Category Archives: Free Speech

As Fox News mounts its defense in the Dominion case and in a lawsuit by another voting systems company, Smartmatic, the networks lawyers have argued that core to the First Amendment is the ability to report on all newsworthy statements even false ones without having to assume responsibility for them.

The public had a right to know, and Fox had a right to cover, its lawyers wrote. As for inviting guests who made fallacious claims and spun wild stories, the network quoting the Sullivan decision argued that giving them a forum to make even groundless claims is part and parcel of the uninhibited, robust and wide-open debate on matters of public concern.

Last week, a federal judge ruled that the Smartmatic case against Fox could go forward, writing that at this point, plaintiffs have pleaded facts sufficient to allow a jury to infer that Fox News acted with actual malice.

The broadness of the First Amendment has produced strange bedfellows in free speech cases. Typically, across the political spectrum there is a recognition that the cost of allowing unrestrained discourse in a free society includes getting things wrong sometimes. When a public interest group in Washington State sued Fox in 2020, alleging it willfully and maliciously engaged in a campaign of deception and omission about the coronavirus, many First Amendment scholars were critical on the grounds that being irresponsible is not the same as acting with actual malice. That lawsuit was dismissed.

But many arent on Foxs side this time. If the network prevails, some said, the argument that the actual malice standard is too onerous and needs to be reconsidered could be bolstered.

If Fox wins on these grounds, then really they will have moved the needle too far, said George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center and a former lawyer for The New York Times. News organizations, he added, have a responsibility when they publish something that they suspect could be false to do so neutrally and not appear to be endorsing it.

Fox is arguing that its anchors did query and rebut the most outrageous allegations.

Paul Clement, a lawyer defending Fox in the Smartmatic case, said one of the issues was whether requiring news outlets to treat their subjects in a skeptical way, even if their journalists doubt that someone is being truthful, was consistent with the First Amendment.

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First Amendment Scholars Want to See the Media Lose These Cases - The New York Times

About a year ago, writer and University of Berkeley professor Grace Lavery accepted a six-figure deal from Substack, under the newsletter platform's Pro scheme. At the end of January this year, Lavery decided to leave the platform, "belatedly," severing contractual ties and closing her account.

"Ive never been under any illusions about why a literary scholar specializing in Victorian literature and psychoanalysis was offered a lot of money by a tech startup," she wrote in a post on her blog. "It's because Im a trans woman, and about a year ago, Substack was facing public criticism for its publication of a number of authors critical of the movement for trans civil rights."

Lavery acknowledged that Substack's publisher agreement insists users must not use the platform "in a manner that is fraudulent, deceptive, threatening, abusive, harassing," but wrote, "I no longer have any faith that the executive team at Substack will enforce these Terms of Use, or the Content Guidelines. Because I do not trust that the platform will enforce its own rules, Im leaving."

Her move comes after a long trail of transphobic incidents on Substack. Lavery is now a part of an exodus of Substack writers, overwhelmingly considering it a home for users expressing transphobic comments and making money for such views (notably, Lavery herself was suspended off Twitter last month, for saying she hoped the Queen would die when diagnosed with Covid-19).

Such a collective reaction to Substack's refusal to tackle misinformation and hate speech is still happening. Writers are publicly speaking out about leaving Substack or calling out the company's policies when it comes to free speech, content moderation, and censorship.

It happened first in 2021, when trans writers including Jude Ellison Sady Doyle, Nathan Tankus, and Yanyi called out Substack in the wake of the platform's refusal to remove harmful content. In a final post on Substack before departing for nonprofit publishing platform Ghost, Doyle wrote that Substack has chosen to "platform hate groups." Meanwhile, Yanyi wrote, "I have no faith that Substack will protect me or other trans people from harassment or abuse."

This type of hateful content has been produced by people like British writer Graham Linehan, who posted libellous harassment, transphobic remarks, and hate speech towards Lavery and others through his Substack newsletter. Linehan was permanently kicked off Twitter in 2020 for "repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation." He remains on Substack, however, with thousands of paid subscribers.

Substack itself published a post around this time, doubling-down on their "hands-off philosophy" on content moderation, saying that writers and readers on Substack are "in charge" of what they say and who they subscribe to. "Writers own their content and their mailing lists and have full editorial control on Substack. Readers choose for themselves which writers to invite into their inboxes and their minds," the post read. It underscored the ideas in Substack's content moderation guidelines: that the platform is "different from social media platforms," writers are paid by the readers, who, in turn, "are in full control of what they see."

In January 2022, Mashable reported on Substack newsletters that promote anti-vaccine sentiments and COVID-19 misinformation, with writers like Dr. Joseph Mercola, Steve Kirsch, and Alex Berenson, each known for publishing a slew of misinformation surrounding the pandemic, finding a home on Substack after being deplatformed elsewhere. "The reason I chose a paid membership platform on Substack is because it will protect all of my content from censorship," Mercola wrote of launching his newsletter on the platform.

Following this report, Substack subsequently published a post through its company newsletter, written by CEO Chris Best and co-founders Jairaj Sethi and Hamish McKenzie. They described the "growing pressure" they face to censor content that "to some seems dubious or objectionable."

"We believe that when you use censorship to silence certain voices or push them to another place, you don't make the misinformation problem disappear but you do make the mistrust problem worse," they wrote.

The founders added that they will continue to give power to both readers and writers, and will "take a strong stance in defense of free speech."

This post, for Lavery, was a tipping point and the motivation behind her final decision to leave Substack.

She tells Mashable that her complaints about Linehan were "being taken seriously" by Substack's content moderation team via email, but they insisted "his conduct passed Terms of Use." Lavery also cited the distinction between free speech and harassment, saying, "It seems really weird that [Substack] is unwilling to make that distinction."

K. Tempest Bradford, a writer and teacher, also left Substack this year, in a similar protest.

"By not moderating, Substack isn't creating more trust, they're fostering an environment that's unsafe for marginalized, vulnerable people," she tells Mashable. Bradford says Substack's statement in January wasn't the catalyst for her decision, but it "certainly solidified" that she had made the right one for herself.

"It's irresponsible, especially at this stage of the internet," she says.

