Mediaboss Marketing

Published 9:00 am Tuesday, November 7, 2023

By a 4-3 vote Monday night, Albemarle City Council rejected a proposed text amendment that would have added a definition of drag shows to the citys code of ordinances, and which would have prohibited minors from attending such events.

The decision concluded a four-month trek for the highly-controversial proposal, which generated passionate and intense public comment at each consideration by appointed and elected officials.

The matter was on the citys planning board agenda on Aug. 3, but was tabled to the groups September meeting. When heard by the citys planning board before an overflow crowd on Sept. 7, the advisory group voted unanimously (9-0) against its adoption, and in turn passed the matter on to City Council for a final decision.

An Oct. 16 public hearing, conducted as part of that evenings regular City Council meeting drew another capacity crowd to City Hall, during which citizens expressed views both for and against adoption. However, with Councilman Bill Aldridge unable to attend the meeting, council members voted 5-1 to honor Aldridges request to delay the vote so that he could vote on the matter, as well as express his views in person.

Before another full house on Monday, council members discussed the matter prior to voting.

Five of my six fellow council members honored my request (to delay voting on the matter), and Id like to thank those who did, said Aldridge, who described the matter as a great opportunity for City Council.

We have the opportunity to show everyone that we are willing to do anything and everything to protect our children, he said. Im in no way against drag shows, those who participate in them, or even attend them, but what I do want to assure is that we protect our children until they reach an age of maturity when they will be able to choose whether to attend or not.

Councilman Chris Whitley expressed concerns with legal consequences that could arise from adoption of the text amendment, citing a play he had recently attended.

I saw a play in downtown Albemarle last week that fits that (referring to the wording of the proposed text amendment), he said. Under this (proposed) ordinance, if someone had a problem with that, they would complain, and the police department would have to address it.

Whitley also noted the recommendations of the planning board and city staff, as well as concerns over potential litigation relating to first amendment issues.

Noting that both Aldridge and Whitley had expressed valid points, Councilman Chris Bramlett cited personal freedoms in his reasoning for opposing the amendment.

I dont want to infringe on the freedom to have drag shows, because once we start taking freedoms like that away, then there are some freedoms that I cherish that you might want to take away also, he said. But I also dont want children under 18 in those (drag show) programs. Remember, we dont let you vote until youre 18, and theres a great deal of common sense in that kind of thinking. Its saying that youre not quite ready to take on the totality of adulthood.

I want to thank everybody, regardless of your position on the matter, who has come out and spoke during the public hearings, Councilman Dexter Townsend said. Ill take every comment thats provided to us as council members that will help us make our decisions. But, I also value the opinion of our planning and zoning board, which voted unanimously to deny this request, as well as the opinion of our professional staff, noting City Attorney Britt Burch had informed council members at the Oct. 16 meeting that no other municipality in North Carolina has an ordinance of this nature.

Mayor Pro-Tem Martha Sue Hall expressed that she believed protection of children was not the only issue behind those pushing for adoption of the amendment.

For 40 years Ive been protecting children, said Hall, who was employed by the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts prior to her 2014 retirement, but, I personally do not believe thats what this is all about. However, I do appreciate everybodys comments on this very divisive issue.

Upon vote, Aldridge, Bramlett and Hunt voted in favor of the text amendment, with Dry, Hall, Townsend and Whitley in opposition.

Toby Thorpe is a freelance writer for The Stanly News &Press.

More here:
Albemarle vote 4-3 against drag amendment - The Stanly News ... - Stanly News & Press

A student protest about the war in Israel/Gaza takes place at the University of California, Berkeley's Sather Gate on Oct. 16.

Michael Liedtke ~ Associated Press, file

U.S. Rep. Jason Smith is one of several politicians in recent days calling for punitive actions against colleges that allow anti-Israel protests on their campuses.

At protests across the country, students have rallied for different types of actions regarding the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip as civilian deaths climb.

Jason Smith

The protests and elected officials' reactions have ignited First Amendment concerns, while also sparking debate of what constitutes antisemitic speech and threats.

First Amendment experts say the sentiments to defund colleges or deporting student protesters don't pass muster of First Amendment precedent established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former President Donald J. Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott all three of whom are candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination were among those calling for stripping student visas of any foreign students protesting against Israel, a U.S. ally. Such protests have been interpreted by some as pro-Hamas or antisemitic. The anti-Israel sentiment falls on a spectrum, from demands for a cease-fire to the full support of Hamas, a terrorist organization, and further extends on the spectrum to hate speech. Some students are "against violence, but we're just asking for the lives of Palestinians to be acknowledged as well," Nadia Ali, a Columbia University student protester, told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Jewish students are seeking protection from universities.

NBC News reported that antisemitic incidents rose 388% since Oct. 7 when Hamas members entered Israel and killed about 1,400 people, mostly civilians adding that more than 100 colleges and universities nationwide had seen walkouts or planned walkouts in support of the Palestinian people.

