Posts Tagged ‘freedom of speech’
“Money Isn’t Speech” and “Corporations Aren’t People”—So What?
FIRST AMENDMENT, PAUL SHERMAN Most of the popular arguments against the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC boil down to two sound bites: “Money isn’t speech” and “Corporations aren’t people.” Both of these statements are obviously true. But neither has anything to do with whether political spending—even [...]
Speech Code of the Month: University of Southern California
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for January 2012: the University of Southern California (USC). USC’s policy on “Advertising, Promotion, and Literature Distribution” prohibits the posting or distribution of any printed materials that contain “derogatory language or material that is aimed at [...]
Following Publication of Photos, Newspaper Adviser Fired
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org The East Carolinian and the Student Press Law Center both reported yesterday that Paul Isom, Director of Student Media at Eastern Carolina University (ECU), was fired on Wednesday. Isom's advising portfolio included the campus radio station, television station, yearbook, and several student magazines. But it was a [...]
FIRE Urges Department of Education to Protect Speech
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org In an open letter sent today, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and ten other organizations urge the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to defend free speech on campus by ending the lingering confusion surrounding the definition of student harassment. "Since the 1980s, [...]
A Roundup of 2011′s Faculty First Amendment Rights Case Law
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org Last year saw a handful of important cases related to university faculty First Amendment rights in the courts. Particularly, a number of cases dealt with the application of the United States Supreme Court case Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006). Yesterday marked the first day of the annual meeting of the [...]
9th Circuit Strikes Down Ban on Contributions to Ballot Measures
Liberty Alerts, Institute for Justice In a mixed decision for the First Amendment, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today struck down a Washington law that banned certain contributions to ballot measures within the key final three weeks before an election. The court also upheld Washington’s stringent disclosure requirements for ballot [...]
Marquette University Threatens Academic Freedom
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org Over at the blog Marquette Warrior, John McAdams provides a good example of how unwarranted investigations of campus speech can cause a deeply problematic "chilling effect" at a university. Universities must not pursue investigations of protected expression just because someone submits a complaint; as soon as it is [...]
A Roundup of 2011’s Free Speech Case Law
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org While FIRE has won numerous victories this year in working to protect individual rights on college campuses, 2011 was a mixed year for the defense of students' rights by the courts. Importantly, this year highlighted divergent theories of the First Amendment rights of students off campus. While some courts have held [...]
The Unintended Consequences of Internet Regulation
Rob Bluey, Heritage Foundation Would you be outraged if the Department of Justice shut down The Foundry without any warning and blocked access for more than a year? That’s exactly what happened to a hip-hop blog called Dajaz1.com, which was falsely accused of criminal copyright infringement. The blog posted music from artists promoting [...]
Auburn University Bans Ron Paul Banner from Dorm Room Window
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org AUBURN, Ala., December 22, 2011—Auburn University has ordered a Ron Paul for President campaign banner removed from the inside of a dorm room window while allowing students to display numerous other banners, stickers, and flags. Student Eric Philips, who was ordered to remove his sign last month, used his cell [...]
2011: Big Wins for Individual Rights in Education
LIBERTY ALERTS, THE TORCH FIRE celebrated several significant victories with our Individual Rights Education Program in 2011. This year saw a number of important university policy changes as well as other positive developments for individual rights on campus. FIRE’s Individual Rights Education Program (IREP) encompasses our efforts to [...]
Why Hasen Is Wrong About Foreign Speech
PAUL SHERMAN, INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE Readers of Make No Law may recall that the Institute for Justice recently filed a brief in Bluman v. FEC, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to hear that case, a challenge to the federal prohibition on political spending by noncitizens. Now election-law scholar Rick Hasen has posted a commentary at The New [...]
University of Denver Calls Teaching ‘Sexual Harassment’
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org University of Denver Professor Arthur N. Gilbert is daring to teach his "Drug War" course again after the university violated his academic freedom and suspended him earlier this year, deeming his teaching about sexual issues to be "sexual harassment." Over the objections of the Foundation for Individual Rights in [...]
Money Is Not Speech
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Michael Cummins “The Supreme Court said that money equals speech!” Proponents of campaign finance regulation have thrown this trope around freely since 2010’s landmark Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. Fortunately, the Court never actually made such an absurd [...]
University of California Schools Flout Student Speech Rights
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org While some University of California schools are facing scrutiny due to their handling of students' exercises of free speech and civil disobedience, others in the system have unfinished business protecting students' free speech rights in their policies. All eight of the UC universities reviewed by FIRE have "red [...]
James Madison: On a Just Partition of Power
Liberty Letters, James Madison It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the [...]
Freedom of Speech—Samuel Adams Shouted Down
Democratic Thinker, American Debate On the evening of October 26, 1791, Samuel Adams rose to speak against repealing the prohibition of theaters in Boston. Those of the town meeting wishing the repeal refused to allow him the courtesy. Long may Americans revere the Saviours of their country, and on the records let the occasion be noted with [...]