Similarly, Kirsten Han, a journalist and activist based in Singapore, was amongst the writers who left the platform. Han wrote a newsletter on Substack about politics, civil society, and social justice in Singapore; she was also the recipient of a grant from the company in April 2020. But she left Substack last year (moving to Ghost, too), citing transphobia on Substack and even raising direct concerns with the company about Linehan's content. This past year, she has also used Twitter to call out COVID misinformation on Substack and the company's hands-off approach to content moderation.

"Substack and tech companies should be working to be transparent, thoughtful, to work with civil society on their responsibilities," she says.

Like Bradford, Han tells Mashable that Substack has a responsibility "to moderate more," especially because some of the newsletters spreading hate speech "are getting a wide reach" and being monetized.

Many of the newsletter writers passing along misinformation and reiterating transphobic views are amongst Substack's paid users. Writers who use a subscription model include Linehan, Mercola, Berenson, and Kirsch. Paid creators keep 90 percent of the revenue, while Substack keeps ten. It's an appealing offer: the platform offered is sleek, efficient, and potentially financially rewarding.

According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), Substack has accumulated at least $2.5 million in revenue due to anti-vaccine newsletters, per year. The non-profit NGO said that Mercola and Berenson are the main contributors to this revenue, making "a combined $183,000 a month."

And, despite backlash from a band of writers and users, Substack has raked in the numbers overall: the company garnered over 35 million views in January 2022 alone, according to SimilarWeb. There are over 1 million paid subscriptions to publications on Substack, according to the company, and the top 10 paid publications on the platform "bring in more than $20 million a year."

Lavery, Han, and Bradford all seem to agree that the financial gains writers those who spread harm and hate are deriving from Substack furthered their dissatisfaction with the company. Such numbers fed into Bradford's withstanding argument for leaving, she says: "The revelation that the company paid certain writers what amounted to a salary in order to get them to publish their newsletters via Substack."

Han appreciates the argument Substack's leaders are grappling with.

"I get that its a complicated issue. I get the desire to protect and defend free speech and be a platform for free speech. Its an issue I work on a lot in Singapore. I just felt like [Substack] wasnt making sufficient distinctions and being upfront with themselves about their responsibilities. If whats being spread is false, thats not free speech. I dont feel comfortable with that false equivalency being set up," Han says.

Lavery also expresses "some sort of sympathy" with Substack.

"If they were found to have editorial control over any part of their platform, they would lose their business degree it would fall to the floor," she says. "The moment they do that, they stop being a publisher, and they start being a publication."

When approached for comment, a Substack representative told Mashable that they "respect writers' decision about where they want to publish their work," which is why they "make it easy" to pack up a Substack newsletter and neatly transition to other platforms.

"While it sucks whenever writers leave the platform, we continue to believe in freedom of the press and freedom of expression, and we will continue our hands-off approach to content moderation," they said.

Notably, there are those who are critical of Substack but continue to use the platform. Kent Anderson, a former publisher at Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and publishing director of the New England Journal of Medicine, has been a Substack user since 2018, via his newsletter The Geyser. He has been outspoken about the presence of misinformation on the platform.

"I got to know the founders [of Substack], and interviewed them for The Geyser, where they touted Substack as an alternative to misinformation platforms and one devoted to the truth," Anderson says. He believes they have since "abandoned" their stance.

"When you enter the information space, you have a duty to care aboutwhether the information you're putting out is accurate, about whatreaders might think or believe based on what you tell them, aboutyourreputation within society, and about integrity and compassion," Anderson says. "This goes for anyone involved, including platform providers." He adds Substack is feeding into "a vicious cycle" of misinformation and distrust.

Anderson has not yet left Substack, but tells Mashable that he is "considering options and alternatives," continuing to remain on the platform for the moment.

For many, the attractiveness Substack can offer has just not been enough to mitigate certain decisions. Han tells Mashable, "In a way, [leaving] worked out. Before all of this, though, I was happy at Substack."

Related Video: How to recognize and avoid fake news

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Substack creators are leaving the platform over misinformation and hate speech - Mashable

OPINION:

Led by Americas example, Western countries have shined as a global refuge for free expression and religious liberty, standing in contrast to the many authoritarian governments that act as paternalistic gatekeepers of their citizens speech.

Sadly, religious liberty is under siege in the West. State-imposed, social media endorsed, tyrannical censorship continues to seep into nations such as Finland and Canada as they attempt to purge dissident thought through prison sentences. If we are not careful, this contagion could soon affect American citizens First Amendment rights, including religious freedom.

Pivi Rsnen, a 62-year-old grandmother and former minister of Finlands Parliament for 26 years, was recently labeled a threat to society before being charged by Finlands Prosecutor General with three counts of ethnic agitation, a hate speech offense found in Finlands criminal code.

Why? Rsnen publicly professed her views on marriage and sexuality in a tweet quoting biblical scripture. Authorities interrogated Rsnen regarding her Christian beliefs and the tweets meaning before expanding the investigation into an unwarranted evidence-collecting mission to further uncover her beliefs on marriage and sexuality. She posted the tweet in 2019, but authorities dug back decades into her personal beliefs to build their case.

As a result, this 62-year-old grandmother is now facing jail time for a tweet.

Rsnen has not been the only Finnish citizen swept up in the countrys persecution of religious beliefs. Juhana Pohjola, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, was also indicted alongside Rsnen for a pamphlet he published in 2004. This pamphlet expressed his religious convictions and personal views on marriage and was published 4 years before the hate speech laws enactment.

Rsnen and Pohjola are each facing two years in jail and appeared in court for another hearing on February 14.

In both cases, the laws allegedly violated did not even exist when some of the evidence was created. Finland legalized same-sex marriage in 2017, just 5 years ago, and the hate speech laws were not enacted until 2008. If the charges are upheld, they will represent a remarkable escalation and a dangerous precedent. Ex post facto law is a hallmark of tyranny, as people may be punished at the whim of those in power.

The weaponization of the courts against faith leaders and public servants alike is rapidly dismantling and eroding Western values, including freedom of speech and religious liberty. At the same time, it is chipping away at the cultural, historical, and faith-based traditions of Finland and other nations. Perhaps the Finnish government should look at its own flag, which features the blue Nordic cross, to see a reminder of the countrys faith-based heritage.