In addition to calling for stripping students' visa status, several officials, including Smith, have said colleges should face financial punishments for such protests.

"The Ways and Means Committee, the panel with sole jurisdiction over tax policy, will call in these schools because it is unacceptable that tax-funded universities are allowing student organizations to support terrorists. It is un-American," Smith said on Fox Business on Oct. 20. "We're going to be looking at the tax-free status of billion-dollar endowments, for instance. We're going to make sure these universities are held accountable. Unfortunately, these schools are more focused on pushing woke, liberal ideas across this country and ingraining these views into future generations of Americans."

Smith doubled down on his comments in written form. In a column published in the Southeast Missourian on Oct. 25, he wrote, "Congress and the American people will not forget on what side these institutions stood the day the largest number of Jewish people were killed since the Holocaust, and they must be held to account for their implicit, vile support of Hamas terrorists and violence against the people of Israel. Many of these organizations currently enjoy tax-exempt status in the United States, and their statements call into question the academic or charitable missions they claim to pursue. As the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, I can promise that we will be looking further into what mission these universities are pursuing and will do everything we can to ensure our next generations are being educated not indoctrinated at the expense of American taxpayers."

Smith's office did not respond to a reporter's questions regarding how his suggestions would align with First Amendment protections or the newspaper's queries concerning enforcement of this policy, including how the government would determine which students were pro-Hamas vs. anti-war.

In his most recent column, published Oct. 31 in the Southeast Missourian, Smith wrote he was fighting for the First Amendment in other areas, focusing on his push against the government's efforts to "censor social media posts" regarding the government's efforts with social media companies to "fight misinformation".

Sign up for Daily Headlines

Get each day's latest first thing in the morning.

In the column, Smith stated "government officials shouldn't be able to decide what is acceptable speech." He said he hopes the Supreme Court, regarding the government's intervention in social media, "will do the right thing and rule that the federal government's actions were unconstitutional, and make sure these attacks on our freedom of speech never happen again. ... I will fight tooth and nail to stop the Left's nonstop efforts to force their radical beliefs and liberal values."

Southeast Missouri State University, the largest college in Smith's district, does not require students to state their cause during protests.

Citing the Missouri Campus Free Express Act, Southeast Missouri states "any person who wishes to engage in non-commercial expressive activity in the outdoor areas of the campus of the university shall be permitted to do so freely, as long as the person's conduct is not unlawful and does not materially and substantially disrupt the functioning of the university."

The policy covers many forms of demonstration, including rallies, speeches, sit-ins and more. The policy "encourages" providing prior notice to a campus office for scheduling purposes.

The Southeast Missourian requested comments through the university's assistant vice president for marketing and communications. The spokeswoman pointed the newspaper to the university's policy on protesting on campus, but did not respond to questions about whether the university had concerns about Smith's statements or whether the university was aware of any protests concerning the war.

While the pressures of government interference in social media are a fairly new phenomenon, protests of wars are part of the fabric of the United States' social history. The current war, like others before it, sparks strong emotions and opinions, especially now that videos of the war's human suffering are being shared on social media.

"I understand that what we're dealing with here is a legislator saying they would defund the university," said Kevin Goldberg, a First-Amendment attorney who works with the Freedom Forum, a not-for-profit organization that advocates for First Amendment freedoms. "I assume what he's thinking here is we have a much greater degree of control over the university as an educator rather than individual students or individual student groups. But I see all of these as First Amendment violations. The precedent from the Supreme Court on this is clear. You cannot punish students for what they say and what they believe in unless it falls categorically outside of the protection of the First Amendment. You can't single out one side of the debate vs. the other."

Goldberg cited two landmark decisions decided by the Supreme Court. The first is Healy vs. James, in which the court affirmed that college students' rights of speech and association apply to a state university campus like they do everywhere else. In that case, the school president had denied a left-wing student group its rights to protest, saying the group's philosophy was "antithetical to the school's policies". A year later, according to the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, the University of Missouri was hit with a similar lawsuit, in which the court ruled that the Healy case made "clear that the mere dissemination of ideas no matter how offensive to good taste on a state university campus may not be shut off in the name alone of 'conventions of decency'."

Goldberg also cited a 2010 case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. In that case, Goldberg said, the Supreme Court declared that "what is punishable is material support for terrorists and terrorist organizations, not expressions of support for terrorist organizations. Material support requires actions beyond speech. Taking those two (Holder and Healy) together it seems pretty clear that what's being proposed here will not fly, whether it's deporting students or defunding student groups."

Smith was not alone in high-ranking politicians and lawmakers in their support of stripping funding from colleges.

Scott wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that "if the college coddles them, revoke their taxpayer funding. We must stand up against this evil anti-Semitism everywhere we see it especially on elite college campuses."

