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Voice of OC Publisher Norberto Santana Jr will be recognized this week by the nations top news editors for his leadership in training and hiring diverse news leaders.

Your unselfish contributions as an investigative reporter, editor, mentor, lecturer and now as editor and publisher of the Voice of Orange County stand out as a journalist who has worked to elevate others and serve his community. You were nominated by your staff, in itself a heartfelt recognition. said News Leaders Association President Manny Garcia, who serves as the Executive Editor of the Austin American Statesman newspaper, in announcing the Robert G McGruder Award for Diversity Leadership.

McGruder was a trail blazing African American journalist who spent his career breaking racial barriers and encouraging his industry to do the same. His career prematurely ended in 2002 after a 20-month battle with cancer. He is remembered for his excellence in journalism and his string of firsts: first black editor of the Daily Kent Stater, first black reporter at The Plain Dealer, first black president of the Associated Press Managing Editors group and first black executive editor of the Detroit Free Press.

I am honored and humbled to stand alongside Robert G. McGruder, advocating for a fair shot for all kinds of voices in Americas newsrooms, said Santana.

Santana is being recognized alongside S. Mitra Kalita, curator of a New York nonprofit newsroom, Epicenter NYC and co-founder of URL Media, who received the News Leader of the Year award.

The Diversity Leadership Award honors the spirit of McGruder by celebrating news executives that carry on his legacy of ensuring that news leadership jobs include people of color and that a diversity of voices is represented in training, promotion and hiring.

Past award winners include Miami Herald Publisher David Lawrence and Pulitzer Prize winning Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts and Peter Bhatia, editor at the Detroit Free Press.

The News Leaders Association represents the nations top editors and publishers. Founded in 1979 the NLA supports all aspects of open government and free speech.

They are best known for their sponsorship of the annual Sunshine Week activities throughout the country that remind local leaders of the importance of First Amendment rights.

Santana will be recognized in a virtual ceremony May 20 during their annual convention.

Voice of OC was also recently recognized by Cal State Fullerton University for its commitment to student journalists with the James P Alexander Internship Site of the Year award.

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Voice of OC Publisher Norberto Santana Jr to Receive Prestigious Robert G. McGruber Award From Nations Top News Editors for Diversity Leadership -...

Upset parents want a Tallahassee principal to be fired. She posted comments to her personal Facebook page critical of new state laws restricting discussions of race, history, gender, and sexual identity in the classroom. While the first amendment likely protects the principals job, shes still being pressured to exit.

During a recent school board meeting, several local parents and even a local radio host took issue with the comments posted to the principals personal Facebook page. Her post argued parents should leave teaching to teachers. She said schools would continue to teach kids in spite of parents and called the new laws around how schools discuss gender and sexual identity, along with race and history, stupid bills.

If shes so tired, stay home. Pick another job. No one called her a hero, said Jason Levy, the father of a sixth grader at Cobb Middle School. You know who the real heroes are? The parents that stayed home with their kids, missed work, in spite of this school boards keeping kids home for an extended amount of time when the rest of the state opened.

Brandy Andrews also took issue with the principals words and cited the comments as an example of an attitude she believes is the reason more than 2,000 children have left the Leon County School District since the start of the pandemic.

There are no repercussions for principals, teachers, who make public posts that spark negativity about parents, particularly the Cobb principal (Sarah) Hembree, Andrews said. Why are these staff members allowed to tell parents to butt out?

Theyre speaking on their personal Facebook pages, not even at school, so theres no possibility of disruption at school based on their expression of speech, says Pam Marsh, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation based in Tallahassee. So I think, were they to be dismissed - the principal and the teacher - they would have very good suits to bring under the First Amendment. A teacher at another local school has also been getting pushback for taking a similar stance on their personal social media page.

Marsh says decades of lawsuits and court rulings have firmly placed the law on the principals side. The most applicable case is Tinker v. Des Moines, a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case where justices ruled neither teachers nor students shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

The principals Facebook comments were first reported by Tallahassee Reports, and Rep. Jason Shoaf, R-Blountstown, suggested the principal should be fired. Other major court rulings have also weighed in on free speech and employment: chief among them, Pickering vs. Board of Education.

Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote the threat of dismissal from public employment is a potent means of inhibiting speech, and he also said a teachers exercise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment, Marsh says.