As egregious as Finlands culture of censorship may be, it is not the only Western nation to inflict dictatorial speech restrictions onto its citizens. Canadas recently unanimously passed law, C-4, prevents its citizens from spreading Biblical views on marriage and sexuality. Canadian parents, faith leaders, and citizens who hold traditional views of marriage and sexuality will now face up to 5 years of jail time for providing spiritual guidance to those seeking counseling.

As a horrific assault on civil rights, Canadas egregious policy directly targets faith and has effectively placed targets on the backs of many of its own citizens. Should practitioners trying to assist those calling for help be thrown into jail for their compassion?

Our own country now faces similar concerns, as an American high school football coach lost his job for praying post-game on the field.Americas bedrock founding of religious freedom, enumerated in the First Amendment, has set a longstanding example for the world. By enabling and allowing Big-Tech oligarchs and bureaucrats to undermine the public by canceling and even criminalizing religious speech and expression, we too will be oppressed. While Canadian and European citizens have long accepted the erosion of their religious values, religion, and culture through tyrannical speech codes, Americans cannot follow suit.

Thankfully, several United States Senators have boldly spoken out to condemn Finlands unmerited, totalitarian government interference. Five Senators are urging the newly confirmed U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to monitor the landmark case closely.

The government cannot and should not have the authority to censor scripture, criminalize deeply held convictions, or nefariously target religious beliefs. Our government leaders were never envisioned to engineer society or adversely constrain American citizens socially. Instead, they were intended to serve in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. How can government be for the people when it actively targets, silences, and criminalizes its own citizens for their religious beliefs?

Americans, will you fight back to protect your voice, faith, and country? The trends across Western democracies are telling, and it may be too late if action is not taken soon.

Originally posted here:
Free Speech and the Bible on global trial - Washington Times

It all seems very reasonable how Polly Hopkins (Parenting should always trump politics, Feb. 24) describes being a mother, standing at a podium asking questions of a publicly elected body in the name of my childs well-being and education . But, how reasonable or smart is it to use the term domestic terrorist as a title in your Twitter name? Mostly, I would ask toward what end?

She reminds the Town Council that domestic terrorist is protected speech, and shes right. She can call herself anything she wants! Unfortunately, some individuals claiming their free-speech rights set aside the responsibility that comes with those rights. Not being appointed to a board is not an infringement on her rights. She made her decision and the council made theirs. They fulfilled their elected responsibility.

I confess to not knowing much about Twitter handles, but I do know that we are suffering in this country from terminal uniqueness being played out under the mantra of parental rights and protected speech. In my opinion, the council was right to not appoint someone to a position who takes pride in self-describing on this Twitter handle, temporary or otherwise, as a domestic terrorist. We are living in a time when elected officials, school board members and teachers are at the mercy, at best, of abusive rhetoric, and, at worst, being threatened with harm. I often wonder if parents claiming their free speech and parental rights consider that their children are listening and watching those who are supposed to be the adults in the room their parents?

So, Polly Hopkins claims that her denial of a seat on a commission is politics, pure and simple, but I would suggest thats exactly where she wanted this to go. We have to buy that her decision to use the term domestic terrorist as a title in her Twitter name is mere happenstance, thoughtless naivete on her part, or her doing exactly what she accuses Mr. Moffitt and Mr. Robbins of, that is, playing at divisive politics. It all seems so reasonable parents using a platform for free speech and standing together on social topics....

Beverly Conti

Westerly

Original post:
Letter: Free speech is a choice that has consequences - The Westerly Sun

DENVER In politics, language matters. It can be inspiring, moving entire crowds to vote or support a position. It can also be ugly or downright demeaning, with mudslinging and name-calling.

In more recent years, some of that language has included calls to silence or even imprison political opponents.

During a recent FEC United meeting in Castle Rock, some called for the imprisonment of Secretary of State Jenna Griswold. Members of the audience chanted, Lock her up, as one speaker questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Give her due process and justice and I think if you are involved in election fraud, you deserve to hang, said Shawn Smith. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways. Some people say Im endorsing violence. Im not endorsing violence. Im saying once you put your hand on a hot stove, you get burned and you ought to see it coming and thats what happens to tyrants.

This is not the first time Griswold has heard language like this before. In December, she asked state lawmakers for $200,000 annually for guards and other security-related measures after receiving escalating threats over her advocacy of elections security.

Nearly two weeks later at a Colorado Conservative Patriot Alliance conference, a gubernatorial candidate used similar language to call for the imprisonment of Governor Jared Polis.

I believe if elected officials break the law, theres one place for them," said Danielle Neuschwanger. "Let me remind them what a jail cell looks like. When Governor Polis is ruining our economy and taking money out of your pockets and lining marijuana companies' pockets, I believe he belongs in a jail cell."

When does free speech go too far?

Despite the harsh language and calls for the imprisonment of political foes, speech like this isnt actually illegal, according to Alan Chen, a law professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

As extreme as those forms of expression are, they don't actually meet the requirements of showing a true intent to commit an unlawful act of violence, Chen said.

The First Amendment offers vast amounts of protection for free speech, but it does have some limitation. Speech is not considered to be protected when it is considered a "true threat." The U.S. Supreme Court has defined true threats as a serious expression of an intent to commit an unlawful act of violence against a particular individual or a group of individuals.

Obviously, many of these people aren't really in a position to imprison or arrest public officials, so that makes the threat less realistic and therefore less of a concern, Chen said.

Something else that is not considered protected speech is incitement, when someone uses language to encourage or incite another person to commit an unlawful act. It can be difficult to prove intent versus political hyperbole, though.

However, political rhetoric like this is not necessarily new in the context of the countrys political history.

We forget that heated political rhetoric has been going on since at least the late 1700s in the United States, Chen said. Throughout history, politicians have used hyperbole, exaggeration, and even something that sounds dangerous to sort of make their views known.

Just because its legal, is it right?

While the language may be legal, both Democratic and Republican state parties have come out against threatening rhetoric.

As chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, I have condemned any violence or threats of violence for the purpose of political means, said Kristi Burton Brown, chairwoman of the Colorado Republican Party.

