Category Archives: Free Speech

People may not be removed from school board meetings without proper cause or warning

TEMECULA VALLEY Today, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the First Amendment Coalition reached a settlement with the Temecula Valley Unified School District on behalf of two plaintiffs, following the unconstitutional removal of school board meeting attendees.

Residents Upneet Dhaliwal and Julie Geary sued the Temecula Valley Unified School District, its Board of Trustees, and its president, Joseph Komrosky, in December 2023 for violating their rights under the First Amendment and California law by ejecting them from school board meetings without cause.

The settlement stipulates that the school board president Joseph Komrosky may only remove members of the public for conduct that actually disrupts a meeting and not conduct that he decides is merely likely to disrupt the meeting.

The ability to question elected officials is crucial for democracy, said Jonathan Markovitz, staff attorney at the ACLU SoCal. Todays settlement ensures members of the public that no one can violate their right to participate in school board matters that are crucial to their children and families.

According to the settlement, the board president may not determine that members of the public are being disruptive and order them removed merely because he disagrees with the viewpoint of their speech. Opposing opinions or stances on topics are not inherently disruptive.

It is important that our rights to petition the government and air grievances shall not be infringed by a school board president on a power trip, said plaintiff Julie Geary. My hope is that the Temecula school board goes back to supporting students academic excellence and stops trampling on our constitutional rights.

In the case of an actual disruption, the board president or their designee must provide a verbal warning and an opportunity to cease the disruptive conduct before removing a member of the public. The settlement makes clear that Komroskys unorthodox use of waving penalty cards during board meetings cannot substitute for the verbal warning that is required by California law.

"Debate is democracy, not disruption, said David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition. The settlement protects the peoples right to engage with their elected officials free from unlawful censorship.

The settlement ensures a three-year enforcement period by the U.S. District Court.

I hope this settlement will ensure that our elected representatives, including Joseph Komrosky, respect the law and refrain from silencing differing or critical opinions, said plaintiff Upneet Dhaliwal.

Read the settlement: https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/2024_03_25_settlement_stip_003.pdf

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Settlement Reached in Free Speech Case at Temecula Valley Unified - ACLU of Southern California

On Monday, Andrew Guzman, the provost of the University of Southern California, sent aletterto the campus community announcing the cancellation of the speech by the student valedictorian. Concerned with the intensity of feelings around the Middle East and accompanying risks to security, he wrote, tradition must give way to safety.

There is no question that universities have a duty to maintain campus safety during graduation ceremonies. Campus administrators are responsible for the safety of tens of thousands of students and their friends and families at a very public venue during this period. They want everyone to share a memorable moment of recognition of accomplishment, and to be safe while doing so.

Yet the provosts letter sounded all too familiar to me. For six years, I served as the United Nations principal monitor of freedom of expression worldwide. In that role, I repeatedly saw governments shutting down public speech to prioritize vague assertions of national security or public order over the rights of its citizens.

This context helps us understand why USCs decision is so troubling. For as much as Guzman asserted that the decision has nothing to do with freedom of speech, he failed to demonstrate the necessity of this draconian measure. As such, the action is clearly an interference with free speechthe question is whether it was justified.

The student selected as valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, earned the honor, the result of a faculty recommendation that Guzman himself approved. With nearly perfect grades, a major in biomedical engineering, and a minor in genocide studies, Tabassum presents the kind of profile that any university would be thrilled to celebratehardworking, successful, committed to science and society, engaged in the life of her campus.

And like so many young people today, she has thoughts about justice and the wider world of which she is a part. Specifically, she supports the pro-Palestine activism that has grown across the world, especially on college campuses. This is obvious because she linked to a pro-Palestine website on her Instagram page and liked posts from a campus organization favoring Palestinian rights.

Many find those websites, and those views, objectionable. Thats fine: Everyone enjoys the right to disagree and object. According to reporting in theLos Angeles Timesand elsewhere, those associations and views caused pro-Israel groups to launch a campaign against her, and some unnamed individuals to issue threats.

The USC leadership caved to these efforts. Asserting that Tabassum had no entitlement to speak, as the provosts letter emphasized, is beside the point. USC pulled her from the podium because, it appears, it concluded that thereactions toher views and associationsperhaps her valedictory speechcould somehow threaten public safety or disrupt commencement. Even Guzmans letter makes this plain: He made sure to note that the criteria for selection did not include candidates social media presence, implying that he would not have approved her as valedictorian if he had known her views.

The question is not whether the university has a significant interest in a safe celebrationit obviously does. The question is whether it has shown that the steps it took were necessary and proportionate to ensure that kind of environment. And here is where USC administrators have failed. They did not demonstrate that it was necessary to cancel Tabassums speech. They did not show, or even allege, that Tabassum would use the moment to incite any kind of disruption.There is no evidence that the university considered what a security arrangement might look like to protect Tabassum and all participants at graduation. There is no evidence that it considered or offered alternatives to canceling her speech altogether.

In short, Tabassum has been penalized while those making the threats have secured a victory. USCs choice came with obvious costs, depriving Tabassum of a speaking role and her classmates of hearing one of their most academically successful members.

USC gave opponents of Tabassums views the hecklers veto. The lesson seems to be: If you dont like a speaker, complain and threaten disruption to get your way. The risks to campus free speech are obvious. Once a school starts down this path, there is no end to political tests in which university administrators bless certain viewsthose that do not stir up intense feelingsand reject others. That is the path of campus authoritarianism, something American students have been fighting against since at least 1964.