Added Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination: "Anti-semitism cannot be tolerated. Period. The students responsible should be held accountable and if the university fails to do so it should lose any federal funding."

The Biden administration has announced plans to combat both antisemitism and Islamaphobia. Many Jewish students have expressed fearing for their safety, and argued that protests cross over the line to a form of harassment. Likewise, Muslim groups and organizations have expressed concerns about reports of abusive and threatening behavior as well.

The response to the Gaza conflict has highlighted the gray areas in the United States between speech and threats.

Lara Schwartz, an American University professor who is Jewish, told The Hill, a publication that focuses on Congress, in response to the debate over protest language, "It is important to understand that as a matter of the First Amendment, having an idea is very different than taking an action and having an idea is generally protected and conduct is not," Schwartz said. "The vocabulary is extremely contested here. What constitutes antisemitism, and when critiques of Israel as a country and a government crosses over into antisemitism, is a highly contested area. And it was before Oct. 7."

Read more here:
Rep. Jason Smith's call for defunding colleges over protests raises ... - Southeast Missourian

The Israel-Hamas war has brought the long-simmering debates over free speech on college campuses to a boiling point.

If school leaders released statements, they were criticized for not denouncing Hamas and antisemitism or for ignoring the Palestinian plight. On campus, both Jewish and Palestinian students say they arent getting support from administrators and staff. Campus protests have put pressure on school leaders to choose a side or curb student speech and behavior.

Emotions and fears are running high: Jewish students and student groups say they are fearful of antisemitism on campus. Palestinian students say they are facing Islamophobia and racism. Students who signed petitions that critics say supported Hamas in the wake of its October 7 attack are losing career opportunities or have been publicly named and investigated.

The leading group advocating for free speech on campus argues that the problem is not that universities are doing too little to stifle hateful speech; its that they have already done too much. Amid the major social and political catastrophes of the past decade, higher education institutions have strayed away from their mission: to foster dialogue and the flow of different ideas, said Alex Morey, the director of the campus rights advocacy program at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

Sometimes the free flow of dialogue can be uncomfortable, and FIRE often defends statements and individuals who are unpopular. Even as people on and off campus fear that heated rhetoric will lead to an increase in Islamophobic or antisemitic violence, Morey argues colleges should not stop their students from making statements that many find deeply upsetting or even dangerous. Instead, she said, colleges should focus on creating a safe environment where even jarring, hurtful, or racist notions can be discussed and debated.

Its a lot to grapple with, and I talked to Morey about it all: school statements, student protests, faculty speech, whether words are violence, and why certain students are under more scrutiny than others. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Whats your broad assessment of how the conflict in the Middle East is playing out on college campuses?

The zoom-out assessment is that its a really divisive topic. Its a big controversy, whether you are looking at it on the ground in the Middle East, or if you are on a college campus. Wherever people are talking about whats going on with Israelis and Palestinians, this is a hot-button issue.

Lots of people want to express their opinions about it, so its no surprise that on college campuses, we are seeing the same level of passion from students and faculty as were seeing from anybody who is confronting this long-running and really intractable conflict.

That said, FIRE is always urging colleges and universities and members of those communities, whether youre a student or the president or a faculty member, to recognize the universitys very special role when it comes to confronting these problems. [Universities] are not corporations. [School leaders] are not politicians.

We have found in recent years that universities are acting a lot more like corporations when it comes to making statements about big political and social issues. Theyre worrying about, Well, how does this look for the brand? or If theres controversy on campus, is that going to make legislators mad at us and take away our funding? The focus has been removed from what we think is the core mission of the university, which is to foster debate and discussion. It is to welcome not just a diversity of students and faculty and help them thrive, but to also embrace a diversity of views. The college campus is the place to have peoples different authentic views come together, where we can have discussions in a scholarly and civil way. That isnt a top priority for many universities, it seems, and that is a big mistake.

The Israel-Hamas conversation has seemed to wake administrators up, at least a bit, to the realization that if they continue their practice of taking firm sides on political and social issues, they will, repeatedly, arrive at places like this, where there are conflicts on which there is no right side.

Youre saying universities should not have come out to comment on Hamass attack on Israel or on Israels continued bombardment of Gaza. But we are now past that point at many schools, as you acknowledged.

Now some students and faculty members are facing consequences as part of this environment you describe in which universities are trying to be arbiters of right and wrong when it comes to speech and actions. In light of this, what are the foundational speech protections that students, faculty, and school leaders have on campus for speaking out on this issue?

It depends on whether or not youre on a public or private campus. Public campuses have to follow the First Amendment, which means students and faculty have broad First Amendment rights. Students can express their views on anything on campus. They can protest. They can hand out leaflets, or, in line with the universitys posting policies, hang up posters. They have broad First Amendment rights that would apply to anyone in society when theyre speaking off campus in their free time and in many of the areas on campus. There are exceptions for in the classroom. They cant get up in the middle of class and be screaming or something because faculty also have First Amendment rights, including the right to academic freedom, which entails, among other things, the right for them to control their classroom.

