstanding Durham thing. You put on a gown that cost 60, or, if youre like me, you buy it off eBay for 20. For a special occasion, it would be normal to have a speaker and announce them in advance. By 5pm, the speaker hadnt been announced, and Pemberton found out who it was by chance from the colleges vice-principal, Lee Worden. She couldnt immediately place the person; she just knew shed heard the name for all the wrong reasons.

About 15 to 20 students more familiar with Rod Liddles work in the Spectator and the Sunday Times (sample headline on one of his columns from 2018: Im identifying as a young, black, trans chihuahua), walked out before hed started speaking. As they did so, Tim Luckhurst, the college principal who had invited Liddle, shouted: At South College, we value freedom of speech, and Pathetic!. So the mood wasnt great, but there were still upwards of 180 students in the hall as Liddle stood up to speak. He began by saying he was disappointed not to see any sex workers there, a reference to a controversy from the previous month, when the students union was attacked for offering safety training to students involved in sex work. The story was picked up by the tabloid press, which mobilised the opinion wing of the Daily Mail, which then brought in the then further education minister, Michelle Donelan, who accused the union of legitimising a dangerous industry which thrives on the exploitation of women. If you were a culture-war correspondent looking for the frontline, youd go to Durham: it is where things kick off.

Liddle continued his speech: A person with an X and a Y chromosome, that has a long, dangling penis, is scientifically a man, and that is pretty much, scientifically, the end of the story. Which is objectively a weird thing to hear when youre trying to eat, says Pemberton. At this point a further 20 or so students walked out and missed the bit about colonialism not being remotely the major cause of Africas problems, and Liddles contention that structural racism has nothing to do with educational underachievement among British people of Caribbean descent. Speaking to me over the phone from his home in the Pennines, Liddle says his point was: Weve got not to be scared of other peoples opinions, no matter what they are. There are things I believe in, which you almost certainly wont. We think the same thing transgender people have a right to dignity and respect. We just disagree on whether theyre biologically a man.

Luckhurst and Liddle have a friendship dating from the mid-80s, when they worked in adjoining rooms on the shadow cabinet corridor in Westminster, writing speeches for Labour MPs. The left has always been our enemy, says Liddle; and its true that long before wokeness existed, before cancellation was a culture, even before its ancestor political correctness was born, the party of the left has been at war over who was the right kind of left. Both men then worked for Radio 4s Today programme, Luckhurst going on to become editor of news programmes at BBC Scotland, and later, briefly, editor of the Scotsman. When he became an academic in 2007, he had an august CV in both print and broadcast media, and quite a wonky, old-school passion for news values. Free-speech provocations dont seem to be his primary interest, though his and Liddles self-fashioning as thorns in the side of pearl-clutching liberals is at the centre of their friendship.

The two men differed on something, though: Liddle had no problem with students walking out, nor with the fact that the ones who remained sat in silence when he finished. Apparently theyre all meant to stand at the end, and they didnt. I thought, frankly, who gives a fuck? By contrast, Luckhurst was upset that they hadnt listened respectfully. After the dinner, scenes ensued, culminating in Luckhurst telling a student (off-camera) that they shouldnt be at university, and his wife, Dorothy, shouting: Arse, arse, arse, arse, arse youre not allowed to say arse, apparently, and asking students what they were so frightened of.

It was all a bit Animal Farm looking from face to face, trying to recall which ones are the stoics and which the snowflakes. Which ones are the grownups and which the kids? Whos trying to cancel who? And why is it such catnip to the rightwing press?

The South College debacle, and the sex worker training scandal before it, along with the many headlines and thinkpieces they generated, were just a typical season in Durhams culture-war calendar. From the universitys Bullingdon-style social clubs, the rightwing provocations are reliably eyebrow-raising: in 2017, the Trevelyan rugby club staged a Thatcher versus the miners pub crawl, while five years earlier, St Cuthberts rugby club had an event where guests dressed as Jimmy Savile. In 2021 a Durham student posted a clip of a white man blacked up to dress as Kanye West (though an investigation found that he wasnt a student at the university). Periodically, therell be a leak of WhatsApp or Facebook messages containing sometimes hair-raising misogyny (it was alleged that one informal group launched a competition in 2020 to see who could fuck the poorest fresher) or enough outright neo-nazism to see established groups the Durham University Conservative Association (DUCA), along with its Free Market Association (DUFMA) closed down, as they were in 2020.

On the left, the actions are those youd recognise from any undergraduate arena: climate marches, usually small in scale; racial awareness training; pressure to decolonise the curriculum. In the case of the sex worker training, loads of unis have it, says Niall Hignett, a leftwing campaigner at South College. Students are doing it because of their financial situation. Giving them support and advice wasnt encouraging it it was trying to make sure they were safe. In the topsy-turvy world with which we should now probably be familiar, its this rather muted leftwing activism that generates most of the whither intellectual freedom? debate in the Spectator and among Conservative MPs and ministers; the Daily Mail will cover absolutely anything, left or right, so long as it happens in Durham. The academic William Davies, at Goldsmiths, has noted that this fascination stems from perhaps the fundamental battle of the culture wars: who has the right to narrate British identity newspapers or universities?

Durham University finds the coverage frustrating, and says it doesnt reflect the campus experience at all. Professors and post-grads describe an atmosphere very like the general student population: broadly progressive in stance. One member of the Durham People of Colour Association says, tellingly, that when they have been subject to abuse, its been keyboard warriors coming at them because of the Daily Mail misquoting things, or misrepresenting us in biased ways. But how does a university become a hotbed for these extreme political schisms? Is it all a media confection and, if it isnt, why does anyone go there?

As soon as I step off the train for the first time, in April, I am hit by that very distinctive atmosphere of a place that can seem entirely its university from the demographic (everyone seems to be 18 or 45), to the town planning, which drives you towards the colleges, to the lack of regular retail outlets and proliferation of tea shops. It even smells like students. Josh Freestone, 19, in his second year studying philosophy and politics, is in the Durham University Labour Club, and describes both his and its politics as to the left of the Labour party Corbynite. The Liddle event distilled for him a sense of disillusionment: I very much believe the students are the beating heart of the university, but theres been very little attempt to centre us.

The university is informally divided into Hill (10 colleges outside the dead centre, either side of Elvet Hill, mostly built since the 1960s South College was built in 2020); and Bailey (five colleges clustered around the cathedral, built in the 1800s or very early 1900s).