Schools like USC will forever face pressure to pick students without a political backstory, without convictions or passions that spark dissent or make some uncomfortable. Universities face increasingly strident calls, inside and outside their campuses, for them to limit speech on grounds that have nothing to do with their academic missions. Now, more than ever, members of campus leadership must stand up for their students, their faculties, and their communities in the face of threatsand not only teach but practice the centrality of freedom of expression in democratic societies like ours.

More here:
USC canceled its valedictorian speech: What the university got wrong. - Slate

Your essential companion on the #EU2024 campaign trail.

By EDDY WAX

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HELLO. There are 48 days until June 6. After a rather dreary European Council that produced more acronyms than news, its clear that the story of the week was the free speech furor around the National Conservatism Conference, which was both canceled and not canceled at the same time a bit like Schrdingers cat, if the cat had been a Brexiteer.

On a serious note, the conference gave Europes Euroskeptic forces a massive boost ahead of crunch national, EU and U.K. elections in the coming year. Italys Giorgia Meloni, the U.K.s Rishi Sunak, and Hungarys Viktor Orbn all weighed in and Nigel Farage even went on Fox news on Thursday. The hard right has never looked so united but is it really such a happy family?

THREE REASONS EUROPES HARD RIGHT IS DIVIDED: The perennial talk of a tie-up between the two political groups to the right of Ursula von der Leyens European Peoples Party is getting louder and louder. The two groups the European Conservatives and Reformists and Identity & Democracy have lots in common: They hate the EUs new migration pact, they hate the Green Deal and argue its being brought in at the expense of farmers, and they accuse the European Commission of politically charged overreach.

This week I chased former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki down a Parliament corridor to ask him if the hard-right was coalescing perhaps into a single group in the next European Parliament? His walking-talking answer: Its too early to say, it takes two to tango. It wasnt a yes but it wasnt entirely a no and we know that such talks took place and narrowly failed not so long ago.

An ECR-ID group would be the Parliaments second largest, just after the EPP, my colleague Jakob Hanke Vela points out, meaning big implications on policy in the next five-year legislature. When I spoke with Morawiecki, he had just come from a press conference with Orbn and Fabrice Leggeri, one of the big guns that French National Rally chief Marine Le Pen has moved onto her electoral battlefield. Organized by the ECR group and taking place at the same time as the National Conservatism Conference, it was a packed room and its attendees from the Flemish Vlaams Belang and Spains Vox to the German far-right were a veritable whos who of the EU rightwing.

Not happening: There is no chance to merge, top Brothers of Italy MEP Carlo Fidanza told my colleague Sarah Wheaton in an interview at an ECR party conference last month.But even if a full-blown merger doesnt happen, three big factors make the rights apparent show of strength and unity this week seem less certain.

Ukraine. Hungary and Poland dont see eye to eye on supporting Ukraine, and though Orbn is desperately keen to join Morawieckis ECR, weve reported in this newsletter before about the staunchly pro-Ukrainian parties in ECR who are deeply unhappy about that prospect. Orbn largely avoided the issue of the war in Ukraine at the press conference with Morawiecki, only to argue that it should be hived off from talk of Ukraine joining the EU. At NatCon he dismissed a suggestion he was Vladimir Putins ally, but then said Ukraine cant win on the battlefield and that he supports Ukraine to survive somehow not exactly fulsome backing.

Franco-German feud. Within the far-right ID group, a feud is bubbling between the Alternative for Germany and the National Rally. While the AfD, which will be led into elections by MEP Maximilian Krah, is becoming ever more radical, Le Pens party has for years been on a mission to appeal to more mainstream voters putting them on a collision course. This week, the fight flared up again after AfD leader Alice Weidel lodged a parliamentary letter questioning the French ownership of the island of Mayotte which is exactly where Le Pen is soon scheduled to be campaigning. If the two biggest delegations in the ID group cant get on, then can the group survive?

Backing Ursula. The most powerful branch of the ECR group is the Brothers of Italy, whose leader, Meloni, has developed a close relationship with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who is depicted as everything thats wrong with Brussels by Orbn and Co. It seems likely that VDL is counting on the support of the Fratelli to get her across the line in a crunch vote in Parliament later in the year. That could put the ECR at odds with Hungary. Orbn has called for a leadership change in Brussels and it is clear that his campaign back home will be squarely focused on making VDL out to be a danger to Hungarian national interests.

PARTY LINE, WHAT PARTY LINE? MEPs voting record per group reveals major differences between lawmakers ideological agreement with other group members. While the Greens have cast the same vote in the vast majority of roll calls, the Identity & Democracy group stands out for its dissent.

A closer look reveals clear country blocks within the group. Italys League and Frances National Rally which each have about 20 MEPs often dictated the ID majority, only voting about 20 percent of the time against the groups majority vote.

But lawmakers from Alternative for Germany, Belgiums Vlaams Belang and Austrias Freedom Party disagreed about 30 percent of the time, while Denmark and the Czech Republics lawmakers votes went another way a whopping 40 percent of the time.

The average share of votes, which MEPs cast against the group majority, according to MEPs latest group.

The pros and cons of cross-border life

Lucas Joyeux is one of the nearly 100,000 residents of eastern France who travel daily to work in Luxembourg, a figure that keeps going up and which a study by the French statistics office attributed to a quest for higher wages.