Faculty also have strong academic freedom rights, which is like a corollary of the First Amendment, to make extramural commentary. That means that on their own time they can talk about things that are related to issues of public concern. So something as politically dicey as whats happening in the Middle East is an incredibly important issue of public concern.

Administrators actually have fewer rights. Of course they have their rights as citizens when theyre off the clock, but because they are effectively employees of the university, their speech can be restricted in ways that we dont see for faculty and students, who have much broader rights.

Private campuses that make free speech and academic freedom promises in their mission statements, which is most of them, have to keep those promises. These promises all basically say our students and faculty have free speech rights commensurate with the First Amendment.

And how does counterspeech fit into that framework of protections?

Counterspeech is super important. The vision of the First Amendment is not just that people are allowed to say anything without the government suppressing it. Its this idea that if we all talk together, we will have better outcomes for society. When somebody raises an idea that might be unpopular or wrongheaded or offensive, the idea is that other people will then lend their voices through counterspeech and say, I disagree with that idea and heres why. Heres why my idea is better.

That gets complicated in practice.

There are some nuances that are really important, that illustrate how universities could be doing a better job of explaining this to students and faculty and deans who are in charge of making sure different speaking events and protests go off without a hitch.

One is that when students are speaking in open outdoor areas of campus, areas that function like a public square, if a heated back-and-forth occurs between students, thats protected speech. Weve been seeing this a lot in recent weeks, where there might be a pro-Israel protest on the quad and a pro-Palestinian student comes up and says, You all are a bunch of jerks! This is all protected as long as there is no physical altercation or true threat, which has a specific legal definition.

Then another situation we often see these issues raised is when it comes to invited speakers or situations where a student group has reserved a space for a speaker or their members to speak. Theres been a lot of confusion about, Well, cant a protest group come marching through this speech and shout it down? Isnt that our free speech? The Supreme Court has firmly said no, thats called a hecklers veto. It means if there is a particular forum that has been reserved for a particular type of speech, those students who are putting on that speaker or who are speaking, have the right to control that forum until theyre done speaking. What those protesters can do instead of censoring the speech is have space nearby outside the venue where they can protest contemporaneously.

Universities should support that kind of exchange and teach students its not actually free speech to shout down the speaker. They should facilitate that exchange of ideas. Relatedly, actions like ripping down posters also typically are not protected expression. Blocking access to or egress from buildings, trespassing, incitement where youre actively, intentionally encouraging someone to go commit a crime imminently and its likely that they will do it those things are not protected. Most of what we see on campus is just students and some of the faculty having really heated debates and expressing opinions that a lot of people find hateful and offensive and that, without more, is all protected.

But I feel like since 2020, a facet of our society now and this especially plays out on college campuses is that students look to administrators and leaders messages to feel safe. Theres the example of how after 9/11, hate crimes against Muslims decreased after President Bush said that America will not tolerate Islamophobia. I spoke to the folks at Hillel International who told me Jewish students on campus dont feel safe because they dont believe they have the support of school leadership. A lawyer at Palestine Legal told me Muslim students dont feel supported right now. And when they say support, its not necessarily like, are there more officers on campus to protect our safety, but its like, what is the administration communicating in its statement that can help us feel safe?

This is probably the most important change that we need to see on campuses if we are going to have the kind of speech and debate climate thats ideal in these university spaces.

Theres been a lot of research about how this generation of students is dealing with more mental health issues than in other generations. One reason is these students have had very intensive parenting that didnt expose them to views or ideas that could upset them. Now when they get to campus, they have similar expectations, that they can go to someone to say, Fix this for me, Im upset. But universities really need to help teach them that words and ideas are incredibly powerful, but so are they. They can confront a lot of these ideas with confidence.

They need the skills to understand, Why is it important to listen to people that I might not agree with? What are the contours of listening to an idea that I disagree with? I am actually strong enough to be able to handle that, and, in fact, its so much better than when these ideas have to be pushed underground and they fester, that they turn into actual violence.

There are benefits of genuinely confronting these ideas. We need to help students learn that while words and ideas are incredibly powerful, not only are they not violence, but, in fact, theyre the opposite of violence. And they are the best way that we, as humans, have ever devised to work out our problems without killing each other or without jailing each other.

Is all speech being treated the same right now? Are students who are speaking out in support of Israel being treated the same as students who speak out for Palestinian rights?

It depends on who you ask. Thats the heart of all of the discussion of hate speech right now. Like, if you say, Free Palestine, then you must mean that youre pro-Hamas. Or if you say, release the hostages, then that must mean you are cool with genocide in Gaza. Of course, its much more nuanced than that. A lot of people are justifying not wanting to talk to each other because they think these are just war criminals on both sides.