The Bailey area is overwhelmed by signs saying private. Stand still for one second and some officious retiree will try to give you directions one makes me wait while she tells a tourist about the cathedral, and I have to listen to her yawing on about St Cuthbert, when I never asked for directions in the first place. When youre used to an urban environment, in which the baseline assumption is that space is public unless its somebodys house, its hard to overstate how irritating this is, but it also must feel quite containing if youre from a boarding school. The Hill area has nothing but colleges. Max Kendix, now 20 and in his final year, is the ex-editor of the student newspaper Palatinate, and at University College, known as Castle. Hes skinny, droll, serious-minded, incredibly nice: Id first met him in the holidays in London, where hes from. He says: I lived on the main street in Bailey in my first year, and Id be woken every Friday night by a crowd of people, a huge crowd, running down from the Hill shouting, If you live on the Bailey youre a cunt. But the irony is that we wouldnt do the same. Wed never go to the Hill. Theres nothing there. Apart from the freestyling tour guides, theres very little sense of town versus gown, because theres almost nothing in either the centre or the Hill that isnt gown-related.

The university as a whole has the highest proportion of privately educated students in the country, at nearly 40%, and the Bailey colleges, particularly Hatfield, have the most intense concentration of students from a small clutch of boarding schools. Sophie Corcoran, a Durham student and a maverick rightwinger with an already significant profile on GB News and talkRadio (I speak to her over the phone as she is still at home in Thurrock), says: A lot of people who dont necessarily know each other from school, know of one another from school. Corcoran is extremely opinionated on social media (anti-immigrant, anti-benefit-claimant, anti-trans). A slip recently, where a separate account replied as if they were her, suggests that her online profile may be a group effort not exactly a sockpuppet account, since she is definitely real; more of a sock chorus. There is no issue on which she cannot summon a callous view, but one-to-one she has a kind of studs-first life force. I wouldnt be surprised if, one day, she flipped the other way politically, but maybe thats wishful thinking.

Figures like Corcoran are marginal in student politics, as she readily admits: she gained no traction when she stood for election to the students union I had more chance of winning North Korea than Durham students union, she says blithely and has no foothold in its rightwing political scene, whose members, she says, only like women there if they can sleep with them. If you have an opinion, they hate you. Besides, she says, theyre all on drugs. If working-class people like us did drugs like they do, wed be called crackheads. Its a completely different story with rich people.

Much more influential than any nebulous cultural atmosphere is the lack of diversity, in the Bailey colleges particularly. Kendix describes one Hatfield tradition: They were the last college to let women in, and when they were voting on it, the JCR [junior common room, which is the student body in a college] voted against. This was the 80s. The authorities at the college went ahead with it anyway, and as a form of protest the students started banging their spoons against the tables at the start of formals. Thats now a tradition. Every formal starts with that the girls do it, too.

Can you draw a straight line from people banging spoons to mourn the decline of male supremacy to an alleged competition to see who could fuck the poorest fresher? Its hard to say, and I dont know that the behaviour reflects attitudes that are real; sometimes these Durham scandals feel manufactured as debate points for an insatiable media.

Katie Anne Tobin is a PhD student who became involved in activism around sexual violence when she was an undergraduate at Sussex. Durham is a mixed picture, she says: in the university as a whole, there are figures like Clarissa Humphreys and Graham Towl working tirelessly to root out sexual violence in higher education settings, having authored a Good Practice Guide thats well respected nationally. Yet Tobin says the collegiate system often thwarts the universitys efforts: The colleges create their own policy, they execute their own discipline, and theyve got their own reputations to maintain. I know a lot of people who have been made to feel like feminist killjoys if theyre open about the issues in their college. The whisper networks are insidious.

Plus, the lack of diversity definitely tells in the student experience. In 2020, Lauren White compiled A Report on Northern Student Experience at Durham University, after being relentlessly mocked for having grown up in Gateshead, 15 miles away. The report quotes one student as saying: In the college dining hall I have been called a dirty northerner, and a chav A fellow student asked me: Are you going to take the spare food home to feed your family?

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According to Kendix: Youre more likely to meet someone from the same London borough as you than you are to meet someone from a different county. Pemberton says, You wont have someone hurling insults at you day to day. But you feel it. You walk into a room thinking: why do I feel so on edge? Oh, Im the only brown person in a room full of 200 people.

The university points to its efforts in this area theres a programme to support black-heritage students, a number of scholarships available to state school students, particularly in the north-east. In 2010/11, 79.9% of Durhams student intake was white. In 2020/21, it was 67.6%. Its efforts may have been hampered somewhat by the collegiate structure, since colleges make their own individual decisions about intake and convention.

One English professor, who Ill call Sanders, says of the Liddle debacle: This is the sort of thing that makes me unhappy. South College is our newest college. You can build a culture from the ground up, and he [Luckhurst] built a college with a high table and a Latin grace. When were not thinking on our feet, we fall into these old habits. Sanders is speaking to me in their sprawling, book-messy faculty room, a David Lodge-style picture of the idealised academic life. They are in their early 50s, take seriously the decolonisation of the curriculum if anyone came out of my classes thinking the moral impact of the British empire was railways, I wouldnt have done my job and only want to be anonymous for professional courtesy reasons, not because they see themselves as a besieged wokey. As for the culture as a whole, Durham does, Sanders says, have some posh boys who behave really badly. We probably have a higher percentage than the University of Salford, say. Often the picture is not wrong, but its very partial.

Part of this institutions failure to dramatically improve diversity, Sanders speculates, is risk-aversion due to anxiety about keeping their Russell Group status: they were only admitted in 2012, its quite hard to cling on without a medical school, and that went to Newcastle when the two universities separated in 1963. When I first arrived, Sanders says, the rhetoric was: the group of large universities with medical schools who call themselves the Russell Group. Once we got admitted, it was the elite universities known as the Russell Group.

I meet Niall Hignett in the shared kitchen of his student halls at South College; the summer term is just beginning, and the windows across the campus are still studded with Post-it notes, reading Bin Tim, Transphobes are not welcome here Tim, Eat the rich and Council college. Hignett is a member of the Labour Club and the Working-Class Students Association, and president of Durham Against Rough Sleeping; he is relaxed, very funny, indefatigable. He comes from an estate in Cheshire new-build social housing, which is really tacky. So to me this felt like luxury and has been a bete noire of the rightwing press due to the protests he organised after that Christmas formal. He finds this amusing showing me photos the Telegraph took of him, in which they try to make him look like an unsmiling, incredibly large-chinned trade unionist and very useful.