Hes also a firm defender of the European ideal. Feeling European doesnt mean disavowing your heritage, Joyeux said. It means acknowledging that whether youre German, Polish or Romanian, you have something in common to fall back on.

Life in the region of Moselle, where Joyeux lives, is largely structured around the border with Luxembourg, with residents enjoying many of the benefits of the EUs passport-free Schengen area and the single market. There are long queues at gas stations in Luxembourg filled with French people taking advantage of cheaper fuel, and smokers buying packs of cigarettes at around half the price charged in France.

In Thionville, Moselles second most populous city, the freely distributed newspaper is the Luxembourgish daily LEssentiel, and some street signs are even translated into German.

Surely this region, which relies so much on the benefits of crossing borders, will vote for pro-EU parties in Junes European election? Maybe not.

Fabienne Menichetti, mayor of Ottange, a small French border town, said she was stunned by both the low turnout in her town during the 2019 European election, and the far-rights strong performance, and is worried about the outcome being the same this year.

Were right along the border, enjoying European amenities on a daily basis, we even have part of the population working directly for EU institutions, yet our turnout numbers are barely above 40 percent, below the national average, she said.

This region of France, which was once represented in the National Assembly by one of the EUs founding fathers, Robert Schuman, is far from being a haven of EU-loving citizens.

In the 2017 and 2022 presidential elections, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who once advocated for France to leave the EU and continues to call out its obese technocratic structure, finished ahead in the first round of voting.

A few months after the election, her National Rally party picked up three of the regions nine seats in the lower house of parliament.

Support for the far right completely baffles me, Menichetti told POLITICO.

Menichetti said about 80 percent of households in her town have ties with Luxembourg, with at least one member of the household working in the Grand Duchy.

Due to our closeness with the border, we have many foreign communities in our town, with many people coming from Portugal, Italy or Luxembourg. Yet it feels like Europe doesnt resonate with them beyond where they work, the non-affiliated mayor said.

Daniel Schmidt, who runs a small business focusing on workplace health and security requirements, reckons the deindustrialization of Moselle, with the factories that once dotted the landscape having closed down, has fuelled the far right.

In 2012, steel giant ArcelorMittal which is headquartered in Luxembourg closed its plant in the town of Hayange. With rising unemployment and economic uncertainty, two years later, a National Rally mayor was elected.

by Victor Goury-Laffont

Victors full story will be published early next week.

Swedish MEP Sara Skyttedal was not kicked out of the EPP for forming a totally new party for the electionbut she wont be allowed to represent them in plenary nor use the EPPs funds, she told me. Why was she at NatCon (the only EPP person I saw there)? In a personal capacity, she said.

Ilaria Salis, an Italian anti-fascist activist who is detained in a Hungarian jail awaiting trial on assault charges, will lead the ticket for Italys Green-Left alliance. She made headlines after appearing in court shackled and handcuffed. Il Foglio got the scoop. David Lundy, the Left group spokesperson, called it a positive signal. Her father will be in Strasbourg next week, according to the Greens.

RECORD-BREAKING FINAL PLENARY! MEPs head to Strasbourg next week for the last plenary before the election. EP spox Delphine Colard said there were 89 final votes on the agenda, a record for the Parliament and a higher number than the final plenary of the 2014-2019 legislature. The FTs Andy Bounds asked a good question about whether this was a planning failure and good for parliamentary scrutiny.

Next week, big votes are expected on simplifying (or gutting green rules from) the Common Agricultural Policy, a new ethics body, and a debate on the Middle East. Heres the extremely packed agenda. Greens group spokesperson Simon McKeageny said he felt a mixture of relief, sadness and joy.

SOME ELECTION INTEREST: Good news! Er, sort of. The latest Eurobarometer data shows that 60 percent of Europeans are at the very leastinterestedin the upcoming election. That may sound like the bar is low, and that is because it is Eurobarometer data from before the 2019 election showed just shy of 50 percent reported interest.

Plus this is the first Eurobarometer since 2011 in which a higher share of Europeans have a positive image (a whopping 41 percent) of the European Parliament than a neutral one, so no wonder everyone is so excited.

CAMPAIGN AGENDA THIS WEEK:

EPP: Ursula von der Leyen has no campaign events planned this weekend.

(Very busy) Socialists: Lead candidate Nicolas Schmit is campaigning with center-left parties in Vienna and Florence this weekend, with SP leader Andreas Babler and PD Florence Mayor Dario Nardella, and on Monday hell be in Berlin to meet the SPD board, and then on Wednesday in Strasbourg he will campaign with MEPs Raphal Glcksmann and Katarina Barley. Also, check out his thinly-veiled attack on von der Leyens running of the Commission here.

Liberals: ALDE is holding a forum today in Budapest with its Hungarian Momentum, Progressive Slovakia, Austrian NEOS, and Romanian USR parties.

Greens: The Dutch Green-Left congress will take place on Saturday.

European Left: Walter Baier heads to Lisbon on Saturday for a conference on fighting the far-right, entitled No Pasarn!

BRUSSELS ELECTION BUZZWORDS:Competitiveness and Bolshewokism. Two words bouncing around the EU Quarter this week, two different election messages. This weeks episode of POLITICOs EU Confidential podcast decodes these concepts targeting very different audiences.Listen here.

IN OUR THOUGHTS: Monika Hohlmeier, the EPP chair of the Budgetary Control Committee, is in critical condition in hospital, BILD reports.