Burton Brown says the voters she has spoken with want less rhetoric from both sides of the aisle and more focus on the issues. She also says she doesnt believe threatening language is an effective political tool to get elected, but says people from both sides have participated in the harsh language in the past.

Our stance is violence should never be a part of political discourse, said Howard Chou, vice chair of the Colorado Democratic Party. Coming out with a violent type of attack or calling other people to be hanged, we're going down a slippery slope that's really going to incite a kind of discourse ... that's very un-American. It's very disturbing, and it's going to lead to a trend of more violent action.

However, political science professors say they have seen this type of vitriol ramp up in recent months and years, not only with threatening language, but also with attempts to delegitimize other candidates.

You don't just run against someone, you lock them up. You try and essentially just take people out of society, and that's a dangerous area, said Seth Masket, a professor of political science and director of the Center on American Politics at the University of Denver. All those are things that are just sort of warning signs that lead to democratic decline. They lead to elections being increasingly contested.

Masket says sometimes political figures will use this language strategically just to rally their base. However, that rhetoric from politicians can sometimes inspire some of their supporters to try to take matters into their own hands. In 2017, a left-leaning activist shot U.S. Congressman Steve Scalise and several others during a Republican baseball team practice. In 2020, a group of far-right men plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer but were caught.

Whether it's treason and hanging or violence aimed at particular public officials, it does have the potential to become reality, said Robert Preuhs, chair of the political science department at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

There is a balance between free speech and threats. Preuhs believes protected speech is an important piece of any democracy, but it comes with downsides.

It's fundamental part of what establishes a democracy, but at the same time there's always that risk, he said.

With the 2022 midterm elections getting closer, the political partisanship and harsh language is likely to increase as both sides vie to get their candidates elected.

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As some call for political foes to be locked up, where's the line between free speech and threats? - The Denver Channel

For the past year, history professor Michael Phillips has been warning about a right-wing purge taking place at Collin College, led by administrators angling to remove progressive voices from the Texas school. Then he himself was purged.

Last month, Phillips, an award-winning professor of history, was called to a meeting about his impending removal from the institution hed taught at for the past fourteen years. As he recalls, he was offered a deal: he and college leadership would craft a narrative that he had left voluntarily, and theyd help him find a job to move on to, giving him a graceful exit. He refused. Not long after, he was told he would not be employed come May 15. Hes now the fourth professor to be fired from the public community college in Texas over free speech issues.

The firing of Phillips and his colleagues is first and foremost a story about administrative abuse at Collin College, where administrators have used the deliberate lack of tenure to single out and punish faculty who are too outspoken. But its also part of a larger story were seeing unfold across the country, of the Right working with increasing ferocity to stamp out what they see as progressivism in education, trampling over free speech rights in the process.

Phillips had been clashing with administrators for some time before he was fired. Phillips immediately butted heads with now president H. Neil Matkin when he was a finalist for the position in 2015. Concerned that Matkin had received degrees from an unaccredited college run by the Worldwide Church of God (now known as Grace Communion International) described by one former adherent as a white supremacist doomsday cult that taught that God approved of slavery and wanted white people to rule the world he recalls confronting Matkin privately, asking him about his attitudes to matters like interracial dating and evolution.

According to Phillips, Matkin got upset. For Matkins part, hed later complain that Phillips had come to the conclusion the church was racist and that therefore I was racist.

Two years later, Phillips authored several op-eds for the Dallas News calling for the removal of Confederate statues in the city, the second one getting the signature of one hundred religious leaders, activists, and scholars, including nine Collin College faculty.

They faced immediate pushback. Suzanne Jones, a professor of education at Collin, was asked by administrators to remove Collins name from her signature on the op-ed, according to a lawsuit she later filed. Phillips says he, too, was asked by his campus provost not to use the colleges name, fearing it would hurt the colleges image and make locals feel bad, since their ancestors were Confederates.

To her, the default face of a Collin College student and a resident of the county was a white face, he says now. It didnt occur to her that black people mattered, and maybe black people wouldnt think it was a bad thing.

The next clash came after the 2019 El Paso shooting, whose perpetrator had attended Collin College. Matkin instructed faculty not to talk about the incident, and both Phillips and another faculty member independently recalled Matkin then announcing to those assembled the shooters grade point average (a violation of federal law).

Soon after, Phillips was quoted in the Washington Post report on the shooter, mentioning the presence of racist fliers on the Collin campus and the DallasFort Worth region in recent years, fliers whose existence was a matter of public record. Despite viewing the gag order on the subject as unconstitutional Professors have a right to talk about matters of public concern, he says Phillips had thought he had stayed within its bounds, having refused to discuss the shooter and offering only to talk about the historical context, about which he had written a prominent book. Nevertheless, he recalls being called in by unhappy administrators as a result.

But it was the arrival of the pandemic that sent events hurtling toward their endgame. We had very cordial correspondence about one issue or another over the years, former history professor Lora Burnett recalls about her relationship with Matkin. He never had a cross word for me, and I not to him, until COVID.

Matkin had taken a distinctly blas approach to COVID-19, to the point that even hes since admitted there were things that I did say early on that werent terribly helpful. He claimed the pandemic had been blown utterly out of proportion, that reports about it were too sensational, that deaths had been clearly inflated, and that Texans were one hundred times more likely to die in car crashes, which he later acknowledged was not true.

He resisted faculty requests to do remote learning, in line with neighboring institutions, and kept in-person classes going through the 2020 fall semester. A seventy-year-old nursing professor died of the virus a few months after that, not long after one of her students had tested positive. Her family is convinced she caught it while teaching.

According to Phillips, he was admonished for several tweets obliquely critical of the colleges pandemic policy on his personal Twitter account, one suggesting the college didnt care about its staffs health and safety, which he was asked to delete. The other described a dream he had of people seated together without masks at a college, wondering if that was the scenario coming in the fall.

The final straw came a year later, when faculty were told by administrators that staff and faculty were forbidden from even recommending to students that they wear masks voluntarily. The reasoning given was Texas governor Greg Abbotts ban on mask mandates even though Abbotts later order banning vaccine mandates strongly encouraged as a matter of personal responsibility that Texans abide by various pandemic mitigation practices.

