Tag: 1st amendment

Judge Rules School Can Ban ‘XX’ Protests Over Males in Girls’ Sports

The Bow School District was acting within its authority to kick two soccer dads out of a girls game for wearing pink “XX” wristbands as a silent protest against biological males playing on girls’ teams, a federal judge ruled Monday.

But one of the dads, Anthony Foote, told NHJournal he plans to keep fighting for what he sees as the rights of women and girls.

“What was our offense? Supporting girls’ sports and defending biological reality?” Foote said. “This ruling is a slap in the face to every parent who believes schools should be a place of fairness, not political indoctrination. The judge openly admitted that Pride flags are allowed because they promote ‘inclusion,’ but wristbands defending women’s sports are banned because they might ‘offend’ someone. That’s viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple — and it’s unconstitutional.”

United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe ruled against Foote, Kyle Fellers, Eldon Rash, and Nicole Foote in a 45-page order denying their preliminary injunction against SAU 67. The parents are being represented by the Institute for Free Speech, a legal nonprofit that promotes parents’ rights. Del Kolde, the senior attorney, said he is still considering his next steps in this case.

“We strongly disagree with the Court’s opinion issued today denying our request for a preliminary injunction. This was adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys greater First Amendment protection than student speech in the classroom. Bow School District officials were obviously discriminating based on viewpoint because they perceived the XX wristbands to be ‘trans-exclusionary.’ We are still evaluating our options for next steps,” Kolde said.

The crux of McAuliffe’s ruling is that while Fellers, Foote, and the others acted within their First Amendment rights to protest, venues like school athletic events are considered “limited public forums” and school officials acted within their legal authority to restrict what the parents said and did.

“The question then becomes whether the School District can manage its athletic events and its athletic fields and facilities — that is, its limited public forum — in a manner that protects its students from adult speech that can reasonably be seen to target a specific student participating in the event (as well as other similar gender-identifying students) by invited adult spectators, when that speech demeans, harasses, intimidates, and bullies. The answer is straightforward: Of course it can. Indeed, school authorities are obligated to do so,” McAuliffe wrote.

Keep reading

After Self-Immolations at Red Onion Prison, Virginia Prisoners Allege Crackdown

Besides an overhead light, Sidney Bowman says he hasn’t had electricity in his cell at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison for roughly three months. 

Last month, Bowman told a federal court that prison employees cut the electricity to his cell after he refused to sign what staff call a “Safety Agreement for Inmates.” The document offers incentives to prisoners—such as movies, group recreation, free commissary bags, and a fish fry—provided they don’t harm themselves. However, if they repeatedly hurt themselves, they may lose “access to television, recreation time, or other amenities.” The Appeal obtained a copy of the agreement through a public records request. 

Bowman’s statement is part of an ongoing class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia that alleges that the state’s Step-Down program—which purports to help prisoners earn their way to a general population assignment—traps people in solitary confinement for months or years on end.

The legal team has asked the federal court to restore plaintiffs’ electricity and to prohibit staff from retaliating against people who refuse to sign the agreement or participate in the lawsuit. The Virginia Department of Corrections declined to answer The Appeal’s questions.

Last year, at least six people at Red Onion self-immolated in what incarcerated journalist Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson called “desperate attempts” to escape the prison’s inhumane conditions. But rather than offer them help, emails obtained by The Appeal show prison officials discussed how best to punish them. Then, in January, prison staff began distributing the Safety Agreement to people in Red Onion’s Step-Down program.

If someone refused to sign, staff cut the electricity to their cell’s outlet. The ACLU says this prevented prisoners from charging their tablets, watching television, or listening to the radio. Bowman told the court that he accesses religious programming through his television and tablet because he cannot leave his cell for services. He says his tablet is his primary tool to communicate with his family. 

Red Onion’s assistant warden confirmed in a court statement that there have been nine self-burnings—eight last year and one in January. The assistant warden said no one had burned themselves with a power outlet since the prison distributed the agreement on Jan. 20. 

“Security leadership and mental health leadership collaborated on potential solutions, and we ultimately decided that if an inmate agreed not to use the cell’s power outlet to bum himself, the power outlet in that inmate’s cell could remain active,” he said in his statement. “Inmates who refused to agree not to bum themselves would be placed in a cell where the power outlet had been deactivated.”

The warden said prisoners can use kiosks during recreation to charge their tablets and message family members. He said the prison has also set up TVs outside the cells to view religious services. 