Another case, 2005s Garcetti vs. Ceballos, adds more nuance. In that case, the court found when an employee makes statements while carrying out their official duties, they are no longer speaking as private citizens, and there are no constitutional employment protections for their speech. So there may be a gray line between outside of school criticizing a bill on their personal Facebook page versus being a teacher in front of a classroom involved in their employment duties, Marsh says.

The principals comments earned an endorsement from School Board Chairman Darryl Jones, who highlighted her post on his own social media and said he agreed with her statements. During the recent school board meeting, member Alva Striplin distanced herself from the principals words.

To the statement made from the Cobb principal, I dont agree with it, and Im just throwing out my own opinion, Striplin said. I believe that parents should be completely involved in their childrens education. As a mother of six, I should be the first person involved.

Its not lost on Marsh and others that calls for the principal to be fired for speaking out on social media mirror that of calls from the left to cancel speech they dont agree with either. Marsh says the first amendment is for everyone, regardless of their politics, and that right to speak - no matter how disagreeable or who disagrees - is still protected speech.

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A Tallahassee principal and teacher face calls to resign over Facebook posts, but the First Amendment likely protects them - WFSU

Edit buttons, open-source algorithms, long-form tweets, and stopping scam bots are just some of themodificationsElon Musk suggested he would implement in the run-up to his successful bid to buy Twitter. All of those sound like interesting ideas.

But none of them will directly improve the prospects for free and open dialogue on the platform, which appear to be Musks overarching reason for buying the company. As he has rightlysaid, Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.

Musk also recently tweeted, By free speech, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. He is on the right track. Twitter should do what matches the law by modeling its policies after First Amendment standards.

Musks commitment is a breath of fresh air for those who value free speech. He seems to comprehend that free speech is essential to preserving a free society, and that social media has replaced the physical town square as the primary place for debate and expression.

So how should Musk practically implement his promise to improve free speech on Twitter? He should revise the platforms policies based on the lessons of First Amendment case law the worlds richest repository of practical wisdom on protecting free speech.

As a private company, Twitter is not legally obligated to follow the Constitution as a government actor would be. Nevertheless, the First Amendmentslegalprotections are valuable guidelines for how private actors can help create acultureof free speech.

Here are two actions he can take that will directly improve the prospects for free and open debate and dialogue on the platform: One, eliminate private speech codes policies that contain vague and imprecise terms that threaten free speech. Two, adopt a robust anti-censorship policy.

What are speech codes? They are rules that control the content of what people can or cant say. In addition, these regulations commonly contain unclear and imprecise terms that give enforcement officials unbridled discretion to censor speech they dont like.

In the First Amendment context, courts routinely strike down government speech codes because of the plain threat they pose to free speech. Unfortunately, these types of policies now proliferate on private social media platforms, including Twitter, and significantly contribute to the censorship problem in the digital public square.

Musk can spot speech codes by looking for vague or imprecise language two tell-tale signs of looming censorship. One basic guideline on how to spot these problematic terms is to look for vague terms.

A term is vague if it (1) forces an individual of ordinary intelligence to guess at what it means, or (2) invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement due to a grant of unfettered discretion or lack of objective standards. Terms that lack clarity and grant broad discretionary powers to those in control threaten free speech because officials can use them to suppress whichever viewpoint they disfavor.

Another thing to look for is imprecise terms: A term is imprecise if it fails to narrowly target the specific harmful activity it is designed to prohibit. Imprecise terms imperil free speech because they reach beyond the harmful activity they purport to target and instead censor and chill speech.

Hate speech, hateful conduct, misinformation, and disinformation are some of the most common terms in speech codes. They are also notoriously unclear and imprecise. Twitter has numerous policies containing these terms. Each of these terms is a threat to free speech because they can be wielded to silence any viewpoints those in authority choose.

Take, for example, how these policies affect the free exchange of ideas on the ongoing national debate over gender ideology and its effects on female athletics, privacy, religious freedom, and free speech. This issue is, borrowing from Musks words, a matter vital to the future of humanity. Yet time and again, Twitters policies have hampered the freedom of people to freely discuss this critical issue.

Specifically, Twitter has wielded its hateful conduct policy to censor or deplatform users on one side of this debate. Among other things,that policysays, You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. It also bars targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.