Phillips took a photo of the PowerPoint slide outlining the policy and posted it on social media, before objecting to the board of trustees that faculty shouldnt be withholding critical information from students. Days later, he was given a discipline warning, then told his contract would not be renewed.

Theyre now retaliating against the most vocal, most principled faculty member, and the most vocal supporter of the rest of us who were disciplined, says Burnett.

As Burnetts words suggests, Collins clampdown on speech goes well beyond Phillips. Four faculty have lost their jobs now for exercising their First Amendment rights, a gross breach of the principle of academic freedom.

Burnett first entered the crosshairs when a post on her personal social media page became the subject of a right-wing cancel culture campaign. Her tweet calling for the moderator of the 2020 vice presidential debate to talk over Mike Pence until he shuts his little demon mouth up was seized on by right-wing media and organizations, leading Republican state representative Jeff Leach to text Matkin, asking if Burnett was paid with taxpayer dollars. Im aware of the situation Jeff and will deal with it, Matkin replied, adding, Appreciate you. Good luck in November friend.

Burnett further drew Matkins ire by tweeting criticisms of the colleges pandemic policies. In February of last year, Leach tweeted out that her firing was BIG WIN, unwittingly revealing both Collin leaderships plans to fire her and that he was apparently privy to them. Later that month, she was informed the college would not be renewing her contract. Shes since won a $70,000 settlement from the college plus payment of her legal fees.

Audra Heaslip was a humanities professor who had worked at the college for fifteen years, nearly ten of them as full-time faculty. She says she felt morally compelled to bring up staff concerns about COVID policy in 2020, when people started texting her, asking her to speak up.

There was already an environment of fear where you dont ever ask questions or speak up against anything, she says.

Heaslip recalls putting together a document of peer-reviewed research on the virus in summer 2020 and asking people to add their comments to it. She hoped it would start a conversation instead, she says, Matkin took it as a hostile move, referring to the document as a set of demands. In January 2021, she was told the president had declined to renew her contract.

Suzanne Jones, who had earlier run afoul of administrators for signing her name to Phillipss op-ed against Confederate monuments, also sparked anger by pushing back against the schools lax COVID policy in a Facebook post. But Jones says she suspects it was being on the faculty council when it wrote a resolution asking for safety precautions at the start of the pandemic that really drew administrators ire. She was accused by administrators of going outside normal channels of communication and learned the same month she, too, would not have her contract renewed, ending a twenty-year career at the college.

It wasnt always constitutionally protected speech that was the issue. Photography professor Byrd Williams had been at Collin for nearly thirty years when he says leadership moved to push him out. They started getting rid of all the people who had an opinion, plus the people in the highest pay rate, he says. They told me we can hire two people for what we pay you. Meanwhile, English professor Barbara Hanson was denied a multiyear contract for mysterious reasons, with school officials citing her application for two administrative positions at the college and cherry-picked student evaluations.

Then there was the Texas Faculty Association (TFA), the closest thing to a higher education union in the right-to-work state an advocacy group, rather than a labor organization with the right to strike. The ousted faculty note that Jones and Heaslip were both local officers of the Collin chapter of TFA, as was Phillips, who stepped in when the latter was removed. Joness misuse of the colleges name on a website associated with the TFA was specifically mentioned by Matkin as one of the reasons she was pushed out.

He certainly didnt choose us out of faculty council, because there were a lot of people on there who were a lot more vocal, says Jones. To me, it looks like they dont want this advocacy group or union existing.

Matkin is an obvious lightning rod for outrage over this spate of firings. Besides his conservative connections and the leading role he played in ousting the various professors, Matkin had stirred up accusations of unprofessionalism through incidents like revealing the El Paso shooters GPA, and his tendency to make offensive anatomical jokes about African Americans. But thats not the whole story.

It seems like the root of the problem is in the board of trustees, says Heaslip.

The leadership has a very pronounced conservative Republican slant, says Burnett.

Trustees include executives from health insurance company Cigna, corporate consulting firms, and a medical technology firm. But ousted faculty typically point to Bob Collins, whose reelection endorsement page as trustee lists the Collin County GOP, Collin County Conservative Republicans, and the conservative organizations of We the People Allen and McKinney First PAC, which says its membership dues go toward fund[ing] the conservative movement locally. It also lists a collection of Republican state legislators, including Jeff Leach, the lawmaker who had pushed Matkin to act against Burnett for her tweet criticizing Pence.

Collins, a founding trustee of the college, made clear in a 2015 speech why it uses the system of rolling contracts for its faculty, which have made it so easy for administrators to push those like Phillips out.

Collin College does not have tenure. Thats by design, he said:

Where you have tenure is where you tend to have a self-promoting faculty. So, with the tenure system, you tend to have the ultraliberal, anti-capitalism socialistic professors want to hire more just like them. So, we dont have that here. We have a contract system.

Collins would later defend Matkin when he placed a bowl on his head to mimic a yarmulke and called himself Cary Israel, the previous, Jewish president of Collin College. Its a shame we cant do things like that and not have people get offended, Collins said at the time. Yet it appears both Collins and Matkins defense of free speech only goes so far: while racist jokes may not cross the line for them, progressive politics, pandemic mitigation, and workplace organizing do.

The Collin College saga is a free speech and First Amendment scandal. Its a violation of academic freedom. Its an incident of union busting. And its just one case of many of these basic rights being trampled at educational institutions across the country, even as right-wing media and organizations point to campus protests as an authoritarian threat while ignoring or even cheering on flagrant abuses by college administrators.

The biggest loser is the college itself, which has not only seen tens of thousands of dollars wasted on settlements with fired staff but has lost faculty who were recognized both within and outside the college for their quality of teaching.

Were really concerned about the students at the college, because most of the people that they let go are the longtime professors, says Heaslip.

And now at the center of it is Michael Phillips, who Lora Burnett calls the William Lloyd Garrison of Collin College and who is joining his ousted colleagues in filing a lawsuit against the college. Yet even if he wins, as Burnett points out, the threatening cloud the colleges leadership has conjured above the facultys head will remain.

If they can get rid of Michael Phillips, who else is going to dare raise their voice?