Franklin: Freedom of the Press
Democratic Thinker, American Debate Benjamin Franklin, after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, ponders the abuse of the constitutionally protected freedom on the press. But since so much has been written and published on the federal constitution, and the necessity of checks in all other parts of good government has been so clearly [...]
Whither Glik . . . and Why?
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Wendy McElroy The streets of America have become safer, not from criminals but from brutish police. On August 26 the First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against the Boston police for arresting a man who recorded their brutal treatment of a teenager. The ruling is only one [...]
Bryant: Freedom to Speak
Democratic Thinker, American Debate Following the Cincinnnati Abolition Riots in 1836, William Cullen Bryant writes an editorial defending the right of all citizens to express concerns without obstruction by those of opposing views. … if they cannot put down the abolitionist press by fair means, they will do it by foul; if they cannot [...]
Sixth Circuit Orders Federal District Court to Rule on Student Blogger’s Free Speech and Due Process Claims
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org On Monday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a 2009 federal district court decision (full opinion here) in which a student claimed that the University of Louisville wrongfully dismissed her based on the contents of her personal blog. The district court had refused to rule on the [...]
Michigan Universities Respond to Request for E-mail Records
School Days, EducationNews.org The University of Michigan’s faculty Senate is fighting back against Freedom of Information Act requests from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, reports the Detroit Free Press. Calling the requests for the emails “harassing,” the Senate Chairman Ed Rothman said he viewed the tactic as a challenge on [...]
U.S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Free Speech in Funeral Protest Case
Liberty Alerts, Liberty Counsel Washington, DC – This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld free speech rights in a case that could have had significant negative repercussions for those who seek to express unpopular views. The Court’s ruling is in keeping with the position that Liberty Counsel advocated in the Amicus Brief it filed in the [...]
On Freedom of Speech and Incitement to Violence
By Izzy Kalman I’m sure many of my readers wonder why I deal with political matters in a newsletter that is seemingly about psychological matters. The truth is that the separation between psychology and politics is an artificial one. All political actions are psychological actions because they involve human behavior. And while [...]
Ideas and Guns are Dangerous Things
Tyranny Unmasked, Joseph Stalin "Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas." So said Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1878 – 1953) served as the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in [...]
Milton’s Areopagitica: In Support of Freedom of Speech
Liberty Letters,1644, John Milton A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING. TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. This is true Liberty, when freeborn men, Having to advise the public, may speak free; Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise: Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace: What can be juster in a state than this? — [...]
Pamphlet for Those Interested in Challenging College Speech Code
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org FIRE is pleased to announce the publication of our new informational pamphlet for public university students interested in serving as plaintiffs in a First Amendment challenge to their universities' policies restricting free speech. Our new pamphlet, "Challenging Your College's Speech Code," answers students' [...]
Treating All of God’s Children as Brothers and Sisters
Prophet Statesmen, Quentin L. Cook A second example of how religious faith benefits society and contributes light to the world is the role of religion in treating all of God’s children as brothers and sisters. Many faith-based institutions in the last two centuries have been at the forefront in reaching out and rescuing those subjected to [...]
Major Legal Victory for Free Speech
Liberty Alerts, Institute For Justice Arlington, Va.—A federal appellate court today held that six neighbors in the tiny subdivision of Parker North, Colo., should not have been forced to register with the government and comply with burdensome campaign finance laws simply for opposing a ballot issue involving the annexation of their [...]
A Need for Equal Access to the Public Square
Prophet Statesmen, Quentin L. Cook There has always been an ongoing battle between people of faith and those who would purge religion and God from public life.12 Many opinion leaders today reject a moral view of the world based on Judeo-Christian values. In their view there is no objective moral order.13 They believe no preference should be [...]
UVa Eliminates Speech Codes, Earning ‘Green Light’ Rating
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., October 28, 2010—This week, the University of Virginia (UVa) confirmed that it had eliminated the last of its policies that unconstitutionally restricted the free speech of students and faculty members. While more than two-thirds of the nation's colleges maintain policies that clearly [...]
Government Has the Internet in Its Sites
The proposals keep coming The Freeman, Wendy McElroy The Obama administration is seeking domestic and worldwide control of the Internet. After the July Wikileaks disclosure of 77,000 classified Afghan war documents and its planned release of 15,000 more, the U.S. wants that control bad –and fast. The danger from the proposed regulation is [...]
Why the DISCLOSE Act Put K Street Over Main Street
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Bert Gall The President is disappointed that the DISCLOSE Act died in the Senate last week. He said, among other things, that “Wall Street, the insurance lobby, oil companies and other special interests are now one step closer to taking Congress back and returning to the days when lobbyists [...]
Jacob Sullum Debunks the Demonization of Citizens United
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Bert Gall From his excellent article on Reason.com: Last week The New York Times reported that “outside groups supporting Republican candidates in House and Senate races across the country have been swamping their Democratic-leaning counterparts on television.” The paper worried that “a [...]
We Hate to Say We Told You So, But . . . .