Prohibiting hatefulconduct or targeted harassment is a noble objective. But, as applied to speech, Twitters speech code allows for disproportionate application and censorship. And thats exactly what has happened.

For example, in late January 2021, Twitterlocked outThe Daily Citizen, a Christian news outlet, from its account for stating that one of President Joe Bidens nominees is a man who identifies as a woman. The full tweet said: On Tuesday, President-elect Joe Biden announced that he had chosen Dr. Rachel Levine to serve as Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of HHS. Dr. Levine is a transgender woman, that is, a man who believes he is a woman.

The tweet linked to an article on The Daily Citizens website. This tweet addressed a matter of dramatic importance whether identifying as a woman is what makes a person a woman and expressed the position that many reasonable people hold: that identity is not the only thing that makes someone a man or a woman.

The tweet neither expressed any hatred nor encouraged any violence toward Levine. Nevertheless, Twitter informed The Daily Citizen that the tweet violated its hateful conduct policy because it promoted violence, threatened, or harassed Levine. Twitter denied The Daily Citizens appeal and imposed a four-month ban.

Similarly, The Federalists Senior Editor John Daniel Davidson was locked out of his Twitter account for saying Levine was a man. Twitter refuses to unlock Davidsons account unless he deletes the offending tweet, a common practice Twitter applies disproportionately to conservative commentators.

Similarly, during the 2021 summer Olympics, Twitter banned several commentators for questioning Olympic rules that permit males to compete in womens categories. For example, when New Zealand transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard exited the competition after failing all three attempts, Allie Beth Stuckeytweetedthat Laura [sic] Hubbard failing at the event doesnt make his inclusion fair. Hes still a man, and men shouldnt compete against women in weightlifting.

In response to Stuckeys 12-hour ban, Erick Ericksontweeted, This is absurd. Laurel Hubbard is a man even if Twitter doesnt like it. He also received a 12-hour ban. Both times, Twitter invoked its hateful conduct policy.

More recently, Twitter has censoredThe Babylon BeeandU.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzlerfor expressing their views on gender identity ideology and its impact on women. These examples of viewpoint discrimination against high-profile users only scratch the surface of the distortion Twitters hateful conduct speech code does to Twitters town square in cyberspace.

The same free speech threats spring from policies barring so-called misinformation and disinformation, which have both been wielded to silence ongoing conversations about public health, gender identity ideology, voting integrity, and more. For example,one current Twitter policy defines informational harmas follows: Harm that adversely impacts the ability for an individual to access information fundamental to exercising their rights, or that significantly disrupts the stability and/or safety of a social group or society including medical mis-information i.e. COVID-19.

Its difficult to imagine policy language that grants more discretion to restrict speech than the terms of this policy. There are no standards at all. The policy will inevitably be enforced based solely on Twitter employees subjective judgments about which views impact the ability of a person to access information, or significantly disrupts the stability of society. Those who control access to a speech forum, and what you are allowed to say, have no business wielding this kind of unchecked power over the exchange of ideas.

Twitters current policies fail to appreciate a critical First Amendment maxim: The answer to speech you dont like is more speech, not censorship. As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote in a 1927decision, If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

Thankfully, Musk appears fully cognizant of Twitters policies propensity to squelch free speech. He seems motivated to make good on Twitterspromiseto give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information, and to express their opinions and beliefs without barriers. To do so, he must eliminate Twitters speech codes, starting with the policies outlined above. Any essential limits on content should be shaped with surgical precision to give users clear notice of the boundaries and prevent employees biases from infecting their enforcement decisions.

Musk should take one additional step to restore free speech on Twitter. He should adopt a policy that bars censorship and expressly states that it will not enforce any of its policies in a manner that restricts the free exchange of ideas. By doing so, he will provide his content moderation team a workable roadmap to implement his guiding free speech principles across the enterprise.

Here is model language Musk should consider for a new free speech policy:

Twitter does not discriminate against users,censor users or a users expression, or interfere with users ability to receive the expression of another based on the viewpoint of the user or another person,regardless of whether the viewpoint is expressed on the platform or through another medium.