For Hignett, the purposefully provocative culture war stuff is mainly driven by the myopia of privilege. If youve only ever been a public school and been surrounded by people who are like you, youve never really experienced enough of the world to know that running around dressed as Jimmy Savile is its not offensive, I dont even know how to describe it. When youre on the doorstep of mining communities who were ravaged by Thatcherism, and youre dressing up as Thatcher theres micro-aggression and theres aggression-aggression. But he uses these flashpoints to his advantage: when he organised the protests against Liddles speech, it was reported by the Daily Mail, as well as the Times and on GB News, with an almost audible eyeball roll (Now Durham students threaten a rent strike over Rod Liddle). It was misleading, but it was also true: Hignett had devised, with open consultation, a list of demands, one of which was a rent freeze. Many were about money rather than hate speech or inclusion. This was deliberate and strategic: it is quite hard to mobilise students who are mainly affluent on matters such as establishing a guarantor scheme (if your parents arent homeowners, you need to pay a large deposit to guarantee your private rental agreement; basically a tax on not being middle-class).

If you want anybody to talk to the issues that you care about, you have to rile them up, Hignett says. Loads of rich kids just dont get it, and the ones who arent rich are too ashamed to talk about it. But they understand trans rights. With cultural-issue protests, we just get more people. There were also demands to proscribe hate speech on campus, and set up a hate-speech committee, and those were, Hignett admits, bait for the rightwing press; when youre trying to pressurise an institution, the real battle is to make yourself impossible to ignore.

While Hignett and I are talking, Tim Luckhurst is outside, doing a tour for what look like parents of prospective students. I mean, everything looks desultory in the rain, but there is a sad, slightly shifty atmosphere when I walk past, as Luckhurst describes the amenities and the tour group studiously avert their eyes from all the Post-it notes that want to bin him.

The protests, which ran throughout December 2021 and January 2022, drew an unusual, even unprecedented, number of students. Durham is a lot less politically engaged than most universities, says Poppy Askham, another former editor of Palatinate. If half the things that happen at Durham happened in Manchester, theyd be protesting all the time. Kendix remembers that the first protest at South College had over 300 people. By contrast, a climate change protest would have maybe 15 people. While it was reported as fact by the Mail on Sunday that the silent majority supported Luckhurst, a student pollster colleague of Kendixs at Palatinate found that 80% of students wanted him to leave.

But never mind silent majority if there were any students at all on Luckhursts side, why were there no counterprotests, no free speech demos, no Leave Liddle Alone placards? It turns out that when DUCA and DUFMA were effectively disbanded in September 2020, and removed from the Durham students union group register, their funding was withdrawn and they were no longer allowed to use the universitys name in their title. It was a decision made by the students union, supported by the university. It was all lumped together with Durham cancelling Tories, says Kendix, who covered it for Palatinate. But it doesnt fit that narrative at all. Were talking about neo-nazism, essentially.

WhatsApp messages between key members of the groups had been leaked, and revealed a cesspit, sorry, culture where old-fashioned nazism met new, 4chan-adjacent violent misogyny, Holocaust denial and white replacement theory, to create a conversation too extreme for the student newspaper to print, and actually too extreme, mainly on racist and antisemitic grounds, for the Guardian to print, either. (A sidebar on the resilience, or perceived lack of it, in this generation: Kendix is Jewish, and had to wade through this swill. He laughs out loud when I ask him if hed requested any pastoral support; life is actually quite tough at the free speech frontier, but students, in the main, are tougher.)

In the investigation that led to DUFMA and DUCA being shut down, one of the students involved was expelled for three years, which was reduced to one year on appeal, and then overturned altogether. The Conservative MP Richard Holden celebrated the exoneration as he addressed a reformed Conservative group, the Durham University Conservative Society, saying: For too long weve seen free speech being eroded at our universities and colleges. Ill always stand up for academic freedom and against those who want to impose their unsubstantiated worldview as unquestionable fact.

These interventions from Conservatives transform Durhams rightwing outbursts from attention-seeking pranks into moments of real consequence. Each fresh event is addressed by the government as an issue of free speech, which has become elided with academic freedom; as absurd as it sounds, it is now in defence of academe that former minister Michelle Donelan sought to enshrine in law the right of any staff member or visitor to voice controversial or unpopular opinions without placing themselves at risk of being adversely affected. In April 2022, a motion was passed in the Commons to enable the free speech bill to pass over into the next session of parliament. Donelan yes, the same person who objected to sex-work training celebrated that, should the bill pass, universities, including their student unions, will face fines for engaging with or supporting cancel culture. What this means is that there would be an actual financial penalty for walking out of a speech by Rod Liddle, a notion that even he, I feel sure, would find hilarious.

Since the publication of God and Man at Yale, the seminal 1951 work by US conservative commentator William F Buckley Jr, the right has had the stated intent of depoliticising tertiary education. Its not a realistic goal: you cant go to any countrys epicentre of thought and reading and expect it not to take a view on politics. But underneath that is a more concrete agenda. Even in the 50s, but in a much more pronounced way now, the two factors predicting progressive leanings are youth, and being educated to degree level. For the right, tertiary education has to be presented as a site of live conflict, a vivid fight between left and right, or the gigs up.

Tim Luckhurst was temporarily barred from duties after Rod Liddles speech while an investigation took place, and those findings were kept private. A statement from the acting vice-chancellor and provost, Antony Long, insisted that the University does not intend, in any way, to exclude any speakers from our campus. Yet he also said that no member of our University community should be subjected to transphobia, homophobia, racism, classism and sexism. The university has a pretty reflexive understanding of the difference between free speech and hate speech, but the battles, amplified on the national stage, picked apart in newspapers and crowbarred into legislation, have blowback. Its salient that not one woman of colour would use her real name for this piece. Mal Lee, 25, studying for a postgraduate degree in biology, is president of the LGBT+ association and identifies as trans masculine. Lee describes a trans femme friend having projectiles and abuse hurled at her; Alisha (not her real name), 21, is biracial and was with a black friend when they were both chased down the street by men making monkey noises. Lee didnt report it because we just expect it. Alisha didnt because to be honest, Im quite exhausted. Neither thinks their assailants were other students, just passing bigots, empowered to act by a wider narrative that has made university life in Durham its emblem.

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From rent strikes to free-speech walkouts how did Durham University become a frontline of the UKs culture wars? - The Guardian

The firing of Palestinian American woman, Natalie Abulhawa, has sparked a debate over free-speech, "cancel-culture" and the ever-growing crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism. The 25-year-old athletic trainer was fired by a private girls school in Bryn Mawr over years-old social media posts criticising Israel. In March the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charge on behalf of Abulhawa against the Agnes Irwin School.