**Are you a young European looking to have a say in this years EU elections? Were looking for you! Join the Maastricht Debate on April 29th as a Youth Ambassador or follow the event online**

POLITICOs Leyla Aksu and Paul Dallison have made another playlist of songs to get you in the mood for the election. This weeks has some top tunes from Luxembourg.Here it is. Enjoy.

MEP trivia:This week Id like to know the names of the two most famous bars in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Answers by email, please. I love hearing from readers so dont hesitate to get in touch.

Last week, I asked you to name which country has the most MEPs who are not attached to a political grouping in the European Parliament. The answer is Hungary, which has 13 non-attached MEPs, 12 of which are from Orbns Fidesz, and one from the far-right Jobbik. But Italy has a whopping nine and Greece has seven non-attached MEPs. Overall, there are a massive 51 unattached MEPs at the end of this legislature, which is more MEPs than there are in the Left group.

MEPs tend to drop out of the main seven political groups if they quit their national political parties, get kicked out for bad behavior, or if the whole national party itself simply isnt aligned with a broader EU family.

Congratulations to Jillian Gaborieau from BCW, APCOs Thomas Thaler, and Association of European Cancer Leagues Toma Mikalauskait for their correct and swift answers.

Casual reminder:Were also on WhatsApp!Follow our account hereto stay up to date on the latest European election news in between Playbook editions.

Current election excitement level:Bolshewokism!

Last word:Ukraine is not a sovereign state anymore. Its a protectorate of the West, said Viktor Orbn at NatCon.

THANKS TO:Hanne Cokelaere, Lucia Mackenzie, Koen Verhelst, Sarah Wheaton and Paul Dallison.

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A free speech fiasco united the far-right here's why they remain divided - POLITICO Europe

Coin Center says the recently proposed stablecoin bill from Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand may be unconstitutional due to its ban on algorithmic payment stablecoins.

Coin Center, a non-profit advocating crypto organization, said in a recent blog statement that the recently proposed stablecoin bill aimed at regulation in reality stifles innovation and breaches First Amendment rights by banning all algorithmic models.

In the statement, the Washington-based crypto think tank highlighted concerns over the potential impact of the proposed legislation on technological innovation and freedom of expression, saying the blanket ban on algorithmic models could hinder progress in the crypto industry, noting that doing so would be not just bad policy but unconstitutional as well.

Banning people from publishing code and algorithms is a clear prior restraint on protected speech and is unconstitutional unless the government can show a compelling interest and narrow tailoring.

Coin Center

Coin Centers statement comes in response to the introduction of a bill by Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand, which seeks to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins. While the bill had received praise for its efforts to bring clarity to the stablecoin market, although it had also faced criticism for its restrictive measures targeting specific models.

The bill was developed jointly with the Federal Reserve and the New York State Department of Financial Services. According to its details, stablecoin issuers must have reserves of cash or cash equivalents at a 1:1 ratio to back their tokens. Additionally, the bill introduces a ban on unbacked algorithmicstablecoins, saying U.S.-approved issuers may only issue dollar-backed stablecoins, preventing algorithmic stablecoins from entering the market.

See the rest here:
Coin Center says Senate-presented stablecoin bill poses risks to innovation and free speech - crypto.news

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribunes daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

As the Israel-Hamas war continues to ignite tensions among Texas college students, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring schools to discipline what he described as the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses.

Higher education institutions are expected to update their free speech policies to include the definition of antisemitism, as well as establish and enforce punishments for violating those policies. Expulsion from the college could be considered an appropriate punishment, Abbott said.

Texas supports free speech, especially on university campuses, but that freedom comes with responsibilities for both students and the institutions themselves, Abbott wrote in the Wednesday executive order.

The Israel-Hamas war has tested free speech policies at universities in Texas and across the country. As pro-Palestine and pro-Israel students engage in protests and heated discussions, school leaders have struggled to strike a balance between their roles as moderators and facilitators of intellectual debate on campus.

In the Wednesday executive order, the governor singled out Palestinian student groups on campuses including the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Students for Justice in Palestine who he says have violated free speech policies and should be subject to discipline.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, an advocacy group for free speech on college campuses, said Texas colleges can and should go after antisemitic harassment, threats and violence. But Abbotts executive order goes too far and leans on a definition of antisemitism that would involve punishing students for core political speech, including any criticism of Israel, the group said.

State-mandated campus censorship violates the First Amendment and will not effectively answer anti-Semitism, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said in a statement. By chilling campus speech, the executive order threatens to sabotage the transformative power of debate and discussion.

Abbott has been unequivocal in his support of Israel, even traveling to Jerusalem in November to offer the states help. And in December, he told Texas colleges they had a responsibility to protect Jewish students.

Abbott has not commented on if and how universities should protect pro-Palestine students, who have also faced threats and harassment since the start of the war.

The governor said in a statement Wednesday that the executive order will mean campuses are safe spaces for the Jewish community. It comes months after the state dismantled diversity, equity and inclusion offices, whose responsibilities included making college more inclusive to students of all cultures and backgrounds.

Per Abbotts order, the chair of the board of regents at each college has 90 days to share documentation verifying revisions were made to free speech policies and evidence that those policies have been enforced.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

We cant wait to welcome you to downtown Austin Sept. 5-7 for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival! Join us at Texas breakout politics and policy event as we dig into the 2024 elections, state and national politics, the state of democracy, and so much more. When tickets go on sale this spring, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today.