In addition to threatening to punish people for acts of self-harm, the agreement also requires signers to affirm that they have “access to mental health and other local resources.” The plaintiffs say compelling them to agree with or espouse statements they believe are untrue or objectionable violates their First Amendment rights. 

Keep reading

Massachusetts Couple Accused of ‘Kidnapping’ Their Own Five Children from State Custody

A Massachusetts couple is facing serious charges after allegedly kidnapping their five children, who had been placed in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF).

Isael Rivera, 31, and Ruth Encarnacion, 30, were located by Fitchburg Police in early March, after a multi-state manhunt.

The couple is accused of taking the children across state lines in an attempt to evade DCF intervention.

Authorities believe the family fled Massachusetts shortly before the state attempted to enforce child protective measures, according to WCVB 5.
Rivera, the biological father of four of the five children, was arraigned last week in Fitchburg District Court. A not-guilty plea was entered on his behalf, and he is currently being held without bail, WHDH reported.

Encarnacion, the mother of all five children, is scheduled to be arraigned this week and faces five counts of kidnapping a minor by a relative. A not-guilty plea has also been entered on her behalf.

According to law enforcement, the family went missing just as DCF prepared to remove the children from Encarnacion’s care on February 27.

Encarnacion’s sister reported her missing days later on March 3, citing a lack of contact since February 26. DCF officially reported the five children missing on March 5, triggering a state and federal search.

Court documents indicate that DCF had opened a case against the couple in February after a pediatrician flagged signs of neglect involving the youngest child, a 9-month-old.

DCF intervened shortly thereafter, but by then, the family had reportedly left Massachusetts.

According to unconfirmed reports, they told their pediatrician they were skipping vaccines for their baby.

Keep reading

Congress Takes Another Step Toward Enabling Broad Internet Censorship

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday advanced the TAKE IT DOWN Act (S. 146) , a bill that seeks to speed up the removal of certain kinds of troubling online content. While the bill is meant to address a serious problem—the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII)—the notice-and-takedown system it creates is an open invitation for powerful people to pressure websites into removing content they dislike. 

As we’ve written before, while protecting victims of these heinous privacy invasions is a legitimate goal, good intentions alone are not enough to make good policy. 

This bill mandates a notice-and-takedown system that threatens free expression, user privacy, and due process, without meaningfully addressing the problem it claims to solve. The “takedown” provision applies to a much broader category of content—potentially any images involving intimate or sexual content at all—than the narrower NCII definitions found elsewhere in the bill. The bill contains no protections against frivolous or bad-faith takedown requests. Lawful content—including satire, journalism, and political speech—could be wrongly censored. 

The legislation’s 48-hour takedown deadline means that online service providers, particularly smaller ones, will have to comply quickly to avoid legal risks. That time crunch will make it impossible for services to verify the content is in fact NCII. Instead, services will rely on automated filters—infamously blunt tools that frequently flag legal content, from fair-use commentary to news reporting.

Keep reading

‘Not a cult’: Holy war erupts as judge bans mom from taking daughter to Christian church

A mother whose constitutional rights were violated by a Maine judge hearing a custody dispute has taken the fight to the state Supreme Court.

The case involves a radical ruling from Jennifer Nofsinger, a judge who heard a custody case, who ordered that the mother was not allowed to take her 11-year-old daughter to an evangelical Christian church.

That was based on “objections” from the child’s father, who like the mother and daughter was not identified in the report from Liberty Counsel, which is working on the case.

Chairman Mat Staver said, “Calvary Chapel is not a cult. This custody order banning a mother from taking her child to a Christian church because of its biblical teachings regarding marriage and human sexuality violates the First Amendment. The custody order cannot prohibit the mother from taking her daughter to church. The implications of this order pose a serious threat to religious freedom.”

The judge granted the father, who objects to the Christian teachings of the church, “the sole right to govern the girl’s religious activities.”

The high court is being asked to reverse the “unlawful custody order” and to restore the mother’s First Amendment right to pass on her religious beliefs

The judge adopted the ideology of a leftist teacher from California who was hired by the father. That teacher, Janja Lalich, told the judge “that cults usually have a charismatic, authoritarian leader who teach about a ‘transcendent belief system’ that offers answers, and ‘promises some sort of salvation.’ She further testified that she had ‘studied’ Calvary Chapel Church and found that the church’s pastor was a ‘charismatic’ speaker, spoke ‘authoritatively’ in his messages, and that he asserted his messages were objective truth.,” Liberty Counsel reported.

That meant, Lalich claimed, the church was “cultic.”