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At a Texas Community College, the Attack on Free Speech Is Coming From the Right - Jacobin magazine

And they have found allies in Congress. Two House members, Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and Katie Porter (D-CA) of the House Committee on Natural Resources, have given a deadline to a number of media companies and sponsors of PR awards program to hand over materials related to oil company PR campaigns. There is also talk of compelling heads of PR firms to testify on their work for oil companies.

Right now this campaign is targeting oil and gas companies and the PR firms that work for them.

But if this campaign is permitted to succeed it will have profound implications for all firms that provide PR, advertising, marketing and political consulting to any industry sector that may find itself addressing controversial issues. Indeed, it is nothing short of an attempt to deny companies their right to speak their mind on issues affecting their customers, employees and shareholders. It also sets a dangerous precedent.

How else can this be interpreted but as an attempt to deny citizens their First Amendment rights?

This campaign is also, to a large degree, based on a lie.

The campaigners and their supporters claim the communications sector is involved in campaigns of misinformation, climate denial and attempts to stop any policy initiatives to address climate change. One widely promoted study, The role of public relations firms in climate change politics, is frequently cited as proof that the PR industry is blocking smart climate policy.

However, if media and the public were to read this study, they would see that no such finding can be supported:

The impact of these campaigns is hard to ascertain it is unclear how much effect it has had on policy making Yet despite extensive research into public opinion on climate change per se, we have identified no studies that measure the impact of such campaigns on public opinion. (Page 19)

Ive spent more than three decades managing communications at the highest levels of the energy sectorboth in-house and as a consultant. Over this time, I have never used the term existential threat in regard to my profession. But in this instance, I think this is what we are facing unless the sector itself steps up and says stop the madness.

To call this a threat to our right to operate and to the private sectors freedom of speech is not an overstatement.

These activists are attempting to play judge and jury to decide what companies can and cannot say about matters of controversy, and who they can work with. Today it is climate change. But whats next? Claims of vaccine safety and efficacy? The relative merits of fast food? Products imported from China? The use of smart phones and social media by teens and adolescents? Anything would be fair game.

Lets face it: We live in a complex world. There is not a single matter or topic in our society that is without disagreement. Everything we do carries both benefit and risk. Companies produce and sell products and services that consumers need or desire. All of it done legally. Yet there are some who feel empowered to dictate who has a right to speak and who does not.

Were not talking here about continuing climate denial, deception or fraud. Today virtually every international oil and gas company accepts the climate science and the role of hydrocarbons in contributing to climate change, and they are also making considerable investments in decarbonization and energy transition strategies. And communications advisors are working with them on this journey.

Were talking about an important conversation about the right paths to confront climate change, and whether the communications consulting sector has a right to contribute to this conversation.

As well-intentioned these activists may be, they seem blind to the implications of what they seek. We have a right to do what we do, and so long as there is a market need for it, and so long as we do our work with integrity, with honesty, transparency and relying on a strong values set, we can make a vital contribution to the climate challenge.

One final thought:

What is also troubling is the relative silence coming from the communications sector about this threat. Duck and cover seems to be the order of the day. We communicate for a living, but nobody seems to want to talk about this threat, much less confront it. It seems as if the PR powers-that-be hope it will all go away if we keep our heads low. It wont.

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Why the attack on oil and gas PR is a threat to free speech - AdAge.com

I enjoy reading the letters to the editor in the Summit Daily News. I appreciate when a writer can enlighten me on a local issue while also being entertaining. Im not fond of angry letters; a civil style is more persuasive. I prefer short and sweet; I only have a 200-word attention span.

What I like most about the letters is how they demonstrate freedom of speech in action. It may be frustrating to read opinions in the Summit Daily that differ greatly from your own views, but consider the sobering alternative of living in a country such as Russia, China or Cuba, where conformity is the standard and voicing your differences with government policy is dangerous.

In his book American Creation, Joseph Ellis wrote that one of the major accomplishments of our nations founders was that they created political parties as institutionalized channels for ongoing political debate. Dissent toward government policies became a normal part of reaching consensus on various issues. I suggest taking a positive view of the differences of opinion you see in the news.

One of the strengths of our country is diversity. We have a variety of religions, ethnic groups and regional cultures, and a spectrum of opinions on every topic. Self-education comes from reflecting upon our current beliefs and seeking out new and accurate evidence. Without free speech, our sources of information are limited, and everyone is worse off.

There are many misconceptions about free speech. The Bill of Rights restricts the government from passing laws to hinder a free press and freedom of speech. Can the Summit Daily refuse to print your letter to the editor? Yes, they are a private business and can set their own policies.

Twitter and Facebook also set their own policies on what they allow. Do you have freedom of speech at work? Private companies can set their own rules for employee conduct. Speaking unfavorably about your employer can get you fired. It is not protected speech.

There is plenty of bad speech out there con artists who spread misinformation for profit, higher ratings or political gain. There will be calls for legislation to ban hate speech and media lies, but it is better to counter bad speech with more speech, better speech. Laws restricting speech have generally been ruled unconstitutional in U.S. courts. Hate speech restrictions in Europe have often proved difficult to enforce and sometimes result in restricting the speech of the groups that were meant to be protected.

When I started watching the evening news in the 1960s, there were three choices: ABC, CBS and NBC. They were each thorough in their efforts to report all the important news and to be accurate and unbiased. They do the same today. Everyone fortunately has the freedom to listen skeptically and seek out news sites that are reliable and have minimal bias.

I hope you have noticed how well the Summit Daily covers local news, from high school sports to controversial issues. The reporters work diligently to give us important and reliable news. Commentary and readers letters reflect conservative to liberal views. You not only get the free press promised by the Constitution, but you get a free paper.

People often take for granted that we have freedom of speech in America. There is an old Soviet joke that sums up how fortunate we are. An American and a Russian are debating free speech:

American: In America, I have the right to say that our presidents policies are wrong.

Russian: It is the same in Russia. I can also say that your presidents policies are wrong.

Take pride in Americas freedom of speech that we encounter each day in the local newspaper, the neighborhood coffee shop and in the national media. Diversity of opinion has been an important strength of our nation throughout our history. Enjoy this freedom, but be prudent. As Oscar Wilde said, I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.