From a First Amendment perspective, there should be no value judgment on speech other than is it protected or not. And when were asking that question, were asking, should the government or the institution that promises First Amendment commitments, should we put them in charge of deciding which is the appropriate view to have on Israel-Palestine?

We think the key to navigating these incredibly divisive and polarized times that are now in front of us, unlike any time in the past, is to have universities not take a stance on these issues for exactly the reason you raise. At the University of Arizona recently, the president came out saying, We condemn Hamas. He also basically said, Im really nervous about the [Students for Justice in Palestine] chapter on our campus speaking up about Palestine and liberation, theyre going to do a rally on our campus and they have the right to do that, but I dont really like it. It doesnt align with our values.

Then SJP immediately canceled the rally and said they didnt feel safe doing it on campus. That was a grave situation in which nobodys First Amendment rights were violated since everybody who was speaking and counterspeaking had the right to do that. But when that speech is coming from the institution itself, an institution that is supposed to embrace all views, the effect is that some views can be marginalized.

Were seeing many situations of students being investigated, like Ryna Workman, who lost her big law job for saying Israel bears responsibility for the loss of life in Israel. NYU said they are investigating her. We are definitely seeing the pro-Palestinian type of speech being less popular writ large on many campuses. One thing universities can do to signal that they are not elevating some protected speech over other protected speech is for the institution itself to not start from a place of bias.

You mention that students who are articulating pro-Palestinian views are being disproportionately challenged on their speech. Why do you think that is?

Its probably because the pro-Palestinian students do feel more like the minority on most campuses, and because often they are. And so they feel less empowered and less supported by the university. If universities had come out and said, We stand with the people of Gaza. End genocide now, it might be a totally different situation where Palestinian students were feeling like their speech is the one that is important on campus.

And then in broader society, were not seeing employers take peoples jobs because they condemned Hamas. The people that stand with Gaza, theyre the ones losing their jobs. The US government is fully behind Israel. Beyond campus, theres this sense that most people are generally pro-Israel at this moment. So students who are pro-Palestine probably feel like their speech is unpopular and were seeing that play out on campuses. I dont think weve yet had a situation where a pro-Israel student or professor is facing some kind of censorship attempt from the university. I could be mistaken but theres lots coming from the other direction.

Whats your assessment of how campus protests have played out? They appear to have gotten heated, with clashes between dueling protests. Jewish students are fearful that some pro-Palestine rallies have been antisemitic. There have been images of students with signs that say keep the world clean accompanied by an image of the Israeli flag in the trash. Palestinian students and advocates report being shut down.

Its all protected, as long as thats all there is. As long as there is no true threat.

What is a true threat in this context?

A true threat is a serious expression of an intent to commit unlawful violence thats targeted toward a person or a specific group of people, like Those people over there, were going to do something bad to them. Its a very high bar, so even stuff that people find very offensive or wrongheaded, like the Star of David in the trash can, is all protected unless there is some kind of substantial step that moves it toward meeting that true threat threshold.

And how are incitement and discriminatory harassment different?

Incitement is a statement in which the speaker is asking people to commit an unlawful act of violence. Again, it has to be targeted in the way that a true threat would need to be targeted, and it also has to be likely to occur.

A lot of this generalized, very heated rhetoric around Israel and Palestine is not going to meet that high bar. Its the same with discriminatory harassment. In higher ed, discriminatory harassment is only those unwelcome statements that are so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive. It is typically repetitive, targeted conduct or speech that is so serious that it deprives the victim of their ability to get an education at the university. So just walking around campus seeing a poster [with hateful language], thats going to be upsetting. Thats going to make you want to speak out and counter that, but you can just walk away and still go to class.

Of course, universities can speak to campus communities and say, Look, to the extent that our Jewish or Palestinian students are feeling unsupported or are worried that some of this speech might devolve into violence, here are the steps were taking. And those steps can include ramping up security, providing the contact information for campus safety, and providing mental health resources, other health resources.

Universities can do what they can to make sure that they are creating a campus thats not a tinderbox for violence. But beyond that, it is very important under the First Amendment that colleges and universities not try to sanitize or civilize a lot of this speech that is heated and passionate for a reason.

I am still trying to understand how really antisemitic or racist or Islamophobic/anti-Palestinian statements are akin to saying Fuck the draft, particularly in this climate.

Its a tough one. But Ive got the answer for you. A lot of people are saying hate speech isnt protected speech. But hate speech is protected speech because there is no legal definition of hate speech.

Israel thinks the Palestinians are engaging in hate speech and the Palestinians think Israel is engaging in hate speech. And whos right? We cant know. Thats sort of the idea thats embraced by the First Amendment, that one mans vulgarity is another mans lyric.