Read the rest here:
As Texas students clash over Israel-Hamas war, Gov. Greg Abbott orders colleges to revise free speech policies - The Texas Tribune

To the Editor:

Re Trump Allies Are Winning War Over Disinformation (front page, March 17):

The U.S. Supreme Court put limits on free speech, saying you cant falsely shout fire in a crowded theater. Fundamental to our democracy is an informed electorate. Yet our courts seem to be OK with a flood of lies and propaganda masquerading as news and aimed at burning down our democracy.

This should concern every American for several reasons, including the surge of social media sites that contain much misinformation, the closure of many local newspapers, a decline in the number of real journalists, and an increase in the amount of misinformation spread by adversaries like Russia and China in an attempt to affect the outcome of our elections.

Richard Dickinson Richmond Hill, Ga.

To the Editor:

In the same way that semiautomatic guns and bump stocks were never foreseen by the founding fathers when establishing the Second Amendment, social media and A.I. escaped their prescience when it came to issues of free speech.

The commerce of ideas as they addressed it consisted primarily of public discourse via the printed or spoken word at social, political and religious gatherings. The idea that citizens would someday own portable electronic devices that facilitated both the easy manufacture and distribution of subjective realities certainly surpassed anything imagined in the Sedition Act.

America must now address two pressing questions that Madison, Hamilton and others were spared. How do we prevent the yelling of fire in a crowded theater when there is neither an actual theater nor an assembled crowd? And how do we stop domestic and foreign profiteers who would embrace the resultant turmoil?

Anthony Nannetti Philadelphia

To the Editor:

There is a difference between supporting the First Amendment and hiding behind it. A presidential campaign that uses disinformation to subvert a fair and legal election is undermining the very democracy for which free speech is a bulwark.

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Opinion | The Debate Over Free Speech, Disinformation and Censorship - The New York Times

This month, the Supreme Court reviewed a trifecta of free speech cases that has government and civil libertarians alike on edge. While each of the cases raises an insular issue, they collectively run across the waterfront of free speech controversies facing this country.

For some of us, what was most chilling from oral arguments were the sentiments voiced by justices on the left of the court, particularly Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The court may now be reflecting the shift among liberal scholars and politicians away from freedom of speech and in favor of greater government speech regulation.

In my forthcoming book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore the evolution of free speech in the United States, including the failure of the Supreme Court to protect free speech during periods of political unrest. Although a new revolutionary view of free speech emerged at the founding of the republic, it was quickly lost due to the regressive views of the federal courts over centuries of conflicted decisions.

We are now living through one of the most anti-free speech periods in our history. On our campuses, law professors are leading a movement to limit free speech under the pretext of combating hate speech or disinformation. A dangerous triumvirate has formed as government, corporate and academic interests have aligned to push limitations of free expression.

That triumvirate is now before the Supreme Court, which is looking at cases where government officials targeted critics, dissenting websites and revenue sources.

What was disconcerting was to hear many of those same voices from our campuses echoed this week on the court itself.

In Murthy v. Missouri, the court is considering a massive censorship system coordinated by federal agencies and social media companies. This effort was ramped up under President Joe Biden, who is arguably the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. Biden has accused companies of “killing people” by resisting demands to censor opposing views. Even though the administration was dead wrong on many pandemic-related issues, ranging from the origin of COVID-19 to the efficacy of masks, thousands were banned, throttled or blacklisted for pointing this out.

Biden’s sole nominee on the court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, has long been an enigma on the issue of free speech. That is why these oral arguments had some alarming moments. While her two liberal colleagues suggested that some communications may not be coercive as opposed to persuasive, Jackson would have none of it. She believed that coercion is perfectly fine under the right circumstances, including during periods like a pandemic or other national emergencies claimed by the government. When dangerous information is spotted on social media sites in such periods, she seemed to insist, the government should feel free to “tell them to take it down.”

The sweeping quality of Jackson’s remarks shows that the relativistic views of free speech may now have a new champion on the court.

In a second case, National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, the court considered an effort by a New York regulator to discourage banks and insurers from working with the NRA. Maria Vullo, who ran New York’s Department of Financial Services, allegedly used her office to pressure these businesses to cut off financial support for the nation’s leading gun rights organization.

As with Murthy, the Vullo case captures one of the principal tactics used by the anti-free speech movement in attacking the advertisers and businesses of targeted individuals and groups. One such government grant resulted in a list of the 10 most dangerous sites for advertisers to avoid, a list that happened to consist of popular conservative and libertarian news sites. 

The idea of a Democratic New York regulator targeting a conservative civil rights organization did not appear particularly troubling in oral argument for some of the justices. In fact, the views expressed by some of the justices were appallingly dismissive. Justice Elena Kagan asked, “if reputational risk is a real thing, and if gun companies or gun advocacy groups impose that kind of reputational risk, isn’t it a bank regulator’s job to point that out?” 

In the third case, Gonzalez v. Trevino, the court was considering the arrest of Sylvia Gonzalez, a 72-year-old former councilwoman in Castle Hills, Texas. She earned the ire of the sheriff, mayor and other officials with her criticisms of their conduct. She was subsequently charged with inappropriately removing a government document (a citizen petition) that she had mistakenly put with other papers. The charges were later dropped. The case smacked of retaliation — there is no evidence that anyone else has faced such a charge in similar circumstances. 

