Tag: free speech

High school student sues Tenn. school district after getting suspended for social media posts

A Tennessee high school student is suing a school district, saying the district violated his first amendment rights when administrators suspended him for posting three memes of his principal on Instagram.

One meme depicts the principal holding a box of fruit and vegetables with the words “my brotha” and “on god” over the screen. Another shows the principal as an anime cat and wearing a dress. Court papers say the third meme shows the principal’s head superimposed on a hand-drawn cartoon meant to resemble a character from the online game “Among Us,” with a cartoon bird clinging to his leg

Court papers say the student posted them to his personal Instagram account last summer joking about their Tullahoma City school principal.

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University to undergo free speech training, pay $80,000 in settlement for allegedly issuing ‘no-contact orders’ against student, instructing peers to report her ‘harmful’ Christian, political views

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville will pay $80,000 in a recent settlement agreement with a graduate student who accused the school of wrongfully issuing “no-contact orders” against her and instructing her peers to report her “harmful rhetoric.”

Maggie DeJong and Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit against the school after the student claimed she was discriminated against for sharing her Christian and conservative political views.

Three of the school’s professors have been ordered to undergo First Amendment training as part of the settlement agreement. Additionally, the university has been required to revise its policies and student handbook to protect students’ political, religious, and ideological views.

In February 2022, school officials issued “no-contact orders” against DeJong after some of her peers reported her comments about religion, politics, critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, Marxism, censorship, COVID-related regulations, and the criminal justice system.

Students accused DeJong of “harassment” and “discrimination,” claiming her rhetoric had “harmed and offended” them, according to the ADF’s lawsuit.

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Michigan Democrats’ ‘Hate Speech’ Law Could Imprison People For Saying ‘Frightening’ Words

In an unprecedented move, Michigan Democrats have passed a new law, House Bill 4474, which seeks to enforce prison sentences for those found guilty of uttering words deemed to be ‘frightening’ or ‘intimidating’.

The bill expands the definition of hate crimes to include intimidation or harassment based on a wide range of individual characteristics, including race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, physical or mental disability, age, ethnicity, and national origin.

Under the terms of the proposed law, a person can be found guilty of a hate crime if they are found to have intentionally intimidated or harassed another person based on any of the above-listed characteristics. Intimidation and harassment under this law can take many forms, including causing physical contact, damaging property, or making threats that could cause another individual to feel frightened, threatened, or harassed.

According to critics, the bill’s broad definition of hate crimes, including the use of ‘frightening’ words, raises concerns about potential infringement on free speech. The law could have far-reaching implications, potentially criminalizing harsh words or expressions of opinion if they are perceived as intimidating or harassing, particularly if they are based on the characteristics listed in the bill.

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Supreme Court Refuses To Expand the ‘True Threats’ Exception for Free Speech

SCOTUS ruling in Facebook threats case “neither the most speech-protective nor the most sensitive to the dangers of true threats.” For statements to be considered true threats, unprotected by the First Amendment, the person making them must have some understanding the statements could be construed as threatening, the Supreme Court held yesterday. The case—Counterman v. Colorado—involves a defendant convicted of stalking after sending a bevy of Facebook messages to someone identified as C.W.

In a 7-2 ruling issued yesterday, the Court vacated the conviction and remanded the case back to the lower court. The court’s three liberal justices were joined by Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito.

“True threats of violence are outside the bounds of First Amendment protection and punishable as crimes,” noted Justice Elena Kagan in the majority’s opinion:

Today we consider a criminal conviction for communications falling within that historically unprotected category. The question presented is whether the First Amendment still requires proof that the defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements. We hold that it does, but that a mental state of recklessness is sufficient. The State must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence. The State need not prove any more demanding form of subjective intent to threaten another.

In this case, Billy Counterman sent C.W.—a singer and musician who lived in his community—hundreds of Facebook messages between 2014 and 2016. “Some of his messages were utterly prosaic (‘Good morning sweetheart’; ‘I am going to the store would you like anything?’)—except that they were coming from a total stranger,” notes Kagan. “Others suggested that Counterman might be surveilling C. W.,” and some expressed anger at her.

“Fuck off permanently,” said one message. Another read: “You’re not being good for
human relations. Die.”

Understandably, the messages frightened C.W., who worried that Counterman was following her and might hurt her. She contacted local police, who charged him under a Colorado stalking statute that prohibits “repeatedly . . . make[ing] any form of communication with another person” in “a manner that would cause a reasonable person to suffer serious emotional distress.”

Counterman argued that his messages were not true threats and thus were protected by the First Amendment.

The trial court weighed whether Counterman’s messages were true threats using a “reasonable person” standard: would some hypothetical, objective “reasonable person” find them threatening? It found that they would, meaning the messages were not protected speech. The case was put before a jury, which found Counterman guilty under the stalking statute.