Another example is stomping on the American flag. Some people think that we can all agree that stomping on the American flag is unpatriotic and hateful. But you could argue that the person stomping on the American flag loves America too, but maybe they dont love how its being run right now and its their First Amendment right to raise those concerns.

The key Supreme Court case that talks about hate speech and why it has to be protected is Snyder v. Phelps, which is the Westboro Baptist Church case in which the church was outside military funerals with signs and shirts that said, Thank God for dead soldiers and Fag troops. The parents of some of these soldiers sued the church since they believed that the speech was so disgusting. The families believed that that kind of hate speech wasnt protected.

But the Supreme Court unanimously said the churchs speech is protected. Its because speech is so powerful. It can make people very upset. It can prompt people to do things and make change and raise their own voices in protest. In the US, we have a unique commitment to leaving debate as wide open as possible so that we dont stifle debate.

Are there international comparisons that help us illustrate why America is so committed to protecting speech, even if its hate speech?

There have been attempts in other countries, [in] Europe, France and Germany, in particular, to pass antisemitism laws that make it illegal to say stuff like I hate the Jews. But there are a couple of interesting things about those antisemitism laws, about how they dont work.

One, we have seen uneven implementation of those laws. For example, when the Charlie Hebdo newsroom was shot up because they were making fun of the Prophet Muhammad, a lot of Muslims were saying theyve been talking about issues that are important in the Muslim community but were being targeted under the antisemitism law. There have been Muslims put in jail for violating the antisemitism law when they were making statements like, Maybe I can see why some of these Muslims are acting in violent ways. Muslims have been jailed in France for that, but the Charlie Hebdo staff were making fun of Muslims and it was no big deal.

Separately, Germany has some of the strictest antisemitism laws, where you cant make certain statements about Jews. And theyve also got the biggest underground growing ultra-right Nazi crisis that German authorities cant keep track of in the world because we dont know where these Nazis are. They cant say this stuff, but they still hold those views.

Theres the sense right now that this kind of hate speech is widespread, that students all across America are engaging in some kind of charged speech that is disrupting the ability of campuses to function right now. And the war in the Middle East is only intensifying. Is it the case that speech is getting worse on campuses because it is going unchecked?

I think, broadly, those kinds of very extreme statements are not rampant on college campuses. I know we have seen an uptick in this really heated rhetoric in the last few weeks. But a lot of the pushback that I get during this free speech work is like, well, if we allow speech to be that free, then KKK groups are going to be popping up on campuses everywhere. That is not happening. Most people are decent people who want to have these conversations, so universities should be fostering them rather than taking action to silence students.

Can you talk about why you believe it feels so charged to call someone antisemitic right now, or to call someone a Zionist? Students are saying theyre afraid of being called one or the other, or are being called terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. Are these terms being weaponized in some way and why?

The zeitgeist for many people is to take a single view that someone might have and extrapolate that to an extreme, and say, Well, if you believe this one thing then you must believe all these other things.

People are seeing that happening, and theyre very worried about being misunderstood. I dont think theres a lot of recognition in the world right now that people are more than just one particular view. Were nuanced, complicated creatures. Were afraid of whats happening in our world right now and we want to be in our little boxes and look for any signal from other groups that they might be a danger to us.

Will you support Voxs explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what were trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, were not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe thats an important part of building a more equal society. We cant do that if we have a paywall.

Thats why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via

Original post:
The Israel-Hamas war reveals how colleges lost their way on free ... - Vox.com

This past Independence Day, a U.S. federal judge in Missouri v. Biden found that the Biden Administration violated Americans' First Amendment rights in urging social media companies to censor opinions. It also found that the Administration had funded universities and non-governmental organizations to create a veritable hit list of censorship, which it used to tell social media companies which people and ideas to deboost and censor.

Citing the need to censor speech as the only way to protect the American public, the Biden Administration told the court that it is too dangerous to apply the First Amendment to social media posts, given the depredations of sorting through misinformation from foreign states, political actors, or cranks.

The court was not impressed, and issued a preliminary injunction telling the Biden Administration it could no longer coerce Facebook, Twitter/X, and the like to censor users, because doing so violated the First Amendment. Under the order, the Administration also could not engage third parties to craft its censorship agenda. The court excoriated the Biden Administration for establishing an "Orwellian Ministry of Truth" in its zeal for censorship.

On appeal, a district court reinforced the first part of the injunction against the Administrationthat it cannot coerce social media censorshipbut failed to prohibit the second. As things stand, the Administration can still engage non-governmental actors to target people and ideas for censorship in the name of identifying "misinformation" online. The case currently sits at the Supreme Court, but more important than any judicial orders and opinions is the information unearthed during discovery.

Evidence revealed that employees at a dozen Federal government agencies and the Biden White House directly pressured social media companies to censor viewpoints it found contrary to the official narrative it pushed to the American people. Depositions of high-ranking career staff and political employees and unearthed emails between the government and social media companies like Facebook and Twitter/X revealed the government's tactics to suppress speech. The Surgeon General's office, the FBI, the CDC, the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House itself were all closely involved.