In its complaint CAIR alleged that Abulhawa faced discrimination on the basis of national origin and/or religion. She was vetted and hired for just a few days before school leadership fired her after showing her social media posts that had been curated by the notorious website known as Canary Mission. The website described as a "shadowy online blacklist", by the Jewish magazineForward,targetscollege students includingAbulhawa and professors and organisations thatcriticise Israel over its apartheid practices andadvocate for Palestinian rights.

Canary Mission's activities uncovered byMEMOfound that the pro-Israel grouppublishes dossiers on pro-Palestinian activists, many of whom are students, with personal details such as their photos and locations. The website is also often used by Israeli security forces to justify deporting people from Israel. This invasive activity permanently affects student activists as it exposes them to even more online harassment and may affect their future employment opportunities.In practice, theblacklistcan have a chilling effect oncritics of Israeland can have professional consequences, including firings, for those who appear on its website,as reported bythe Intercept.

Abulhawa'scase was covered in detail yesterday bythe Philadelphia Inquirer. The US daily interviewed the Palestinian-Americanas well asexperts oncivil rights. Revelations about Canary Mission's operationsin the articlesparked a wider discussion about the threat posed by the pro-Israel group to free speech and a wider discussion about the underlying hypocrisy of the moral panic over "cancel culture..Ever since cancel culture became a popular term to describe the new form of social and cultural ostracism, where individuals are de-platformed, silenced and thrown out of social or professional circles for holding views some consider to be controversial,the crackdown on pro-Palestine activism has been conveniently overlooked.

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Even before cancel culture became a familiar term, far-right pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League, AmericanIsraelPublicAffairs Committeeand the American Jewish Committee, not to mention Canary Mission,published reports warning of the danger posed by "pro-Palestinian" or "Arab propagandists".Theresult ofsuchcampaigns,recallsthe President of the Arab American Institute,JamesJ Zogby, wasArab Americanslike himselfdenied jobs, harassed, having speaking engagements cancelled and receiving threats of violence.

In other words,says Zogby,cancel culture is nothing newas far as pro-Palestine activists are concerned."It's been around for decades, with Arab Americans and Palestinian human rights supporters as the main victims. And now with over 30 states passing legislation criminalising support forBDS[Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions], the Departments of State and Education adopting the conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, the effort to silence pro-Palestinian voices is escalating."

Suchescalation and the conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitismhas not only empowered pro-Israel groups to demand ever-more radicalconcessions,ithas also proven to be destructive to social cohesion. Groups advocating for the codification of anti-Semitism that includes criticism of the Apartheid State ofIsraelhave been campaigning for thisover the past three decades using thedebunked theoryof "new anti-Semitism".Ourcurrent situation where there is unjustified hypersensitivity to criticism of Israel, a crackdown on free speech and real consequences to people's lives and careers, are the destructive results of this campaign.

Abulhawais one of countless victims. Her story shows that there is more at stake than the career of one individual."This particular case is going to the heart of the American fundamental right to politically dissent, to express your beliefs," Sahar Aziz, a Rutgers Law professor and author ofThe Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, is reported saying inthe Philadelphia Inquirer."And when you belong to a group that's not afforded those beliefs at equal levels as everyone else, that's evidence of discrimination against that group but also a threat to those American values."

Azizbelieves that"the most vulnerable person in America in terms of having their civil rights denied outright or circumscribed is a Muslim Arab who defends Palestinian rights."Sheemphasised that conflating criticism of Israel with snti-Semitism does injustice to the real, pervasive threat of anti-Semitism locally, nationally and globally.Groups such as Canary Mission, claims Aziz,use accusations of anti-Semitism to silence critics of Israel's policies and practices in two ways:

"One is to prevent or eliminate anyone with views they disagree with from being in positions of influence at the micro or macro level," saidAziz. "Second is to kill any kind of debate or disagreement about Israeli state policies or practices among the public, among college students, among media, among politicians."

READ:It took just 16 minutes to learn what it means to be an American Muslim visiting Jerusalem

Flip the situation to a member of any other marginalised group speaking in support of human rights and progressive values, such as Black Lives Matter, and the illegality ofAbulhawa'stermination and its violation of her civil rights would be undebatable, Azizpointed out.

As mentioned,Abulhawa'sstory inthe Philadelphia Inquirersparked a wider debate about cancel culture. "There's no "cancel culture" that is more consistent, coherent and rooted in modern American political life than the suppression of Palestinian voices and pro-Palestinian views in US public discourse," saidWashington Postcolumnist Ishaan Tharoor.

Describing the hypocrisy of those advocating free speech while supporting the suppression of pro-Palestine voices, Tharoor added:"It has been grotesque to see, in recent years, people who built their whole careers enabling or participating in this OG "cancel culture" now position themselves as champions of free speech. You know who they are. And you know they will never admit their hypocrisy."

Tharoor's comments prompted his followers to tweet about the double-standards of people rousing moral panic over cancel culture while ignoring the state-led crackdown on critics of Israel. "We have laws in multiple states that punish people for protesting Israel and the cancel culture ppl don't care one bit," said one of his followers. "Cancel culture has always been a rallying cry for the elite and privileged scared to face consequences. Nothing to do with speech."

Reacting toAbulwaha'sstory,prominentAmerican-Jewish commentator Peter Beinart said: "Any entire conversation about'cancel culture'in America today that ignores its Palestinian victims is morally bankrupt."The complete absence of Palestinian victims and suppression of Palestinian voices clearly exposes themoral bankruptcy ofthe debate aroundcancel culture. Asis the case, Palestine exposes the limits offree-speech,the hypocrisy of selective outrage, the margins of human dignity and the boundaries of international law and human rights.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

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Palestine exposes the limits of free-speech and the morally bankrupt 'cancel culture' - Middle East Monitor

When I stepped on campus at NYU four years ago, I was handed a school ID by a public safety officer. On the back, I found a list of phone numbers: who to call if I was in danger, who to call if I was sick, and . . . a bias response line? Not long after, I found posters with the same number on the back of bathroom stalls, urging students to call and report bias on campus.

Discrimination and harassment are one thing, but I found myself wondering what exactly constituted bias. Since I had watched students and professors canceled for all manner of perceived transgressions, it left me wondering what range of incidents could fall under this umbrella.