Paul Olsons column A Friendly Conservative publishes biweekly on Tuesdays in the Summit Daily News. Olson has lived in Breckenridge since 1995. Semiretired, he works at REI in Dillon and enjoys snowboarding, Nordic skiing and hiking. Contact him at pobreck@gmail.com.

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Opinion | Paul Olson: Diversity of opinion benefits us all - Summit Daily

Pressure to restrict faculty speech is as old as the modern university, but recently things seem to be on overdrive. Dozens of state-level bills targeting pedagogical content related to race and gender; the politicization of Boards of Trustees; and the weakening or elimination of tenure have all cast a lengthening shadow over faculty members freedom to conduct themselves as teachers, scholars, and commenters on public issues.

The past few months alone have seen controversies erupt over the University of Floridas preventing professors from testifying in court; Collin Colleges firing a faculty member for comments made on Twitter; a tenured history professor suspended for a profane syllabus video; a tenured philosophy professor suspended over a discussion of his research on ethical issues related to sex between adults and minors; and a tenured math professors lawsuit against his institution for, he says, retaliating against him for questioning academic standards.

On paper, faculty members should be confident that they are protected by both the First Amendment (if their institutions are public) and the principle of academic freedom. When they sue as L.D. Burnett sued Collin College they win settlements. Burnett, for instance, received $70,000 plus legal fees.

Is this a victory for academic freedom? In the case of Collin College, another outspoken professor was removed mere days after the settlement. Did Collin not learn its lesson the first time? Was the colleges legal counsel not paying attention?

In fact, events at Collin should serve as a warning. Suing and settling may provide some satisfaction, but they alone will not change the higher-education landscape, or even the institutions in question. For example, while Burnett got her payout, Collin admitted no wrongdoing, and Burnett no longer teaches there. Who, then, actually won?

To see more clearly why the sue-and-settle strategy is not enough, its instructive to look at one of the most infamous cases in memory: That of Steven G. Salaita.

The short version: In 2013, Salaita accepted a tenured appointment from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaigns American Indian-studies program. After accepting the offer but before starting his role, Salaita, a Palestinian American, posted angry tweets condemning Israels 2014 Operation Protective Edge military campaign in Gaza. The conservative website The Daily Caller publicized the tweets, and an outcry erupted. On July 21, the UIUC spokeswoman Robin Kaler said, We recognize the freedom-of-speech rights of all of our employees. But on August 1, Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise informed Salaita that she would not forward his appointment to the Board of Trustees. Salaita said he was fired; Urbana-Champaign said he was technically not yet hired. Scholars began a boycott of the university, and the American Association of University Professors threatened censure.

In January of 2015, Salaita announced he would sue, seeking reinstatement. Released emails revealed compromising discussions between Wise and others; Wise eventually resigned from the chancellorship. In June, the AAUP voted to censure Urbana-Champaign. In August, Judge Harry Leinenweber of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois shot down the universitys motion to dismiss in a blistering 56-page ruling. In November, the university and Salaita settled. Salaita received $600,000, plus $275,000 in legal fees. When one adds UIUCs own legal expenses, the case cost the university over $2 million. Salaita himself declared, This settlement is a vindication for me, but more importantly, it is a victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment. Many rejoiced.

Fast forward several years. After a two-year position at the American University of Beirut, Salaita was unable to find an academic job. In 2017 the AAUP voted to remove UIUCs censure, though the university never admitted fault and took minimal, if any, corrective action. Robert Warrior, director of UIUCs American Indian-studies program, left the institution. By 2019, Salaita was working as a school-bus driver.

How could such a big victory mean so little? One group that would not have been mystified was Urbana-Champaigns administration. Before Salaita filed suit, Chris Kennedy, chair of the Board of Trustees, was frank: The university will calculate whats going to cost us more to defend and win the lawsuit or to settle. When the settlement was announced, Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson said that it represents an important step forward in our efforts to see the AAUP censure lifted. It also allowed the university to avoid admission of wrongdoing. Salaita won the settlement, but the University of Illinois won the war.

For administrations wanting to get rid of nuisance faculty, all that may be needed is a little patience and a willingness to settle; despite having no legal basis to stand on, UIUC got exactly what it wanted. Settlement was essentially a onetime payment to silence faculty speech.

The day the former professor L.D. Burnetts settlement with Collin was announced, she posted a GIF of dancers. But Collins leaders had admitted no fault. Days later, they ousted the professor Michael Phillips because, Phillips said, hed publicly complained about a Collin policy prohibiting faculty members from recommending masks in class. For them, its as if the Burnett case had never happened. And thats the point.

In December 2020, Garret Felber was fired from a tenure-track position at the University of Mississippi. The universitys stated reason was that Felber refused to communicate with his department chair, a justification as strange as it was baseless. (Felber argues that he was fired because he was outspoken in challenging the university.) Several scholars boycotted the university and signed a public letter in support of Felber, but the university refused to budge. In July 2021, Felber and the university reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount. Again, no wrongdoing was admitted: A university representative said, The university stands by the process it followed, the ruling of the faculty committee that reviewed this case and the decisions made. We wish Dr. Felber well as he pursues his future opportunities.

In 2007, the adjunct faculty member June Sheldon had her offer for future courses revoked and was then terminated by San Jose/Evergreen Community College District after an in-class discussion of sexual orientation. The dean of mathematics and science concluded, against the views of other science faculty members, that Sheldon was not teaching science. A lawsuit was filed, and a federal-district court found that Sheldon had First Amendment rights in the classroom. The district settled, paying Sheldon $100,000 and removing her termination letter. A representative of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which supported Sheldon, said after the settlement that the district had better things to spend its money on than fighting a First Amendment lawsuit against a professor who was just doing her job. The district may disagree; while it removed Sheldons termination letter, it did not offer her future courses. At the time of this writing, Sheldons LinkedIn profile identifies her as self-employed tutor.

Each of these settlements can of course be seen as a victory for free speech. But administrations appear to see a simple cost calculation one without reference to any principle beyond institutional public relations. After all, if the faculty members remain gone, how was their speech protected?

A few cases that went differently suggest an alternative strategy is possible.

