Daily Archives: March 2, 2015

One dead three policemen injured in shooting at Copenhagen free speech event - LoneWolf Sager (_)
One civilian is dead and three policemen injured, after shots were fired inside a Copenhagen cafe where a controversial Swedish artist, Lars Vilks, attended a debate on art and blasphemy. ...

By: LoneWolf Sager

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One dead three policemen injured in shooting at Copenhagen free speech event - LoneWolf Sager (_) - Video

Photo by: The News-Gazette

Protesters chant for Chancellor Phyllis Wise to go, in front of the Swanlund Administration Building in Champaign on Tuesday August 26, 2014. Wise chose not to pass on Professor Steven Salaita's appointment to the university's board of trustees.

What's your take? Tell Tom Kacich here

URBANA The Steven Salaita saga has landed the University of Illinois on a list it probably would rather not make.

The UI is included in the fourth annual "10 worst colleges for free speech" list published by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

The foundation criticized the UI for revoking a job offer to Salaita after he posted inflammatory tweets about Israel last summer. The decision sparked a nationwide debate over free speech and "civility" on college campuses and prompted boycotts by prominent academic groups.

Salaita had left a tenured position at Virginia Tech to accept a job with the UI's American Indian Studies program when the job was withdrawn by campus administrators. Chancellor Phyllis Wise later issued a statement explaining that the campus would not tolerate "personal and disrespectful words or actions that demean and abuse either viewpoints themselves or those who express them." That prompted critics to charge administrators were imposing a "speech code" on faculty. Wise has repeatedly said that was not her intent.

The UI Board of Trustees has upheld her decision and said recently it would not revisit the issue. Salaita is suing the university in federal court to get his job back.

Spokesman Nico Perrino said the UI was cited both because Salaita was "censored" for his personal tweets but also because the university "doubled down" with the email.

"Professors tweet personal opinions all the time," Perrino said. "You don't always see a job offer revoked for expressing their personal viewpoints."

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Updated: Group puts UI in top 10 'worst colleges for free speech'

The Kansas Board of Regents controversial social media policy has landed the board on a nonprofits list of educational institutions with the worst regard for free speech rights.

Mondays 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech in 2014 list by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education chides the Regents for enacting an overly broad policy on the improper use of social media.

FIREs annual worst of the worst list includes two institutions that arent colleges the Kansas board and the U.S. Department of Education. The list is critical of the profound effect they had on campus expression throughout the country last year.

Under the Regents policy, universities can let faculty go if they use social media in a way that is contrary to the best interest of the university. The Regents adopted the policy in December 2013 after The University of Kansas professor David Guths Twitter post about the Washington Navy Yard shootings, which killed a dozen people.

The blood is on the hands of the #NRA, Guth wrote. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.

The policy was revised in May 2014 to add language referencing First Amendment rights, but those critical of the policy say revisions didnt go far enough to protect free-speech rights.

Nothing has changed since May 2014, said Breeze Richardson, a Regents spokeswoman. To continue to repeat the policy does X, Y and Z is misleading because it doesnt mandate anything happen. The reality is those who dont like the policy dont like the law.

Also on FIREs list of worst abusers of student and faculty free speech rights are Brandeis University; California State University, Fullerton; Chicago State University; Georgetown University; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Iowa; Marquette University; and Modesto (Calif.) Junior College.

Our colleges and universities are supposed to be where students go to debate and explore new ideas, said FIRE president Greg Lukianoff. But too often on the modern college campus, students and their professors find their voices silenced by administrators who would rather they be absent from the often contentious marketplace of ideas. When this happens, FIRE will be there to call out these reckless censors.

FIRE claims more than half of the top U.S. colleges maintain speech codes that violate the First Amendment.

Link:
Annual list of 10 worst abusers of student, faculty free speech rights includes Kansas Board of Regents

The decision on the Diocese of Bacolod is the Supreme Courts most convoluted exaltation of free speech. Few realize how it undercuts the Commission on Elections.

Shortly before the 2013 elections, a bishop installed two 610-foot tarpaulins on the facade of Bacolods San Sebastian Cathedral. The first said, Ibasura RH Law (Junk the Reproductive Health Law). The second bore the heading Conscience Vote and two lists of candidates, [Anti-RH] Team Buhay (with a check mark) and [Pro-RH] Team Patay (with an x). These lists included candidates only, not legislators who voted for or against the RH Law but were not running in 2013. A Comelec officer asked the bishop to remove the tarpaulins, citing a Comelec rule limiting posters to 23 feet, or be charged with an election offense.