The Colorado Court of Appeals then affirmed this decision, holding that “a speaker’s subjective intent to threaten” is not necessary to convict the speaker for threatening communications. The Colorado Supreme Court declined to review the case.

“Courts are divided about (1) whether the First Amendment requires proof of a defendant’s subjective mindset in true-threats cases, and (2) if so, what mens rea”—that is, level of intent or knowledge—”standard is sufficient,” noted Kagan. Thus, the Supreme Court decided to hear Counterman’s case.

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The UN Wants People To Report Each Other For “Hate Speech”

There’s been a lot of talk about the United Nations (UN) and its actions of late – mostly, those actions that fall way beyond the scope of what its founding Charter designates the organization’s role to be.

As a short history reminder – the UN is basically the international body that succeeded the League of Nations – the one that failed to prevent the (previous, atrocious) world war.

The UN is – and has, for a long time, focused its energy on “doing better” – mediating, providing a neutral ground for dialogue, helping those places around the globe unfortunately afflicted by local wars since 1945 – and just in general, not repeating the mistake of its predecessor of miring itself into irrelevancy.

You would think that with the real danger of another global war now on the cards, that would take up all of the UN’s energy and focus. But you would be wrong.

Here’s the UN, dabbling in things like alleged “hate speech.”

But – world peace – that’s supposed to be the mission. Not policing social media for dubiously defined “hate speech.”

The UN is now using its always precarious resources (depending on member-countries’ contribution, and, consequently, the way the organization satisfies the biggest contributors’ own agendas) to deal with things like real or perceived “hate speech” online.

But can that really be the mission of the world organization set up to make sure another world war doesn’t happen, and help/mediate in regional conflicts?

It seems almost absurd. Yet here it is. The UN is reported to be descending into internet censorship by “encouraging” people to report one another for hate speech online.

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Rhode Island senator arrested, accused of keying car with anti-Biden bumper sticker

State Senator Josh Miller was arrested on Thursday, accused of keying a car in the Garden City shopping center parking lot that was sporting a bumper sticker reading “Biden sucks.”

Body-worn camera videos released by the Cranston Police Department showed Miller initially denied keying the man’s car when stopped by police at Garden City, but at his home later Thursday night acknowledged he did so because he felt he was being threatened by the man.

The arrest report says the alleged victim returned to his car parked near Ben & Jerry’s Thursday afternoon and heard a scratching sound coming from the passenger side.

“Upon checking, he observed a large scratch on his passenger side rear door and a male, later identified as Joshua Miller, quickly walking away, holding keys in his right hand and gripping a single key which he says was pointing towards his vehicle,” Officer Alberto Diaz wrote in the report.

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Proposed ‘Hate Speech’ Law in Michigan Threatens First Amendment Rights, Conservatives Warn

A bill moving through the Democrat-controlled Michigan State Legislature would make it easier for prosecutors to bring felonious “hate crime” charges against dissident speech.

The possible implications for preachers, school administrators, teachers, parents, politicians, and citizen activists have alarmed conservatives concerned about the effect the bill may have on free speech.

The proposed legislation, HB 4474, would amend the state’s Ethnic Intimidation Act of 1988 in order to consider it a hate crime if a person is accused of causing “severe mental anguish” to another individual by means of perceived verbal intimidation or harassment.

The amendment defines the words intimidate or harass as a “willful course of conduct, involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested…”

“Words are malleable,” Attorney David Kallman of the Great Lakes Justice Center (GLJC), a non-profit legal organization dedicated to preserving liberty in America, told The Epoch Times. “They can be redefined by whoever is in power.

“Under the proposed statute, ‘intimidate and harass’ can mean whatever the victim, or the authorities, want them to mean. The focus is on how the victim feels rather than on a clearly defined criminal act. This is a ridiculously vague and subjective standard,” he said.

“The absence of intent makes no difference under this law. You are still guilty of the crime because the victim felt uncomfortable.

“The bill will lead to the prosecution of conservatives, pastors, and parents attending a school board meeting for simply expressing their opposition to the liberal agenda,” Kallman said.

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Wearing Shirt Saying ‘There Are Only Two Genders’ Not Protected Speech, Rules Obama-Appointed Judge

School administrators were not infringing on a student’s constitutional rights when they ordered him to remove a shirt that said, “there are only two genders,” a district judge ruled on June 17.

Massachusetts middle-schooler Liam Morrison’s lawyers said the order violated his First Amendment rights to free speech and his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process, but U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said the violations have not been proven.

The school “permissibly concluded that the Shirt invades the rights of others,” Talwani, an Obama appointee, said.

Schools can bar speech that is in “collision with the rights of others to be secure and be let alone,” Talwani said, quoting from the 1969 ruling in Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. School Dist.