Keep reading

Democrats, Former Disinfo Board Chief, Defend Government-Big Tech Ties, Dismiss Censorship-Industrial Complex at House Hearing on First Amendment Safeguards

Nina Jankowicz – former head of the disbanded Disinformation Governance Board and CEO of the American Sunlight Project – and Democrats who this week spoke during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, continued to deny and defend the Big Tech-government censorship collusion.

The hearing – “Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Need for First Amendment Safeguards at the State Department” – also saw Jankowicz, who appeared as a witness, and Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democrat, attempt to paint the actions taken by the new Trump White House as worse that what was happening during the previous US administration.

Both Jankowicz and Kamlager-Dove referred to the system known as the Censorship-Industrial Complex, and its elements, as “fiction,” “lies,” “tall tales,” and, “a conspiracy theory,” with Jankowicz trying to frame the new government’s moves as “an assault on the First Amendment” and “suppressing speech.”

Despite the fact these are some of the key accusations against the Biden administration – and at this point, fairly well backed up by batches of internal documents, but also testimonies from Big Tech execs – Jankowicz chose to call it “the imagined actions of the Biden administration.”

As for her own role in this “imagined” system – namely, the brief stint at the helm of the short-lived Disinformation Governance Board (that was part of the Department of Homeland Security) – Jankowicz maintained that it was not meant to be a censorship body.

Instead, Jankowicz would have the Committee and the public believe the Board was true to its mission statement, which was “to protect civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and the First Amendment.”

Keep reading

Indiana Lawmakers Weigh Widespread Ban On All Marijuana Advertising, Not Just On Billboards

Indiana lawmakers could ban all marijuana advertising within state lines under an amendment adopted Monday in a transportation-focused committee. It goes beyond the billboard-specific prohibition taken in a Senate panel last week.

Rep. Jim Pressel (R-Rolling Prairie) said his community is “inundated” with billboards advertising illegal marijuana. The district is near Michigan, which has legalized it.

But that’s not all.

“My constituents, myself included, receive up to two—what would look like political mailers—a week advertising an illegal substance” at dispensaries in nearby New Buffalo, per Pressel. He chairs the House Roads and Transportation Committee.

He commandeered Senate Bill 73, dealing with utility trailer sales, for an amendment outlawing the advertising of marijuana and other drugs on Indiana’s list of Schedule I controlled substances. Indiana’s attorney general could sue for injunctions, civil penalties of up to $15,000 and “reasonable costs” incurred throughout the investigation and lawsuit.

“I’ve heard about [how] the First Amendment, I’m trampling on it. I don’t believe that to be true,” Pressel told the committee. He cited a federal appeals court decision that, “basically, if it’s a criminal activity, you have no First Amendment right to advertise. That’s my understanding.”

The ban would take effect upon the bill’s passage. Advertising from contracts entered into or renewed before the approval date would be exempt.

The committee accepted the edits by consent.

Keep reading

Perilous Times for Personal Liberty

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a socialist.|
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
~ Rev. Martin Niemoller (1892-1984)

The history of human freedom is long, tortuous and not gratifying. It consists essentially in governments trampling the laws enacted to restrain them. It is the profound clash of natural personal freedom and the commands of the state backed by force. The constitutions of totalitarian countries are papered over with restraints on the state, but the restraints are toothless. The state does what it wants. It doesn’t take rights seriously.

In liberal democracies – with the separation of powers, and checks and balances – the state is theoretically restrained. Yet often, there, too, the restraints are paper tigers. There, too, HERE, too, the state does not take rights seriously.

Thomas Jefferson argued that in the long march of history, personal liberty shrinks and state power grows. He famously believed that only a revolution can bring about a proper reset.

All of this history and theory came into sharp focus in the past two weeks when the feds arrested a Syrian graduate student in his student housing at Columbia University in New York City and shipped him to an immigration jail in Louisiana. He is married to a native-born American, they are expecting a child in April, and he is a permanent resident alien.

Last week, the federal government arrested a Lebanese physician at Logan Airport in Boston. She is a professor of medicine at Brown University, and she, too, is a permanent resident alien.

The student was charged with immigration violations. The physician was summarily deported to Paris and then to her native Lebanon.

The charging documents filed against the student allege no crime or personal misbehavior, point to no statutory violations, and offer no evidence of the student’s danger to persons or property or the government. The papers claim that Secretary of State Marco Rubio believes that this student’s presence on the Columbia campus – given his outspoken support for a Palestinian state, the existence of which has been the public policy of the U.S. for generations – is a material impediment to the execution of American foreign policy.