I had never heard of them before, but evidently schools across the country, from Drew University to Penn State, and the University of Missouri, have similar hotlines. Countless other colleges and universities have bias response teams, many with online reporting forms.

As a champion of free speech, I was concerned, so I dug a little deeper. Thats when I found a 2018 report on my schools hotline, which divided the calls they received into groups. Category 1 constituted alleged violations of the universitys anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. Category 2, however, included instances determined to be biased but not a violation. Those constituted 61% of the calls made.

Some examples of Category 2 incidents included concerns that marketing materials displayed on campus do not accurately represent the Universitys diverse population or concerns about a culturally-insensitive comment. I was perplexed by the subjectivity of incidents that could unleash an administrative team on perceived transgressors.

To be clear, I do not condone harassment or discrimination under any circumstances, and I absolutely believe targeted students should have a place to turn. But they already do. As Alex Morey, an attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) told me, Bias response teams are unnecessary, because existing laws preventing discrimination and harassment are already in place to curb unlawful behavior on campus.

That leaves bias response teams to figure out the vague contours of acceptable speech at their own discretion. Indeed, a survey of administrators on such teams revealed an ill-defined mission that goes far beyond enforcing anti-discrimination policy. One administrator interviewed described their duty as combatting whatever threat that might [be posed] to an inclusive campus. Another said they determine when the exercise of individual rights becomes reckless and irresponsible.

These thresholds are subjective to say the least and could invite any number of complaints. After investigating 230 college bias response teams around the country, a 2017 report by FIRE uncovered a whole host of complaints that range from laughable to downright censorious.

On-campus humor publication The Koala at the University of California San Diego, for example, was defunded by the school for poking fun at campus safe spaces after bias reports (including one requesting the school stop funding the publication) were submitted. An anonymous report at Ohios John Carroll University alleged that the African-American Alliances student protest was making white students feel uncomfortable. At the University of Michigan, a so-called snow penis sculpture was reported to their bias response team.

While not all reports result in punishment or investigation, introducing the bias response tripwire into a college community surely cant be healthy for free speech. Encouraging people to report their peers for protected speech creates a climate of fear around everyday discussions, Morey said. The threat of investigations . . . too often results in students and faculty self-censoring rather than risking getting in trouble.

In a world where accidentally mixing up the names of two students of the same race or saying epithets in a class about epithets could jeopardize your reputation or your job encouraging students to call a hotline on transgressors is downright dystopian.

If we cant discuss touchy subjects and wrestle with controversial ideas on campuses, where can we? We come to college to ask the unaskable and answer the unanswerable questions of our time. Sometimes that means we might express something inartfully or, yes, sometimes offensively. But discussion, debate and resolution are the remedies to that tension. Not a hotline.

Rikki Schlott is a 22-year-old student, journalist and activist.

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Bias hotlines at US colleges have led to a witch hunt culture on campus - New York Post

Published 12:00 am Monday, August 29, 2022

The Internet that Silicon Valley promised us was supposed to be a haven for new ideas, robust free speech and a free flow of information.

Instead, the Internet we got is dominated by a handful of Big Tech companies that wield unprecedented power over nearly every aspect of our lives.

While Google and Facebook are amassing billions of dollars in advertising revenue, small, local and independent media companies, which produce content that fuels these platforms, have to fight for scraps.

Big Tech does everything it can to ensure that its users never leave their platform for other sites depriving small and local publishers of their chance to monetize their content.

In my home state of Colorado, 59 percent of residents get their news from Facebook and 44 percent of residents use Google as their primary source of news.

As a result, small, local and independent publishers are shuttering their doors, and the companies that dont align with the ideologies of Silicon Valleys elite that make up these tech giants are punished and censored. Recent reporting shows that local newspapers in the U.S. are dying off at a rate of two per week, as 360 newspapers have shuttered since the end of 2019.

Big Techs suffocation of local news is important because Americans trust their local news 73 percent of U.S. adults surveyed by the Poynter Media Trust Survey said they have confidence in their local newspaper, compared to 55 percent for national network news stations. Moreover, local news helps bind our communities by reporting on events closest to us, our friends and our families. It can present diverse ideas and opinions often unexamined by mainstream corporate media.

Data from the News/Media Alliance shows that news publishers employ 9,560 Colorado reporters and newsroom staff. Big Techs ad tech tax takes 50-70 percent of every ad dollar from news publishers while hiring zero reporters. Local papers could hire more reporters if Big Tech paid them for the quality journalism that fuels their platforms and profits.

Fortunately, several bipartisan solutions gaining momentum in Congress are designed to reign in the excesses of Big Tech. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is among the most promising pieces of legislation.

The JCPA is designed to address Big Techs unprecedented assault on the free press and free speech by allowing small, local and independent news publishers to band together to negotiate better terms with Big Tech (notably Google and Facebook) for using their content.

Most importantly, the JCPA prohibits viewpoint discrimination, meaning the Big Tech platforms cannot exclude publications with conservative editorial pages, like our Washington Examiner and others.

Due to antitrust laws, news publishers are forced to cut deals with Facebook and Google one-on-one. The bill removes legal obstacles to news organizations ability to negotiate collectively and secure fair terms from gatekeeper platforms that regularly access news content without paying for its value.

Hundreds of small, local and independent news publishers from across the political spectrum support the JCPA. Recent polling by the News/Media Alliance found that 70 percent of Americans believe it is important for Congress to pass the JCPA and more than two-thirds (67 percent) of Republican respondents agree that elected officials who oppose the JCPA are allowing Big Tech to have all the negotiating power instead of arming local media with the tools to fight back.

The JCPA is a crucial first step to standing up to Big Techs anti-competitive practices, and it is a bill that both Republicans and Democrats can get behind. Small and local publishers work hard to report the news and cover their communities, yet Big Tech gets to profit from their work. This is fundamentally unfair, and the JCPA will bring about a much-needed change.

Contact your member of Congress to support the JCPA and ensure Big Tech doesnt cancel local news.

Christopher P. Reen the past president of Americas Newspapers, the leading national association of more than 1,600 online and print newspapers.

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Christopher P. Reen: Hometown papers stand up to big tech - The Tribune | The Tribune - Ironton Tribune

The Nasdaq logo is displayed at the Nasdaq Market site in Times Square in New York City, U.S., December 3, 2021. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

Register

(Reuters) - Two conservative groups seeking to invalidate Nasdaq's board diversity rule will argue their case in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday.

The hearing comes about a year after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the proposal and after many companies have already started disclosing diversity on their boards.