That means the administrators appropriately exercised their discretion when concluding the statement “may communicate that only two gender identities–male and female are valid, and any others are invalid or nonexistent, and to conclude that students who identify differently, whether they do so openly or not, have a right to attend school without being confronted by messages attacking their identities,” she added.

Talwani’s ruling rejected a request from the boy for a temporary restraining order that would have stopped administrators from prohibiting the student from wearing the shirt at John T. Nicholas Middle School.

The case has not been thrown out and Talwani could ultimately rule in the boy’s favor.

Tyson Langhofer, senior counsel and director of the Center for Academic Freedom at Alliance Defending Freedom who is helping defend the plaintiff, said that the ruling was disappointing.

“Public school officials cannot censor a 7th grader’s free speech by forcing him to remove a shirt that states a scientific fact,” Langhofer told The Epoch Times via email. “Doing so is a gross violation of the First Amendment and we will be appealing this ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Lawyers for the defendants, which include acting principal Heather Tucker and Middleborough Public Schools Superintendent Carolyn Lyons, did not return an inquiry.

First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh said the ruling does not appear to be consistent with the Tinker ruling, which held that school officials in Iowa illegally ordered students to remove armbands amid protests against the Vietnam war. Lawyer Hans Bader, who is not involved in the case, said the ruling was wrong, noting that previous cases have upheld students’ rights to convey messages “as long as they weren’t vulgar or likely to cause a disruption,” including a ruling in favor of wearing a shirt that said “Be Happy, Not Gay.”

“The judge suggested that the T-shirt interfered with other students’ ‘right to attend school without being confronted by messages attacking their identities,’” Bader said. “But other courts have refused to recognize a right to attend school without being confronted by messages attacking one’s identity, when the messages don’t disrupt school, and don’t involve ‘independently tortious speech like libel, slander or intentional infliction of emotional distress.’”

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“We Are Restricting Freedom… For The Common Good”: Irish Green Party Calls For Limiting Free Speech

The Irish Green Party followed many on the left around the world, including our own Democratic Party, this week and came out for censorship and speech controls. Indeed, the party went full Orwellian as its chairwoman Pauline O’Reilly called for “restricting freedom” to protect it.

O’Reilly’s comments are part of the introduction of the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022. We previously discussed this massive assault on free speech.

The legislation that would criminalize “incitement to violence or hatred against” people with “protected characteristics,” as well as “condoning, denying or grossly trivialising genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace.”

Limiting free speech has become an article of faith for many on the left. I have written about my distress (as someone who grew up in a liberal, politically active Democratic family in Chicago) in watching the abandonment of free speech values by the party. Democratic leaders now uniformly call for censorship and speech regulations. President Biden even charged that companies who refused to censor opposing views on social media were “killing people.”  Others have denounced free speech as “a white man’s obsession.”

The anti-free speech movement has become openly Orwellian in claiming to protect freedom by limiting freedom.  It also employs using terms like disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation to obscure their effort to silence those with opposing views. Rather than use “censorship,” they refer to “content moderation.”

That effort was on full display this week in Ireland with this anti-free speech legislation.

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Did You Know That Biden Is in the Midst of Three Lawsuits for Infringing on Free Speech?

Lawsuits and legal battles are everywhere lately.  Trump’s indictment for the mishandling of classified documents has been all over the news, but the Biden White House is also in the middle of a few lawsuits that may be of some interest to First Amendment enthusiasts.

Alex Berenson sues Twitter and Biden

Former New York Times journalist and popular novelist Alex Berenson sued Twitter in December 2021.  Berenson had retweeted Pfizer’s own data about the Covid jabs, but since he did not present the data in a flattering manner, he was booted off the site after being previously told by Twitter that they supported him in his Covid dissidence, as he explains in this interview with Clay and Buck.

Berenson filed his lawsuit in Northern California, and he won.  In July 2022, Alex Berenson was back on Twitter.

But some weird details emerged.  During the discovery phase of his lawsuit against Twitter, where the parties are given access to each other’s documents, Team Berenson got the chance to look over internal Twitter communications.  And Team Berenson found out that Twitter had been pressured by the White House and Pfizer board member Dr. Scott Gottlieb to kick him off.  So, on April 12, 2023, Alex Berenson filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration.

Berenson v. Biden is moving really slowly, and who knows how it’ll end up.  But the Twitter Files releases look only to strengthen his argument; Michael Shellenberger found more email chains about the internal Twitter arguments over whether or not to ban Berenson and turned the emails over to him to use in his lawsuit against the White House.  The more time goes by, the more it looks like Berenson was correct in suspecting that outside forces were at work in removing him from Twitter.

Alex Berenson was a highly respected writer before Covid, though after 2020 many in the medical field adopted a “stay in your lane” attitude toward anyone not practicing medicine and who didn’t buy into the official narrative.

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