No Twitter policies will be enforced in a manner that restricts expression on matters of public concern because of the expressions viewpoint, even when some may find the expression offensive, hurtful, misguided, upsetting, or otherwise objectionable.

By following the steps outlined above, Musk can make important strides toward realizing his goal of aligning Twitters policies with First Amendment free speech protections.

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Musk Can Use The First Amendment To Make Twitter Free Speech Again - The Federalist

Restrictions will trap lifeguards in union membership and full dues payments for almost four years after they opted out of union

Orange County, CA (May 16, 2022) California lifeguard Jonathan Savas and 22 colleagues are pressing for a rehearing of their federal civil rights lawsuit before an en banc panel of judges of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Savas and the others are suing the State of California and the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA) union for violating their and their coworkers First Amendment right to abstain from forced union membership and compelled financial support.

Savas and his colleagues are asserting their rights under the National Right to Work Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME U.S. Supreme Court decision, in which the Court declared that no public sector worker can be forced to bankroll a union without voluntarily waiving their First Amendment right to abstain from union payments.

A so-called maintenance of membership requirement enforced by CSLEA union bosses and the State of California is forcing the lifeguards to both remain union members and supply full dues payments to the CSLEA union against their will. Savas and the other plaintiffs sent messages resigning their union memberships and ending dues authorizations on or around September 2019, but union officials denied their requests, alleging they have to remain full members until 2023. Despite Janus, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled that this requirement does not violate the First Amendment.

Lifeguards Attorneys: Maintenance of Membership Requirements Have Been Unconstitutional for Decades

Savas attorneys criticize the Ninth Circuit panels giving a pass to maintenance of membership requirements as contradicting Janus, and note that forcing dissenting employees to pay full union dues was unconstitutional even under Abood, the 1977 Supreme Court decision which Janus overruled. The lifeguards are receiving free legal representation from staff attorneys with the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the Freedom Foundation, along with Mariah Gondeiro of Tyler Bursh, LLP.

The Supreme Court recognized decades prior to Janus, in Abood, that it violates the First Amendment for government employers and unions to require dissenting employees pay full union duesIf maintenance of membership requirements could not survive constitutional scrutiny under Abood, Savas attorneys argue, the requirements are definitely foreclosed by the higher level of First Amendment protection applied in Janus.

Savas en banc request also refutes the Ninth Circuit panels claim that the lifeguards somehow contractually consented to the maintenance of membership requirement. Savas attorneys point out that the dues deduction authorization form that the lifeguards signed only vaguely alluded to the presence of the maintenance of membership requirement in the union contract with their state employer, and never explicitly informed the lifeguards what that requirement was.

On that same point, Savas attorneys point out that the panels contract-law analysis is wrongheaded because Janus requires a constitutional-waiver analysis. Janus requires that employees voluntarily waive their First Amendment right not to make dues payments before such payments are extracted. Savas attorneys state [t]here is no evidence the Lifeguards knew of their First Amendment rights under Janus or intelligently chose to waive those rights. Indeed, many of the lifeguards could not have known about those rights because they signed the dues deduction authorization forms before the Supreme Court decided Janus.

Even if such evidence existed, any purported waiver would be unenforceablebecause a four-year prohibition on employees exercising their First Amendment rights under Janus is unconscionable, Savas attorneys continue.

Ninth Circuit Panel Ruling Completely Inconsistent with Janus, Rehearing Required

So-called maintenance of membership requirements have been unconstitutional for decades, and its outrageous that courts have looked the other way and allowed CSLEA union bosses to infringe Savas and his fellow lifeguards First Amendment rights under the guise of such restrictions for so long, commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. A rehearing of Savas case is necessary so the plain meaning of Janus can be applied. Otherwise the Ninth Circuit will not only have ignored Janus, but turned back the clock over half a century on workers right to refrain from union membership.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in around 250 cases nationwide per year.

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Orange County Lifeguards Push for Rehearing of First Amendment Challenge to Union Scheme Trapping Them in Union Membership - National Right to Work...

Two major news events over the past week perfectly capture the essence of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the slippery slopes that could lead to chaos due to its theoretical protections.

The first news event was last week'sNewYorkTimesreport that American intelligence units helped Ukraine targetand killRussian generals, this despite the fact that from a policy standpoint, the United States prohibits providing intelligence about the most senior Russian leaders.That same week, theWashington Postreported that U.S. intelligence had "helped Ukraine target and sink the Russian warship the Moskva."