There are no charging papers filed against the physician, but the government leaked that when federal agents seized her mobile phone, they determined that she had been at the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, the recently murdered head of Hezbollah. She was there along with more than one million others. When asked about this, according to the government leakers, she stated that she followed Nasrallah’s religious teachings but not his political ones.

While the physician was confined at Logan, her attorneys obtained an order from a federal judge prohibiting her deportation until a hearing could be held before him. The government ignored the order.

These two arrests implicate numerous constitutionally guaranteed rights, which are generally taken for granted here.

The first is the freedom of speech. We know from the writings of James Madison – who authored the Bill of Rights – that the Founders regarded the freedom of speech as a personal individual natural right. It is also, of course, expressly protected from government interference and reprisal in the First Amendment. The courts have ruled that it protects all persons – no matter their immigration status – who may think as they wish, say what they think, publish what they say, worship or not and associate with whomever they choose.

If the government can punish the speech it or its friends and benefactors hate and fear, then the First Amendment is useless and democracy is a sham.

Also implicated in these arrests is freedom of religion and assembly. Just as the student can make any public political statement he wishes – no matter how offensive or provocative it may be to his immediate or a distant audience – the physician can attend any funeral she wishes, can associate with any mourners of her choosing, can embrace any religion and can follow any preacher.

The whole purpose of the First Amendment is to keep the government out of the business of speech, religion and assembly. Without government fidelity to it, America is no longer a democracy but rather some form of conformist secular theocracy that rejects the basic values protected by the Constitution – and changes with every election.

Also implicated by these arrests is due process, guaranteed to all persons by the Fifth Amendment. At its rudimentary base, due process requires a fair hearing before a neutral arbiter before the government may interfere with life, liberty or property – and at which the government must prove personal fault.

Keep reading

Court blocks California law on children’s online safety

A federal judge said California cannot enforce a state law meant to shield children from online content that could harm them mentally or physically.

U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman ruled on Thursday that the trade group NetChoice deserved a preliminary injunction because it was likely to show the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act violated its members’ free speech rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment.

NetChoice said the law would turn its 39 members including Amazon.com (AMZN.O), Google (GOOGL.O), Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms (META.O), Netflix (NFLX.O) and Elon Musk’s X into state-deputized censors, and “censor the internet under the guise of privacy.”

The office of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, which defended the law, did not immediately respond on Friday to requests for comment.

Ambika Kumar, a lawyer for NetChoice, called the law “a breathtaking act of unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, content-based censorship. We are pleased to see it enjoined.”

Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September 2022, California’s law required businesses to create reports addressing whether their online platforms could harm children, and take steps before launch to reduce the risks.

It also required businesses to estimate ages of child users and configure privacy settings for them, or provide high settings for everyone. Civil fines could reach $2,500 per child for negligence and $7,500 per child for intentional violations.

Keep reading

Amish children in NY face compulsory vaccination as court crushes religious freedom

In a chilling blow to religious freedom, Amish children in New York are now being forced to receive vaccinations against their families’ deeply held beliefs—under threat of massive fines and exclusion from their own private schools.

The ruling, handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on March 3, 2025, marks a dark milestone in government overreach, stripping one of America’s most peaceful religious communities of their constitutional rights.

The Amish, known for their steadfast commitment to faith and self-sufficiency, have long resisted government-mandated medical interventions. For centuries, they have lived apart from modern society, rejecting outside interference in their way of life.

But under New York’s repeal of religious exemptions—a law pushed through in the wake of a 2019 measles outbreak—the Amish were given an impossible choice: violate their conscience by vaccinating their children or face crippling financial penalties and educational exile.

And now, the state has made its position brutally clear. Reports indicate that Amish families and schools have already been hit with fines totaling $118,000 for refusing to comply.

The Second Circuit’s ruling dismissed Amish objections, arguing that the repeal of religious exemptions is “neutral” and applies to all children, regardless of whether they attend public, private, or parochial schools. The court insisted that the law serves a compelling public health interest—despite carving out medical exemptions for those with a doctor’s note while denying the same protection to those with religious objections.

This double standard is glaring. The Amish aren’t asking for special treatment—they’re simply asking to be left alone to live by their faith, a right the First Amendment is supposed to protect.

Reaction to the ruling has been swift and furious. Social media has erupted with outrage, with posts on X calling it a “horrific violation of basic freedoms.” One user warned, “If they can force this on the Amish, no one’s rights are safe.” Another pointed out the hypocrisy: “New York claims it’s about safety, but they’ll let unvaccinated kids in with a doctor’s note—just not a prayer.”

Keep reading