Here's an explanation of the challenge and what to expect next.

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The rule requires Nasdaq-listed companies to publicly disclose the diversity of their boards, either in annual proxy statements or on their websites. By 2025 or 2026, depending on their listing tier, companies must either have two diverse directors, including one who identifies as female and another as an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+, or explain why they do not have such representation.

Conservative think-tank National Center for Public Policy Research and the Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment, a group formed by conservative legal activist Edward Blum, are challenging the Nasdaq rule.

They argue it violates the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment by encouraging discrimination on the basis of sex and race. They also say it flouts the First Amendment's protection of free speech by requiring companies who do not have diverse boards to engage in "self-condemnation."

The SEC said in a brief that those arguments do not apply to Nasdaq, which is a private entity.

Nasdaq, which entered the case as an intervenor, said in a brief that deeming its rule a government action would "turn broad swaths of the nations economy into arms of the state."

The groups also say the Securities Exchange Act does not authorize the rule, while the SEC says it fulfills the law's aim by providing investors with useful information.

Republican attorneys general from several states filed a brief in support of the groups, while institutional investors and a coalition of Nasdaq-listed companies, among others, have filed briefs arguing that the rule should be upheld.

The three judges on the panel hearing the Nasdaq case were appointed by Democratic presidents. Whichever side loses the appeal may ask the full 5th Circuit for review. A majority of the court's judges were appointed by Republicans, several of whom have expressed skepticism about the scope of the SEC's authority in other cases.

Jackie Liu, a partner at Morrison & Foerster who counsels companies on corporate governance, said that in her experience companies are not waiting for board diversity requirements to clear judicial review.

Part of the reason is because they don't want to violate any rules that are upheld, Liu said. But it's also because pressure from shareholders and employees has become the "driving force" in companies' decisions on board diversity.

"The ship has sailed, whether all these rules are struck down or not."

The case is Alliance For Fair Board Recruitment v. SEC, 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 21-60626.

For NCPPR: Peggy Little and Sheng Li of the New Civil Liberties Alliance

For the Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment: Boyden Gray and Jonathan Berry of Boyden Gray & Associates

For the SEC: Dan Berkovitz, Michael Conley, Tracey Hardin, Daniel Matro and John Rady

Read More:

Creating a split, en banc 5th Circuit OKs court challenge to SEC proceeding

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Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Thomson Reuters

Jody Godoy reports on banking and securities law. Reach her at jody.godoy@thomsonreuters.com

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Showdown over Nasdaq board diversity rule heads to 5th Circuit - Reuters

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Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, revealed the Left's double standard on free speech Saturday on "Unfiltered with Dan Bongino."

REP. JIM JORDAN: They don't think that the First Amendment rights apply to you and [me]. Think about what they've said about your free speech rights. The Left today says if you don't agree with them, you're not even allowed to talk and if you try, we're going to call you racist, and we're going to try to cancel you.

ELON MUSK SCARES LIBERALS, TWITTER AS HE PURSUES FREE SPEECH

And now we have the Left giving a wink and a nod to people actually trying to use violence and intimidation tactics against people they disagree with. So that's what frightens me their attack on your First Amendment rights, your Second Amendment rights, your Fourth Amendment due process rights. And now [there's] this almost this double standard that they have when it comes to violence that they see from people [who] agree with their political position.

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The Left does not think the First Amendment applies to the Right: Rep Jim Jordan - Fox News

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Letter: Conversion therapy is not a free speech issue - ECM Publishers

It was while he was writing his latest Edinburgh show that Frank Skinner noticed a problem with his brain. He was hoping to perform a cleaner, cleverer kind of act, one that would let him look out at the crowd and perhaps for the first time in his life not see anybody squirming in their seat in discomfort.

It was a struggle, the 65-year-old says with a grin, because I realised that I seem to think in knob jokes. And I have done since I was about 13. In the West Midlands, that was how people communicated!

30 Years of Dirt is not, then, a compendium of Skinners best sex gags of which there have been plenty over the years. Rather, its a comedic journey through his attempt to de-smutify his brain for the modern audience, a kind of personal challenge: can he even be funny without talking about penises? Its only a loose, lighthearted theme, but it still feels refreshing in a world where many comics seem to think their sole purpose is to say the most offensive thing possible.

I do wonder what all the fuss is about, he says, dismissing the idea that modern comedians have their free speech stifled. I dont think theres ever been a time when you could just say anything. He recalls an early comedy show this must have been in the late 80s where the host apologised to the crowd after Skinner had performed some risque sexual material. He said Id never play at the venue again and then he launched into a load of racist material and brought the house down. Everyones got their own standards and restraints. But I think its been good for me to keep questioning what I say. Its made me think more.

Skinner meets me in a coffee shop near his north London home. On the way here he says he was spotted by a fan, who stopped to ask how he was doing. As the fan left, Skinner heard him say to his mate: He used to be in Doctor Who.

Im guessing he means Capaldi? Skinner ponders, looking at me for confirmation. Then his expression changes. I hope its not William Hartnell! The actor who played the First Doctor, after all, would be 114 by now.

Skinner has been funny for as long as he can remember. As a teenager he used to bring props to the pub, or to the factory where he worked, to make people laugh: clingfilm dipped in beer might look like dangling snot after a fake sneeze; a Vicks inhaler up one nostril might work for a gag about ivory hunters. That was my outlet then, doing a sort of improvised standup in the pub. I didnt know I was practising.

Growing up in Smethwick, an industrial town west of Birmingham, he had never thought of comedy as a viable career. Known to his friends and family as Christopher Collins (he stole his stage name from a member of his dads dominoes team), he drank away most of his 20s, wondering what he was good at and where his life was heading. It was only as he turned 30 and started telling jokes on stage that he realised all those wasted years were full of authentically grim material that was perfect for comedy.

His early shows were disastrous. But within a couple of years he had won Edinburghs prestigious Perrier prize. Soon he was hosting his own long-running TV chatshow, and becoming a key figure in 90s new lad culture thanks to Fantasy Football League, the television show in which he and comedy partner David Baddiel sat around in a living-room set taking the piss out of footballers. How does Skinner look back on that era?

I dont sit and watch my own things, but occasionally Ive seen bits, and most of it, I can honestly say, Id still do, he says. But some stuff, no. On the chatshow, I did a weekly song as Bob Dylan and there were some complaints that [one of the songs] was homophobic. It went to Ofcom and they found it not to be homophobic. And I watched that back recently and I thought, no, no, that was homophobic they got that wrong. But then other things we did get fined for I look at now and think it was unfair. So its endlessly debatable.