The case resonates with many who believe that the legal system is being politically weaponized in this country. Many of us are appalled by the Gonzales case. However, in this case, the support for the government seemed to come from the right of the court, including the author of a prior decision limiting such challenges, Chief Justice John Roberts.

The free speech trifecta, therefore, covers the three areas of greatest concern for the free speech community: censorship, blacklisting and weaponization. The resulting opinions could curtail or magnify such abuses. For example, the social media case (Murthy) seemed to trouble the justices as to where to draw a line on coercion. If the court simply declines to draw such a line and rules for the government, it will likely fuel new censorship efforts by federal agencies.

What is disconcerting about the views expressed by Justices Kagan, Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor in two of the cases is not that they are outliers. The problem is that liberal justices long acted as the bulwark for free speech on the court. They are now viewed as the weakest link, often dismissive or hostile to free speech arguments.

When Justice Jackson defends the right of the government to coerce speech, she follows a long legacy of speech relativists on the court, including the earlier Justice Robert Jackson. He had warned that the court needed to approach speech prosecutions with “a little practical wisdom,” so as not to “convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”

The current Justice Jackson seemed to channel the same practicalities over principle in stressing that “you’ve got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government’s perspective.”

The view of speech as harm or violence is all the rage on college campuses, and also in many Western countries where free speech is in a free fall. France, Canada and the United Kingdom now regularly arrest people for expressing hateful or controversial viewpoints. Those same anti-free speech arguments are now being heard in our own Congress and colleges in the U.S.

It is not clear how the court will decide these cases. One fear is that it could retreat to blurry lines that leave us all uncertain about what speech is protected. In an area that demands bright lines to prevent the chilling effect on speech, such vague outcomes could be lethal.

The government loves ambiguity when it comes to speech regulation. It now may have found new voices on the left side of the court to join in the ignoble effort of combating free speech. That renewed effort to introduce “a little practical wisdom” could mean a lot less freedom for Americans. 

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School, where he teaches a class on the Constitution and the Supreme Court.

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Free speech hangs in the balance in 3 Supreme Court cases - The Hill

If you think free speech is under attack in the United Statesand it isyou should see its besieged status in the rest of the world. Open contempt for unrestricted debate prevails in even many supposedly "free" countries and finds its expression in laws that threaten harsh penalties for those who dare to speak in ways that offend the powers that be.

The Rattler is a weekly newsletter from J.D. Tuccille. If you care about government overreach and tangible threats to everyday liberty, this is for you.

"When other communications revolutions like the printing press, radio, and television came along, they were still largely controlled by the elites. But when the internet came along, regulatory bodies like Canada's [Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission] backed off," Lawrence Martin of Canada's The Globe and Mail recently complained while celebrating what he saw as rare U.S. Supreme Court openness to letting government pressure social media companies into suppressing speech. "It was open season for anything that anyone wanted to put out. No license needed. No identity verification."

"The way to reverse the trend is with rigid regulation, but the free speech lobby in the United States is as fierce as the gun lobby," Martin mourned.

Too bad for Martin. But few countries share America's resistance to censorship (and restrictions on self-defense). That's certainly the case in Canada, where the ruling Liberal Party is pushing Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, to regulate speech on the internet.

"Bill C-63 risks censoring a range of expression from journalistic reporting to healthy conversations among youth under 18 about their own sexuality and relationships," warns the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. "The bill imposes draconian penalties for certain types of expression, including life imprisonment for a very broad and vaguely defined offence of 'incitement to genocide', and 5 years of jail time for other broadly defined speech acts."

Ireland is going a step further, with lawmakers working on legislation that would outlaw merely "preparing or possessing material likely to incite violence or hatred against persons on account of their protected characteristics."

"One of the fundamental rights protected under the Irish Constitution is the right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions," barrister (lawyer) Grace Sullivan told the Irish Independent. But under the proposed law, it will be an offence to "incite hatred" but "there is no clear definition of what 'inciting hatred' means," she cautioned.

Scotland, for its part, has already enacted a "hate crime" law targeting speech that authorities believe might "stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to" a laundry list of characteristics including race, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and age.

"The Hate Crime Bill will come into force on April 1, expanding existing legislation to cover comments made in private settings without the intention to offend," Laura Pollock reported last week for The National. She noted police assurances that comedians and actors won't be targeted for their performances, even though such situations were included in training materials.

"The training material was based on the Scottish Government's explanatory notes which accompany the legislation," Police Scotland soothed. "This included examples of a range of scenarios where offences might take place, but this does not mean officers have been told to target these situations or locations."

Unfortunately, restrictive legislation and hollow assurances by the authorities that they'll use their authoritarian powers wisely are far more the global norm than are American-style protections for speech. We complain about government attempts to muzzle, but open censorship is increasingly common in other countries.

"The global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges in 2023," according to The Free Speech Recession Hits Home, a report by The Future of Free Speech, Danish think tank Justitia, and Aarhus University's Department of Political Science.* "Even open democracies have implemented restrictive measures."

The report surveys speech regulations in 22 democracies since 2015 and finds a grim situation. Besides the examples above, there is Australia's crackdown on alleged disinformation, the UK's Online Safety Bill, the European Union's Digital Services Act, Denmark's revived blasphemy ban, Italy's libel judgments against government critics, France's and Germany's restrictions on pro-Palestinian protests, and more.