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Steve Simpson Yesterday, a district court in Minnesota ruled that corporations must become political committees or PACs in order to speak. The case is called Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, Inc. v. Swanson. The decisions directly conflicts with Citizens United, but it is particularly [...]
The Michael Myers of Bad Ideas
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Bill Maurer Following up on my colleague Bert Gall’s discussion of seemingly unkillable frights, the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA) is also showing signs of life again. FENA, one may recall, is the name for a number of bills that operate from the assumption that if you preemptively shower [...]
A License to Speak
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Steve Simpson We’ve noted before that when government controls our economic affairs, it will inevitably control our speech as well. We’ve seen that tendency in calls to prohibit companies that receive TARP funds from lobbying and speaking out about elections and in the government’s threats [...]
Campaign Finance Laws: The Worst Kind of Party Crashers
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Anthony Sanders In a recent article in National Journal, Jonathan Rauch explains that the “Tea Party” is not one organization run by a top-down command structure, but rather a large number of local organizations across the country. Almost all of them are completely run by volunteers, and [...]
Grambling State University Bans Use of E-Mail for Core Political Expression
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org GRAMBLING, La., September 16, 2010—As the 2010 election season enters full swing, Grambling State University (GSU) is prohibiting its students and faculty members from engaging in a wide swath of constitutionally protected political expression. The Louisiana public university has forbidden students and [...]
Level My Speech, Please!
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Lisa Knepper As Bill Maurer notes below, at the heart of IJ’s challenge to Arizona’s “Clean Elections” law is an obvious and important claim: If the government gives additional money to your political and ideological opponents whenever you speak, you are less likely to do so. Thus, the [...]
Update on Wisconsin Speech Restrictions
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Anthony Sanders It turns out we were a little too quick in our post last week proclaiming the end of the case challenging the new Wisconsin campaign finance rule. The case is in federal court and the judge has expressed concern that he might not have jurisdiction to enter a judgment, even an agreed [...]
Wisconsin Seeks to Criminalize Your Unregistered Facebook Account
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Anthony Sanders Faced with three separate lawsuits the State of Wisconsin has backed-down from enforcing an incredibly-broad new campaign finance regulation. If the regulation had been enforced, then conceivably millions of people across the Wisconsin would have had to register with the government [...]
Students at Lincoln Memorial Told to Stop Singing National Anthem
Liberty Alerts, Fox News A group of high school students attending a conservative leadership conference in Washington, D.C. said they were ordered by a security guard to stop singing the national anthem during a June 25 visit to the Lincoln Memorial. “They told them to stop singing,” said Evan Gassman, a spokesman for the Young America’s [...]
Washington State gets message on bias reporting protocols; will other universities?
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org The advent of bias reporting protocols on university campuses is viewed by FIRE as a pernicious threat to student speech, and with good reason. Universities that maintain and operate such policies typically encourage students and others on campus to report, often anonymously, occasions in which they experience [...]
Urgent Message From Ron Paul and Campaign For Liberty’s John Tate
Liberty Alerts, Ron Paul and Campaign For Liberty Dear Liberty Activist, The FEC has launched a pair of investigations on Campaign for Liberty. Both are meritless, but could seriously disrupt our growing program. Please read Campaign for Liberty President John [...]
University of Illinois Professor Fired For Standing By Catholic Teaching on Homesexuality — Steve Farrell
By Steve Farrell Calling it hate speech, the University of Illinois has fired a Catholic professor hired to teach an introductory course on Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought for responding to a student question about why homosexuality is immoral under Natural Law. The professor, Ken Howell answered in his email: "Natural Law says that [...]
God-given Privileges — David O. McKay
Prophet Statesmen, David O McKay Next to life we express gratitude for the gift of free agency. When thou didst create man, thou placed within him part of thine omnipotence and bade him choose for himself. Liberty and conscience thus became a sacred part of human nature. Freedom not only to think, but to speak and to act is a God-given [...]
House Narrowly Passes Gag Order (DISCLOSE) Act
Liberty Letters, Gun Owners of America "Now the NRA are the big defenders of the Second Amendment of the Constitution, the right to bear arms. But yet they think it's all right to throw everybody else under the table so they can get a special deal, while requiring everyone else to comply with all the rules outlined in this bill, and [...]
Online Society, Offline Civilization: How the Internet is Ushering in the End of the Age — Selwyn Duke
By Selwyn Duke When people discuss the overall effects of the Internet, they will weigh the good and the bad. On one side, they may mention how the Web, along with talk radio, has broken the stranglehold over public opinion the mainstream media once enjoyed; on the other, they may cite the pernicious effects of pornography, cyber-bullying or the [...]
Victory: University of Idaho Drops Charges of Harassment and Discrimination for ‘Offensive’ Speech
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org, Peter Bonilla After FIRE intervened, the University of Idaho (UI) abandoned disciplinary charges of "harass" and "discrimination" against student Alexander Rowson relating to political statements he made at two campus events. On or about March 30, during César Chávez Day at UI, there was a musical [...]