Mike Adams was a constant thorn in the side of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, regularly posting social-media comments that many found hateful. When UNC denied his promotion to full professor in 2006, he sued. After a district court dismissed his case, he appealed to the Fourth Circuit, which overturned the district courts ruling. Six years after filing suit his case went to trial, and in 2014, UNC settled with him for the promotion he had been denied, plus back pay and lawyers fees. (Adams continued to attract controversy after the settlement. He and UNC at Wilmington reached a second settlement in 2020 in exchange for his early retirement. His story ended tragically, however: Less than a month after reaching the settlement, he died by suicide.)

Adams had the benefit of already being tenured. Even with his job not at risk, it took years and an appeal for Adams to get his promotion. This is one lesson: To protect speech, faculty members and their supporters must have the will and the means to carry out a long, long battle. Even with the law on ones side, fighting an institution with millions of dollars and a squad of lawyers is daunting. Settling can be a result of insufficient funds and lack of income; after all, ousted professors still need to eat. Supporters of faculty speech should work on developing resources to support extended litigation, similarly to how unions develop ways to support workers during strikes. Administrations must believe that faculty will fight to win, even when, unlike Adams, they are out of a job.

The recent case at the University of Florida is also instructive. There, several faculty members were prevented from testifying against the state on matters related to their professional expertise. The faculty members filed a legal challenge. In January, Judge Mark E. Walker of the U.S. District Court for Floridas Northern District found for the professors in a blistering ruling. The university appealed that decision on February 8, but meanwhile, its accreditor had started asking questions. To settle with one or more faculty members is one thing. To risk accreditation is to risk an institutions ability to take in federal financial aid, an enormous potential cost. Accreditation, as has recently been argued in these pages, is potentially a huge lever that could be used to protect academic freedom.

We should always promote faculty speech on principled grounds. But if an administration is acting without principle, settlements for what amount to minuscule fractions of the budget will not compel it to care. In that case, another argument must be made: Violating faculty speech doesnt pay.

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Lawsuits and Settlements Won't Save Free Speech - The Chronicle of Higher Education

By Ann McMaster

Bobby R. Burchfield prepared for his impressive four-decade legal career in the classrooms and in the stacks of the Jacob Burns Library at the GW Law. Now, Burchfield, through the Burchfield Family Charitable Foundation, has made a landmark gift to highly ranked GW Law to create a new professorship and recruit a nationally-recognized scholar to teach his passion, Free Speech and First Amendment law. The gift is the largest commitment yet made by the Burchfield Family Charitable Foundation, which Burchfield founded almost 20years ago.

A renowned legal mind long sought after by leaders in business and politics, Burchfield credits George Washington University's GW Law as the foundation of his professional success.

I believe in paying it forward, and the concept of noblesse oblige, said Burchfield. I have been very fortunate, and I gained so much in law school. I got a great education, made life-long friends, and have been able to practice with some of the best and brightest lawyers of my time. Attending GW Law is one of the best decisions I ever made.

GW Law Dean Dayna Matthew said that the Burchfield Professorship of First Amendment and Free Speech Law brings the imprimatur of a world-class attorney to GW Law and will be highly sought after by top free speech scholars from around the nation.

The two First Amendment cases Mr. Burchfield argued before the U.S. Supreme CourtMcConnell v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FECare considered seminal standards taught today in constitutional law classes, Matthew said.

Our constitutional law faculty are remarkable scholars and practitioners, and this gift is a game-changer that will allow us to attract a prominent free speech expert who solidifies GW Law as a premier school for serious First Amendment scholarship. This is a transformative gift that will have a profound and enduring influence not only on GW Law but also on the national First Amendment discourse. It serves as an example to others who wish to invest in attracting highly distinguished scholars to the GW Law faculty."

A longstanding pillar of support for GW Law, Burchfield, who was editor-in-chief of GW Law Review and graduated with high honors, has served on the Deans Advisory Council and delivered the Law Commencement address in 2015. In 2008, he established an endowed scholarship to support GW Law students.

Burchfield, who retired from active law practice in March 2021, cited his belief that free speech is both the apex and the foundation of a functioning republic and civilized society as the impetus for establishing the Burchfield Professorship of First Amendment and Free Speech Law.

Everything is intertwined with free speech. Without it, you cant have informed and democratic elections, accountability of public officeholders, religious discourse, academic freedom, scientific inquiry, even commerce, said Burchfield.

This is the issue of our age. Free speech issues are in the news every day, from controversies about Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle to efforts to ban books to controversies about what can be said on university campuses. Its perilous to trust anyone to determine what speech should be heard, said Burchfield. Encouraging scholarship in Free Speech by endowing this First Amendment professorship is a way I can be impactful in preserving free speech.

Over a remarkable 42-year career, Burchfield argued twice before the U.S. Supreme Court and represented major corporations in antitrust, class action, constitutional, and other commercial matters. He is also well known for serving as counsel for political parties and officeholders in constitutional and political litigation. His client list includes three United States presidents, the leader of the U.S. Senate and the majority leader of the House.

As a freshly minted lawyer, Burchfield was the first attorney to argue before a newly seated judge on the D.C. Circuit, Antonin Scalia. Burchfield added, with a chuckle, that he also holds the distinction of being the first lawyer to lose a case in an opinion written by eventual Supreme Court Justice Scalia. Burchfield named his pandemic pup, Nino, in honor of Justice Scalia.

Mr. Burchfield is a truly exemplary alumnus, said Donna Arbide, GWs vice president of development and alumni relations. He has served on the Dean's Law Advisory Council for decades and has just completed teaching a seminar in Free Speech at GW Law. His outstanding accomplishments and contributions to GW and society were recognized in 2012 with GWs prestigious Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.

We are so grateful for Mr. Burchfields incredible, historic gift, which is in addition to the generous endowed scholarship he established at GW Law to open the door for talented students, said Ms. Arbide. GW Law is already one of the countrys top ranked law schools, and this gift will lift it to new heights. We know Mr. Burchfield supports many institutions, and GW is honored he chose us to receive this record-setting gift.

Contributions to the Law School Deans Fund enable us to increase student and faculty support, bolster student placement servicesand enhance student networking opportunities and other law school programs. Consider a gift to GW Law.

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GW Law Alumnus Bobby R. Burchfield Endows $4.5 Million Professorship with a Gift from the Burchfield Family Charitable Foundation - GW Today