He readily admits that he has made some terrible mistakes in more than 30 years as a comic. Take Skinner and Baddiels treatment of Jason Lee, the black Nottingham Forest player whose lack of form on the pitch led to merciless mocking on Fantasy Football League and the popularising of a terrace chant about his haircut (Hes got a pineapple on his head). One day, Baddiel even blacked up as Lee for a sketch, complete with a pineapple to represent his hair.

It was bad, yeah, says Skinner. I spoke to Dave about it recently, from a how-the-fuck-did-that-ever-happen point of view. I still dont know how it happened. I know why we took the piss out of him, because Id watched him on Match of the Day missing several goals, so a sketch about him being unable to put a piece of paper into a bin worked. But when Dave walked out from makeup [in blackface] that night, I still dont know why one or both of us . or someone there didnt say what the fuck is happening?

This racial aspect isnt the entire story, either, he admits. I cant look back on it now without seeing it as bullying. There was a big response to it. People started to send in loads of pictures of pineapples, and so it ran and ran and ran. Looking back, it was a bullying campaign. And its awful. And yeah, Im ashamed of it. And weve said that to each other without any Guardian journalist to impress. It wouldnt be too much to say were both deeply ashamed.

In his 2001 autobiography, Skinner acknowledges the incident but glosses over it, even defends it from accusations of racism. Since then, he seems to have done some serious soul searching. This year, he told an audience at the Hay festival about growing up in Smethwick: I used racist language, I was sexist, I was homophobic. That, he says today, was just how it was back in the 1970s.

But when I talk about growing up in the West Midlands, there wasnt an alternative voice for me to either respond to or ignore. The Jason Lee incident, he accepts, was a different situation. By then wed come through the alternative comedy circuit, where non-racist, non-sexist was the banner handle. So its not like we didnt know. Because me and Dave knew.

Ive never heard either of them talk like this in public. Weve never done the big public apology, says Skinner, who is still best mates with Baddiel. Something doesnt sit well with me. They look a bit like union card apologies: I just need to keep working; Ill apologise for anything, just let me keep working. I didnt want to be part of that.

He adds: There is no excuse involved, though, because there is no excuse. Because Im blaming us. But something I never hear mentioned in any of this is that we had a representative from the BBC in the audience every week. The BBC watched the show before it went out and OKed it. They were supposed to be a guiding hand, not letting us fuck up. But thats a side issue. It was a vendetta. An unintentional vendetta but still a vendetta.

In reality, Skinner was never anything quite so simple as a new lad. Parts of his background he has a masters in English literature; he is a practising Roman catholic never fitted that description and so, he says, the press ignored it. These days, perhaps because of his age, he is allowed more space to talk about his cerebral passions. Poetry is one he has written a short book on the subject (How to Enjoy Poetry) that deep-dives into Stevie Smiths nine-line work Pad, Pad, and he also presents an engaging and accessible podcast on the subject, Frank Skinners Poetry Podcast. Was this part of a career plan to position himself as a more enlightened male?

He laughs at the idea. I probably should have those big career thoughts, shouldnt I? It actually came about by accident, but its ended up being the biggest labour of love job Ive done.

Skinner once had a chat with Eddie Izzard about what they could share about their lives on stage. The conclusion was that it was fine for Izzard to discuss wearing womens clothes, but as for Skinners own religious beliefs? God, no. Yet recently even that position has shifted a little. Last year he published A Comedians Prayer Book, which features him talking to the supreme being in his typically down-to-earth way (I always liked that Jesus hung out with sinners. It made me feel potentially understood). Does he feel more comfortable talking about God on stage now?

I think its more acceptable, he says, not entirely convincingly. I do still feel a slight tension sometimes when I bring it up. I can feel it in the air.

Still, he thinks its important that people get out there and talk about religion in the way they talk about other aspects of life. One of the things religion has suffered from is being spoken of in grave terms constantly. I take it seriously, obviously, but I dont take it seriously, if you know what I mean.

Another thing that always fitted awkwardly with Skinners new lad tag: hes been a teetoaller since the 90s. As a teenager, he had swiftly become a problem drinker, and during his 20s he would regularly wake up to a glass of sherry (or, later on, when things got really bad, a glass of Pernod). He says his life wasnt miserable, its just that he had nothing in it for which to stay sober. His health was in a sorry state. Then his comedy career started and he knew he couldnt risk messing it up. Still, the temptation to drink must have been everywhere, and Skinner has admitted that he has never found anything to recreate the buzz of getting drunk.

I used to dream about it probably three nights a week, he says today. But funnily enough, since Ive had a kid, those dreams have faded away.

Skinner spent his heyday sleeping around, often turning the encounters into gags in his act. But he has been with his current partner, Cath Mason, for about two decades now and they have a 10-year-old son, Buzz. I ask about the relationship, and he rather poetically describes falling in love as an out-of-body experience. David Foster Wallace once said OK, hes not the bloke youd necessarily go to for happiness [the writer killed himself in 2008], but he talked about rising above a given situation, until you realise youre not the main character there, but just an extra in a bigger scene. So with Cath, I met someone who I started to care about to the level where I felt them slightly foregrounded in my consciousness, and me slightly behind them. And if youve been through the celebrity process, its so unusual to not be the star of every scene in the film of your life. And of course then, when I had a child, I was twice removed from my ego.

Skinner became a father at 55, by which point he had assumed the opportunity had passed. Not just because of age but because he and Cath argued like mad. I thought: we cant bring a kid into this. Because apparently youre not supposed to argue in front of them. Although my argument, speaking of arguments, is that its quite good for a kid to see you screaming at each other and then afterwards saying: Weve talked this through and were hugging again.

Skinner adored his own parents, who died a year apart from each other just before he had found proper fame. But his father was a drinker, a gambler and a fighter. It was rare that he became the target of his fathers rage, but it did happen occasionally.

Hitting kids thats another of those things that have changed, he says. The idea of hitting my own child is as ridiculous to me as the idea of me flying home from here unaided. But I didnt think that when I was on the other end of it. It seemed normal. I dont remember anyone ever airing the view that we shouldnt hit our kids until I think the 1980s? It didnt reach the West Midlands, that bit.

I love my dad, he continues. But there would be a moment around 10.40pm where there was a tension about what mood he would bring back from the pub. I wouldnt want my kid to be remembering that.