Across the countries surveyed, "except for 2015, every year witnessed a majority of developments limiting expression, with a noticeable upsurge in 2022," notes the report. "National security, national cohesion and public safety were the most cited reasons for limiting expression. Intermediary obligations and hate speech laws accounted for 18.3% and 17.8% of restrictions, respectively, with notable implications in countries like Norway, Denmark, and Spain." As defined in the report, "intermediary obligations" are duties imposed on platforms, such as Facebook, to act as proxy censors.

On the plus side were some strengthened protections for press freedom and protest. Of course, the press must operate under all those restrictions on "hate speech," and protests are subject to curbs when governments find their subjects too sensitive or just inconvenient.

The Free Speech Recession Hits Home records attacks on free speech in the U.S., as elsewhere. But this country, importantly, has a strong free speech culture and real constitutional protections. America is third on Justitia's index of public support for free speech (after Norway and Denmark), and restrictive laws and government schemes to suppress speech are often voided on First Amendment grounds.

That's no guarantee that every attempt to muzzle the public will fail or that the courts will diligently apply the First Amendment. But it's enough of an advantage to dishearten the world's would-be censors.

"The genie is already out of the bottle and there is little likelihood of getting it back in," moans The Globe and Mail's Lawrence Martin about U.S. speech protections. "The greater likelihood is that extremes of free speech will continue to be tolerated."

Let's hope the unhappy authoritarian columnist is right that the U.S. will remain a bastion of protection for free speech. Because nobody else looks eager to take on that responsibility.

*CORRECTION: The Future of Free Speech, which commissioned the report, is an independent think tank located at Vanderbilt University.

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Free Speech Is Under Attack in the U.S., but It's on the Ropes Elsewhere - Reason

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Its a refrain youve heard us emphasize before: The current U.S. Supreme Court has a remarkable appetite for free-speech controversies, and its difficult to think of a recent term that measures up to this one in either the volume or the significance of the First Amendment questions presented. (Dont just take my word for it: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expressions Robert Corn-Revere, who has previously appeared before the justices himself,describedthis years slate as the most consequential in my 40-year career practicing First Amendment law.) Three of those controversies came before the Court for argument in the last week alone, conversations that underscored the diversity of perspectives the justices stake out when it comes to the freedoms of speech and the press.

Monday kicked off with the most significant of the trio,Murthy v. Missouri, in which a coalition of states and private individuals alleges that the federal government violated the First Amendment by encouraging social media platforms to remove false or misleading posts about, say, the safety of vaccines. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit hadagreed, taking a remarkably broad view of the Constitutions limits on the governments ability to speak to the private sector. In the panels view, facts as banal as the observation that the platforms asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention whether certain controversial claims were true or false provided proof of undue entanglement between the government and private speakers.

As we warned in afriend-of-the-court brief, that kind of hair-trigger test for malign government influence could, itself, undermine the freedom of the press. It should go without saying that news organizations speak daily to government sources, whether official or off-the-record, in search of the truth sources who would clam up if interactions as routine as fielding a question about a controversial policy issue were haunted by the prospect of First Amendment liability.

We were relieved to hear a number of justices echo that concern, which emerged as one of the arguments central themes. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Elena Kagan were especially vocal in highlighting that Missouris theory would outlaw routine contacts between the government and the news media. (As former government lawyers, they sounded more protective of public officials right to criticize articles that irk them than they did the free flow of information but both lines of concern point to the same result.) By the close of the argument, it seemed likely that the same six justices who votedto pausethe injunction Missouri had won against the government below would likewise vote to vacate it. Whether the Court will reject Missouris theory of coercion outright or conclude more narrowly that the plaintiffs never proved the government had anything to do with closingtheiraccounts is harder to forecast.

For the long-run trajectory of the First Amendment, though, perhaps the most interesting dynamic at argument was Justice Ketanji Brown Jacksons questioning. AsProfessors Eugene VolokhandMichael Dorfseparately observed, Justice Jackson in recent cases has floated positions that would shrink the reach of the First Amendment to (in Dorfs words) a truly radical degree. Indeed, in pressing whether the government should prevail inMurthybecause itcouldhave simply ordered the platforms to take down certain kinds of speech, Jackson seemed to suggest perhaps inadvertently that she disagreed with the landmarkPentagon Papersdecision.

Whether those trial balloons reflect a deliberate drive on Justice Jacksons part to weaken the First Amendments safeguards is an issue to watch as the terms opinions start to come down.

WithMurthysubmitted, next came something of a companion case,National Rifle Association v. Vullo, where the justices weighed whether a New York financial regulator went too far in warning companies of the reputational risk of doing business with the NRA. (The Reporters Committee didnt file in this matter, which presents a more run-of-the-mill application of the line between coercion and persuasion; the justices may have granted it to be sure of a chance to clarify that boundary ifMurthyis resolved on other grounds.) There, a majority of the Court seemed inclined to side with the NRA and, in an odd role reversal from the mornings earlier argument, the U.S. solicitor general in finding that New York violated the First Amendment.

But the justices werent done yet. Wednesday broughtGonzalez v. Trevino, the weeks final First Amendment case, which asks what kind of evidence plaintiffs need to provide to demonstrate that they were arrested in retaliation for their speech or newsgathering. The Fifth Circuit we hear a lot about them these days, dont we? had heldthat a plaintiff whose arrest was supported by probable cause needs to point to specific examples of individuals who engaged in the same conduct but werent punished, a task that may be impossible when no comparator is available. As we flagged in afriend-of-the-court brief, the absurd implication of that rule would be that officers who wrongfully arrest the only journalist (or every journalist) covering a protest couldnt be held accountable because no one could highlight a reporter whowasntarrested.