How would you resolve this case? You might rule that the Comelec may validly level the playing field with a poster size rule. Or you might rule that the Comelec cannot restrict how one uses ones own property for free speech.

Eleven of 14 justices upheld the bishop. Marvic Leonen wrote the decision for eight justices. Very curiously, Antonio Carpio wrote a separate 6-page concurring opinion representing two justices, while Estela Perlas-Bernabe wrote a separate 4-page concurring opinion. Arturo Brion wrote for the three dissenters.

To appreciate the decisions nuances, we need to go into technical free speech doctrine. One must first determine whether a rule restricting speech is content-based or content-neutral. A content-based rule blocks speech based on its content (You may not criticize the President) and is much harder to justify. A content-neutral rule blocks speech based on time, manner or place but not content (No rallying without a permit).

This is not abstract legalese; these rules determine whether Carlos Celdrans jail term is valid, for example. Celdran was convicted of offending religious feelings, a crime committed if one performed acts notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful inside a place of worship. Celdrans critics argue that this definition is content-neutral and focused on place, and stress that he protested inside the Manila Cathedral. Celdrans defenders argue that this definition is content-based because one cannot establish notoriously offensive without analyzing his speechs content, and that a crime defined by offensiveness is impossible to justify under free speech.

Returning to the bishop, the decision surprisingly classified the Comelecs poster size rule as content-based, arguing that it only affects election-related but not commercial posters. Further, it argued that a maximum size limits the words in a poster. Carpio, Perlas-Bernabe and Brion all sharply protested that a poster size rule is content-neutral. (I would agree as an illiterate official can enforce it.) This counterintuitive ruling confuses how one may draft future Comelec regulations.

Beyond this crucial technical rule, the decision argued that the Team Patay tarpaulins are not election propaganda that can be regulated by the Comelec, but social advocacy on the RH Law that only incidentally advocated voting or not voting for certain candidates. Further, the decision argued that the Comelec may only regulate election material connected to candidates. Carpio and Brion emphatically protested that there is no such limitation on the Comelecs powers and that allowing unrestricted advocacy by private persons allegedly unconnected to candidates opens a wide backdoor to abuse. Indeed, the decision seems naive because the tarpaulins explicitly asked viewers to vote or not to vote for explicitly named candidates. And as Brion stressed, how can one separate candidates from their key advocacies?

Finally, the decision argued that government may not restrict the bishops use of church property as political billboards. Brion dissented that the decision implied that the Comelec may only regulate election material in public places, yet government validly imposes regulations on private property such as zoning and building restrictions.

The long decision had other nuances. It ruled that Article IX-C, Section 4 of the Constitution only applies to media franchise holders and candidates, and this cannot be invoked against the bishop. However, this is also the basis for the Comelecs 2013 right to reply rules, and the decision unwittingly nullified these for the reasons I previously raised (To Grace Poe: Right to reply already law, 10/29/14).

Read more from the original source:
Did bishop of Bacolod emasculate Comelec?

Phil Robertson has done it again.

The Duck Dynasty patriarch used his constitutional right to free speech while accepting a free speech award the Andrew Breitbart Defender of the First Amendment Award at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.

During his acceptance speech, Robertson noted that 110 million Americans suffer from sexually transmitted diseases, which led him to voice his view that sex outside of the confines of marriage is wrong and only leads to problems.

I dont want you, America, to get sick, said Phil Robertson. Youre disease-free, and shes disease-free you marry, you keep your sex right there. You wont get sick from a sexually transmitted disease.

There is a penalty to be paid from what the beatniks, and it morphed into the hippies you say, what do you call the 110 million with the sexually transmitted illness? Phil Robertson continued. It is the revenge of the hippies! Sex, drugs and rock n roll have come back to haunt us in a bad way.

Phil Robertson has been in hot water several times for his outspoken ways. He was suspended indefinitely from his show by A&E following his anti-gay remarks made during a GQ interview in December 2013, but later reinstated.

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Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty Claims STDs Are the Result of Sex Outside of Marriage and the Revenge of Hippies