Evolution is what Skinner is all about people can change and they can grow. When he made his comments about racism and homophobia at Hay, he says, there was a slight backlash from some on the left. Some people were apparently saying: Well, you never really grow out of that. But to pretend that I am still the person I was then would be ludicrous.

And his jokes have evolved with him. The week before we speak, Skinner has been road-testing some of his new material. Debuting new stuff can be tricky, even more so when youve banned knob jokes. But a night or two ago he says he hit one of those magic moments where it all came together. I couldnt get the material out quick enough, he says, before reaching for one last poetic metaphor. When that happens, you can feel like an aeolian harp. Its as if the comedy universe is playing you.

Frank Skinners 30 Years of Dirt is at the Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh, from 4 to 28 August. For more information and tickets go to frankskinnerlive.com

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Theres never been a time when you could just say anything: Frank Skinner on free speech, his bullying shame and knob jokes - The Guardian

Using a social media soapbox to express partisan views won't make you a more attractive employee prospect. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

Apparently, more than two million New Zealanders use LinkedIn, the social media site which aims to "facilitate professional networking".

In my previous life as a business owner, I found it very useful for researching potential employees or clients in order to get an idea of their past career and accomplishments.

This gives LinkedIn a fairly limited function and means it's not really the place to look for love, sell your car, or post pictures of your dog looking cute (not that I let that stop me).

I don't spend much time there these days but when I do, I'm bemused by the growing number of people who use it as a digital soapbox to share their political views. Although there's no law against this (yet) I really doubt that this is helpful to anyone's career. The issue is not the quality, or otherwise, of these opinions, but the appropriateness. You don't use LinkedIn to post about sport, holidays, or your grandmother's amazing lasagne recipe, so why post about politics?

Rarely in business did I ever witness a partisan political discussion, and I generally had little idea of the political views of those that I worked with. This is because it's not relevant to our day jobs.

You wouldn't put your political affiliations on your CV, and if a recruiter asks you how you vote, it's probably not somewhere you want to work. Employers don't react to a political take on LinkedIn by saying: "Great, Nigel has some bats*** crazy views, doesn't care who knows it, and picks an argument with everyone! Let's get him in! He'd be perfect on the executive team." Unless, of course, the job is to work in a troll farm, in which case Nigel's in his element.

I've seen others politely pointing out that perhaps LinkedIn isn't really the place to share political views, only for them to be told "you use social media how you want; I'll use it how I want". That's true, you can do whatever you like. You can go to a job interview dressed as a Backstreet Boy riding a camel if you want, but outside of a 90s-themed circus it's unlikely to help you get a job. You may think that's rather judgemental of me, but then judging people is the whole point of the hiring process.

LinkedIn is a professional social media website for people looking for jobs, for people looking to hire other people, or for those wishing to promote their business.

Yes, that means it's crammed full of people talking about how clever they are, how proud and humble they are to win Waikato Area Salesman of the Year, or trying to sell you outsourced printing at the "super best" price, but as dull as you may find this, that's the point of the bloody thing. You may think it needs livening up a bit, but there are plenty of other places to go to be livened up online, not all of which are regularly scrutinised by prospective employers.

"Why should I worry, everybody agrees with my political views?"

This is unlikely seeing as only around a third of the population supports any party in particular. A passing sycophant may well applaud, but the multitude who disagree will make a mental note to avoid and quietly move on. I mentioned to a couple of senior people that I was writing about this subject and the overwhelming reaction was "about bloody time". (Although there was one who thought political posting was useful as an easy way to identify people never to hire.)

Employers are looking for somebody who they can pay to do their job well, not spend their days online demonstrating their lack of political nuance and debating totalitarianism with someone who doesn't understand it either.

Of course, there are those who say whatever they like on social media without any filter, Elon Musk for example. But I doubt that when he was first scratching around for people to fund his projects Musk was in the habit of referring to opponents as "pedo guy [sic]". These days as the richest man in the world he believes he can pretty much say whatever he likes. Still, not even Musk is bulletproof as his tweets insulting the Twitter Board are contributing to his pending court appearance where he stands to lose US$20 billion.

So, before you write that angry post about whatever it was somebody on the radio told you to be upset about, just remember that the majority of employers look at LinkedIn activity when reviewing applicants for a position. If you wouldn't say it to your in-laws on a first meeting, then it's probably best not to post it on LinkedIn.

As Abraham Lincoln said, "better to remain silent and to be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt". It's your career, look after it.

Link:
Paul Catmur: Free speech? The cost of talking politics on LinkedIn - New Zealand Herald

AUSTIN, Texas -- Jury selection is set for Monday in a trial that will determine for the first time how much Infowars host Alex Jones must pay Sandy Hook Elementary School parents for falsely telling his audience that the deadliest classroom shooting in U.S. history was a hoax.

The trial in Austin, Texas where the conspiracy theorist lives and broadcasts his show follows months of delays. Jones has racked up fines for ignoring court orders and he put Infowars into bankruptcy protection just before the trial was originally set to start in April.

At stake for Jones is another potentially major financial blow that could put his constellation of conspiracy peddling businesses into deeper jeopardy. He has already been banned from YouTube, Facebook and Spotify over violating hate-speech policies.

The trial involving the parents of two Sandy Hook families is only the start for Jones; damages have yet to be awarded in separate defamation cases for other families of the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

The lawsuits do not ask jurors to award a specific dollar amount against Jones.

Courts in Texas and Connecticut have already found Jones liable for defamation for his portrayal of the Sandy Hook massacre as a hoax involving actors aimed at increasing gun control. In both states, judges have issued default judgements against Jones without trials because he failed to respond to court orders and turn over documents.

The 2012 shooting killed 20 first graders and six educators. Families of eight of the victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school are suing Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems.

Jones has since acknowledged that the shooting took place. During a deposition in April, Jones insisted he wasnt responsible for the suffering that Sandy Hook parents say they have endured because of the hoax conspiracy, including death threats and harassment by Jones followers.

No, I dont (accept) responsibility because I wasnt trying to cause pain and suffering, Jones said, according to the transcripts made public this month. He continued: They are being used and their children who cant be brought back (are) being used to destroy the First Amendment.

Jones claimed in court records last year that he had a negative net worth of $20 million, but attorneys for Sandy Hook families have painted a different financial picture.

Court records show that Jones Infowars store, which sells nutritional supplements and survival gear, made more than $165 million between 2015 and 2018. Jones has also urged listeners on his Infowars program to donate money.

Associated Press reporter Paul J. Weber contributed to this report.

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Alex Jones' defamation trial finally set to begin in Texas - ABC News