Emails from the White House to Facebook show government officials threatening to use regulatory power to harm social media companies that did not comply with censorship demands.

Government agencies funded universities and NGOs to support enterprises with Orwellian names like "Virality Project" and "Center for Countering Digital Hate" to create a target list for the Administration's censorship efforts. With government backing, these entitieslinked sometimes to prominent universities like Stanford and the University of Washingtonwork with corporate teams in social media companies' "trust and safety" divisions to censor offending speech.

The problem is that the government and these entities are bad at identifying misinformation, and they have a predilection for censoring people and ideas that are critical of government policy, whether those criticisms are true or false.

Take, for instance, the censorship of COVID science. According to court documents found during discovery, the Biden administration insisted on censoring and deboosting content that accurately pointed out the rapidly waning efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine against infections, which they used to justify executive orders imposing vaccine mandates.

The Virality Project issued a report identifying particular people they deemed responsible for a substantial portion of "vaccine mis-and disinformation" online. The Project received tips from the public and government "stakeholders" to construct its hitlist for censorship, which it conveyed to social media companies. In essence, the Virality Project served as a proxy for the government to exert its influence over Big Tech and suppress speech.

The Biden White House pressured Facebook to censor vaccine discussions, such as groups of vaccine-injured patients, that did not violate Facebook's community standards. In response to harsh communications from Biden COVID advisor Andy Slavitt in 2021, Facebook limited the reach of these groups and censored them.

Ironically, even the White House itself was caught by its censorship demands. At the Biden administration's behest, Facebook implemented algorithms to suppress posts their computers deemed "anti-vax." In April 2021, when the CDC issued a "pause" on the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine because it had identified an elevated level of strokes in women, the Facebook algorithms tagged the White House account as an anti-vax account. The Administration angrily ordered Facebook to stop censoring its speech.

While we await the Supreme Court to decide whether it will endorse the injunction against the Administration's strong-arming of social media to endorse its censorship demands and restore the First Amendment to the US, Congress should act to dismantle the Administration's plainly unconstitutional Ministry of Truth.

Since the appellate courts seem reluctant to restrict the Administration from funding outside organizations to set its censorship agenda, Congress should use its power to cut the funding to the various agencies for these purposes. After a new House speaker is elected and budget negotiations begin anew, budget allocations for censorship would be an excellent target for spending cuts that every American elected official should be ashamed not to back.

Censorship violates the American civic religion. The Biden Administration and every elected official should remember that they all swore an oath to abide by the Constitution, which protects free speech. And if they cannot remember, voters should repeatedly remind them of that fact until they do.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine, a founding fellow of Hillsdale College's Academy of Science and Freedom, and a plaintiff in the Missouri v. Biden case.

Joe Grogan, JD, is a Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California's Schaeffer Center. Previously, he served as Assistant to President Donald J. Trump, as Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and as Associate Director for Health Programs at the Office of Management and Budget.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

See the article here:
The Biden Administration Is Waging War on the First Amendment - Newsweek

On Tuesday, D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, following a hearing on Monday, issued in writing a partial gag order in Donald Trumps Jan. 6 prosecution.

She prohibited all parties or counsel in the case from making

any public statements, that target (1) the Special Counsel prosecuting this case or his staff; (2) defense counsel or their staff; (3) any of this courts staff or other supporting personnel; or (4) any reasonably foreseeable witness or the substance of their testimony.

In doing so, she sent three unmistakable messages to defendant Trump and the country: She is firmly committed to the orderly administration of justice; her commitment is fueled by fearlessness; and no one is above the law.

The order is elegant. She grounded the order in long-standing Supreme Court law that a trial court has a duty to protect [its] processes from prejudicial outside interferences and that [t]he First Amendment does not override that obligation. Then, she carefully focused on conduct by Trump that could reasonably be expected to increase the risk of violence to anyone in his trial processwitnesses, prosecutors, and court staff.

That alone raises the guardrail against appellate reversal on First Amendment grounds, even by this Supreme Court. In addition, she reinforced the legal permanency of the order by adding:

This Order shall not be construed to prohibit Defendant from making statements criticizing the government generally, including the current administration or the Department of Justice; statements asserting that Defendant is innocent of the charges against him, or that his prosecution is politically motivated; or statements criticizing the campaign platforms or policies of Defendants current political rivals, such as former Vice President Pence.

The judge notably avoided saying how shed respond to comments about herself, having reportedly suggested earlier in Mondays hearing that she wasnt too concerned about her own safety.

What matters to the country and the administration of justice is that Chutkan refused to simply take a one-small-step-at-a-time approach. With Trumps increasingly violent social postings about witnesses, the judge recognized that halfway measures risk a danger to our justice systemand real world threats of violence often follow Trumps pronouncements in short order.