Here, the Court seemed balanced on a knifes edge. Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Kavanaugh all signaled concern that taking too broad a view of the evidence that can prove retaliation would open the floodgates to frivolous claims. To differing degrees, the remaining justices registered concern with the narrowness of the Fifth Circuits view which Justice Kagan called a little bit nutty but how deep those anxieties ran was unclear. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who pressed counsel on both sides, raised the issue of protest cases in particular and won a concession from defendants counsel that the only journalist arrested for assembly is the prototypical plaintiff who should have a strong retaliation claim. Whether defendants persuaded the justices that thats actually true under the Fifth Circuits rule is another question.

We may be waiting some time for these opinions to issue. As these cases underlined, the Court isnt of one mind or even two straightforward blocs when it comes to the freedoms of speech and the press. And while the Court will likely hope to harmonize (as best it can) its answers to the full slate of First Amendment issues raised this term, that task will be a challenging one when there may be as many distinctive camps to reconcile as there are justices.

Stay tuned for June.

The Technology and Press Freedom Project at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press uses integrated advocacy combining the law, policy analysis, and public education to defend and promote press rights on issues at the intersection of technology and press freedom, such as reporter-source confidentiality protections, electronic surveillance law and policy, and content regulation online and in other media. TPFP is directed by Reporters Committee attorney Gabe Rottman. He works with RCFP Staff Attorney Grayson Clary and Technology and Press Freedom Project Fellow Emily Hockett.

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In crowded week for free speech, justices hear 3 First Amendment cases - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Gov. Greg Abbott issued Executive Order GA44 on March 27, obligating higher education institutions in Texas including UTD to punish what he described as increasing antisemitism on college campuses linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

To comply with the order, UTD must revise its free speech policies to address the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on college campuses and establish and enforce punishments for students, staff and faculty violating the policy, including expulsion from the university. UTDs updated free speech policy must also include Texas definition of antisemitism, adopted in 2016, which follows the definition established by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. According to the universitys current free speech policy, UTDSP5001(B)(7.4), UTD prohibits both religious and race-based harassment, which are subject to investigation and the disciplinary process. GA44 targets pro-Palestine student organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine as a group eligible for punishment.

GA44 requires the chair of the board of regents for all Texas public university systems to report to the Office of the Governor with documentation verifying compliance with the changes within 90 days of the orders release, June 25.

Texas supports free speech, especially on university campuses, but that freedom comes with responsibilities for both students and the institutions themselves, Abbott said in GA44.

Abbott said one of the reasons for the executive order is the increase of antisemitic vandalism on Texas campuses. For example, the Austin American-Statesman reported March 18 that the University of Texas center of Jewish student life, which is affiliated with Hillel International, had been vandalized with the words Free Palestine.

GA44 requires Texas universities adopt Government Code 448.001s definition of antisemitism, which uses examples of antisemitism provided by IHRA. Examples include denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor and drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, alongside nine others cited in the code. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit civil liberties group focusing on college campuses, said antisemitism is a legitimate issue that Texas institutions must take legal action against only if the speech has exceeded First Amendment protections. FIRE said that GA44 stifles free speech, in stark contrast to constitutional protections of political speech, and ultimately fails to address the cause of antisemitism.

State-mandated campus censorship violates the First Amendment and will not effectively answer anti-Semitism, FIRE said. By chilling campus speech, the executive order threatens to sabotage the transformative power of debate and discussion. Thats in sharp contrast to Texas state law, which wisely recognizes freedom of speech and assembly as central to the mission of institutions of higher education.

Abbotts order also emphasized that phrases such as from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, which he said has been used in multiple university protests, is an antisemitic phrase. This view reflects the opinion of groups like the ADL and the AJC, who argue the phrase is antisemitic because of its use by Hamas, who call for the destruction of the state of Israel. Organizations at UTD such as SJP have used this phrase while speaking out against Israels military actions in Gaza.

Abbott has previously passed similar laws in support of Israel that affect activism on college campuses, such as Senate Bill 15 17, passed June 2023, which prohibits universities from certain academic boycotts in higher education. Student Government has passed two resolutions regarding UTD and Israel: a resolution demanding UTD divest from arms manufacturers aiding Israel passed in spring 2023 and a resolution demanding immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza passed in spring 2024.

Combat Antisemitism Movement, a nonprofit organization dedicated to curbing modern antisemitism through policymaking, praised the order in their press release.

We thank Governor Abbott for his leadership in taking this crucial step to ensure a safe learning environment for Jewish students in Texas, CAM said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations vehemently condemns GA44 as a flagrant attack against freedom of speech in their March 27 press release. Mustafa Carroll, executive chair of DFWs CAIR chapter, said that advocacy for Palestinian rights alongside criticism of Israel cannot be considered inherently antisemitic acts, and doing so only deters students from engaging in geopolitical discourses on campus because of the threat of disciplinary action.

This order not only undermines the principles of free speech and academic freedom, Caroll said. But also perpetuates a harmful narrative that equates criticism of Israeli policies with antisemitism.

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Gov. Abbott orders Texas universities to revise free speech policies to combat antisemitism - The UTD Mercury