The Russian ship Moskva before sinking

The second news event was the leaked draft order reversingRoe vs. Wade, one widely published last week that signaled that safe abortions, legal since it was decided in 1973, soon will be no more in states that choose to ban or restrict the practice.

The sub-topic under the Roe leak includes reports yesterday that protesters had chosen to picket the private residences of Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito, the author of the Roe reversal, Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative who voted to reverse, and Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative who voted with the Court's liberals to leave Roe intact.

The common issue between both major news events is whether freedom of the pressand the public's right to be informedshould ever be curtailed for international or national security purposes? Further, the issue under the second news event is whether the rights of protesters who peacefully assemble at the private homes of sitting justices trumps those jurists and their family members rights to feel safe in their homes?

To begin todays analysis, the First Amendment provides in pertinent part:Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So, as to news reports about America's shadow involvement in the Russia-Ukraine War, it is clear from the First Amendment's text that the press have every right to publish leaked information from confidential sources within the federal government or military. But as I often say, just because something is legal or right doesn't necessarily make itright, and one can certainly argue that published reports about American intervention in the Russia-Ukraine Warcouldbe used as a pretext for Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin to directly attack American interests or American military personnel in Western Europe.

Whether Putin would make such a move with conventional forces is highly unlikely due to the fact that his military is struggling mightily against an undermanned Ukraine Army and does not have the power to engage with the U.S. and her NATO allies in a protracted manner. But Putincouldauthorize engagements ranging from crippling cyber-attacks (most likely), to nuclear deployments (unlikely but possible), depending on whether he goes all fatalistic like Al Pacino at the end of Brian De Palma's classic filmScarface.

The above facts lead me to ask whether the American press removing all deniability about America's proxy involvement against Russia (per its First Amendment freedom to print) was wise? My gut level response is a strong "no!"

As to the leaked Roe reversal order, one week later, and I am still totally blown away by this breach of court decorum and security. Again, I wrote last week that I've seen traffic and child support hearing judges with far more internal security than what was shown at the highest court in the land!

While the Roe leak was surprising, unlike my stance on the Russia-Ukraine leaks, I have no problem with the media reporting the contents of the order; as I often say, "what must be done eventually might as well be done immediately,"as such, there's no discernable differences between learning that Roe will be a nullity on May 2nd than it would be to learn its fate on, say, June 25th.

Separately, while I fully understand the First Amendment's rights to peaceful assembly and to petition for redress of grievances from an intellectual standpoint, my emotional side simply does not like seeing crowds of people surrounding the homes of any government officials. And while the protesters at Justices Alito, Roberts, and Kavanaugh's homes were peaceful, the slippery slope is, what happens if one or more not so peaceful sorts show up and show out in a violent manner?

Lest we forget that nut-jobs come in both conservative and liberal varieties, and all that it takes is one committed zealot who believes they are defending women and abortion rights to turn a peaceful protest into a bloody mess. Lest we also forget that federal judges and their families have been targeted by murderers in the recentpast!

Last, lest we forget that in our copycat society, that protests at conservative justices homes today could lead to the same occurring at liberal justices homes tomorrow! I believe that many of the same folks that insouciantly shrug their shoulders at seeing Justice Kavanaugh's home surrounded due to their disdain for the man and his judicial philosophy, would be appalled if Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson or Justice Sonia Sotomayor's homes were surrounded by MAGA hat wearing protesters following a ruling. Such is but one more reason for my belief that righteous protests against this deplorable ruling are better suitedat the Supreme Court building, where there is ample security for all of our sitting justices. (Nota Bene: Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted to extend personal security to each of the Supreme Court justices in the wake of recent protests).

To conclude, neither of the major news events have led to any broken laws by the media or individual protesters, but I remind that the rights listed within the First Amendment are wonderful when they work to form a better informed citizenry, while the same can be wonderfully problematic when said information leads to protracted war abroador wanton violence at home.

Thank you and please subscribe to the Hobbservation Pointhave a wonderful Tuesday!

Chuck Hobbs is a freelance journalist who won the 2010 Florida Bar Media Award and has been twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

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The benefits and burdens of the First Amendment - Insight News