The threats are not hypothetical. In August, Abigail Shry, a Trump follower, was arrested for a voicemail death threat to the judge.

Last month, Trump brazenly declared that in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH for now-retired Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. Why? Because Milley dared to have a relatively standard back channel de-confliction conversation with the Chinese military at a time of world crisis. And Milley happens to be a key witness against Trump.

For Chutkan, the risk of simply giving Trump an escalated general warning was twofold. First, it would give Trump another one or two free strikes until she issued a formal written order. Second, the judiciary would lose authority if it looked ineffectual to the public.

Of course, now comes the hard part. As weve written before, Trump, by his nature and his political strategy, will feel compelled to test the limits of the order that the judge ultimately issues. In fact, hes already testing those limits. On Tuesday in Iowa, Trump rallied supporters against Chutkan, saying the judge doesnt like me too much. He added, I am willing to go to jail if thats what it takes.

Trump has already filed his notice of appeal. It will not delay the trial.

A reactionary Supreme Court majority lurks in the background. They might well relish issuing a high-minded opinion waxing poetic on First Amendment principles that they will apply (or misapply) in favor of the leading Republican candidate for president. At the same time, in recent cases, the justices have seemed to be fed up with Trumps petitions for special treatment.

In addition to clearly underscoring the areas where Trump may properly speak, Chutkan did several important things to avoid reversal.

First, her order did not include words proposed by special counsel Jack Smith that would forbid inflammatory or disparaging speech about witnesses or court personnel. An order worded too vaguely could be viewed as chilling speech that is protected as well as that which is not. As recently as June, both liberal and conservative justices warned against such a chilling effect.

Second, the order included crucial context for its central prohibition on targeting. Chutkan cited undisputed testimony showing that when Defendant has publicly attacked individuals those individuals are consequently threatened and harassed. She cited in particular Trumps recent public statements that particular individuals are liars, or thugs, or deserve death.

On that basis, the court concluded that such statements pose a significant and immediate risk that (1) witnesses will be intimidated by the prospect of being themselves targeted for harassment or threats; and (2) attorneys, public servants, and other court staff will themselves become targets for threats and harassment.

Finally, Chutkan made an undeniable point about why even social posts that are quickly deleted would violate the order: She noted that the significant and immediate risk she cited is largely irreversible in the age of the Internet once an individual is publicly targeted.

These findings matter because higher courts do not lightly disturb a district courts determination of undisputed facts. She found that Defendants statements pose sufficiently grave threats to the integrity of these proceedings that cannot be addressed by alternative means and the order has been tailored to meet the force of those threats. The quoted language is aimed at the Supreme Courts requirement that restrictions on speech to protect judicial proceedings be contoured no more broadly than required to meet the threat.

Perhaps most importantly, the court moored the order in the safest harbor availableforbidding targeting anyone associated with the case from issuing what the Supreme Court has called true threats of violence. True threats are defined as words that subject individuals to fear of violence and to the many kinds of disruption that fear engenders.

As recently as June, the Supreme Court ruled that such words are not protected by the First Amendment.

Even with a carefully worded order, it is predictable what Trump will do and why. His attacks on prosecutors and courts become fodder for his political fundraising.

Trumps attacks also nourish his single-minded strategy: He appears not to worry about jeopardizing his defenses in criminal cases by ranting and by defying judges. Instead, he aims everything at energizing his electoral base to donate and turn out at the polls. He views this as his path to regain the presidency, arrange for his attorney general to end his prosecutions, and possibly to pardon himself.

Given Trumps pattern of aggressive public counterattacks to any judicial restrictionsor even application of standard judicial ruleshe will surely walk right up to the line or over it to demonstrate his defiance.

The more extreme and provocative his imagery, the more obvious it will be that Trump is violating the gag order.

On the other side of the criminal case, special counsel Jack Smith will not hesitate to move to hold Trump in contempt if he ventures over the line.

In response, Chutkan will have an array of options. She could give Trump a last warning before imposing sanctions. Or, following Mondays pattern, she could issue an immediate order for him to show cause why he should not be held in contempt.

This would trigger briefing by the parties, and then a contempt hearinga minitrial on the sole issue of whether the gag order has been violated in any material manner.

The hearing would turn on prosecution evidence that the very nature of Trumps statements is an invitation and provocation to violence.

In that event, if the facts were to support a contempt finding by a preponderance of the evidence, the court should carefully calibrate a remedy that would send a major deterrent message to Trumpand to the countryabout the rule of law. Stiff monetary fines, doubling with any further violations, are one example.

Whatever the course of coming events in Chutkans courtroom, heres what we can count on: She is not one to be intimidatedor to slow rulings that demonstrate that no one is above the law.

Read more:
Gag order against Trump will withstand First Amendment claim. - Slate