Daily Archives: March 14, 2015

Free Speech Productions - Lest We Forget - Made in the USA
This film is about American made atrocities. Come on Mr and Ms John Q Public! Shake off the chains of fear that bind you, take a breath and open your eyes, maybe even listen a little. You are...

By: deceptionsUSA

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Free Speech Productions - Lest We Forget - Made in the USA - Video

USATODAY 8:41 a.m. EDT March 13, 2015

Video of SAE members singing racist chant.(Photo: Unheard Movement via YouTube)

David French,National Review: "This week, several University of Oklahoma frat boys were caught on tape singing a vile, racist song. ... And private citizens countered with expression of their own doing what the marketplace of ideas does best, countering bad speech with better speech. Then, the government got involved. OU President David Boren has expelled two students allegedly responsible for the chant. I hope these students find the courage to sue ... because the First Amendment needs a defense. They said terrible things, but they did not violate the law."

Jim Mitchell,The Dallas Morning News: "These students deserved hefty punishment and they received it, unlike previous generations of Sigma Alpha Epsilon students who apparently learned the same vile song in an age without social media. ... The average black person's friend network is 8% white, but the average white person's network is only 1% black. ... It is time to ... admit America still has a problem."

Ingrid Vasquez,Fox News Latino: "You can't punish someone for committing a crime of bigotry. But you can certainly try to show them why that mentality is questionable. By the time most head off to college, they are 18-years-old and are capable of forming their own ideas about the world. It is not a situation where parents are to blame. ... It doesn't matter if you wear Greek letters, or if your skin is black or white. We all have the power to make our voice heard."

USA TODAY

Oklahoma-style hate is everywhere: Column

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Eugene Volokh, The Washington Post: "(There is) no First Amendment exception for supposed 'hate speech.' But if there is such an exception, there certainly is no First Amendment foundation for distinguishing speech that is ... anti-black from speech that is anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Catholic, anti-women, or anti-men. If the University of Oklahoma president's position is accepted as legally sound, then there'd be no legal basis for protecting the other kinds of speech while expelling students for (anti-black) sort of speech."

The Oklahoma (OU) Daily,editorial: " 'Real Sooners' aren't racists or bigots. However, taking a peek at (social media) shows racist thoughts and comments are much more prevalent among OU students than we'd like. ... The veil of 'tradition' the fraternity members on that bus hid behind made them think their hate speech was acceptable. (The conversation) isn't over because SAE got kicked off campus."

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Free speech at odds with ending racism: Opinionline

Opinion polls released in Israel today show the left-wing Zionist Union party (a combination of the venerable Labor party and Tzipi Livnis group) holding a 3-4 seat lead over the right-wing Likud party. However, the total size of the right and left wing blocs in the Knesset would be equal. Thus the nature of the government that will be formed will ultimately depend on the center-right, brand-new Kulanu party, and the two mainstay haredi parties.

While the vote is on Tuesday, Israeli law prohibits announcing opinion poll results from now until then. The assumption behind the law is that late polls could unduly influence voters. In the U.S., such a law would clearly be unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Indeed, such polls are the most protected form of speech speech about political matters. In Israel, as in Europe, free speech protections are less robust than in the U.S. Yet such laws seem exceedingly silly: protecting democracy from the voters. Governmental power to regulate the informational marketplace around an election isthe most dangerous kind of speech intrusion. Strangely, despite recent international fuss about speech legislation in Israel, the restrictions on electoral speech seem to go unremarked.

The notion that voters are dumb enough to be unreasonably swayed by polls but wise enough to choose a government isodd. This is particularly true in Israel, where government coalitions are formed by a large number of parties (the next coalition will probably have at least six). Thus there is necessarily a strategic aspect to voting, and knowing the latest poll results could be quite useful to decision-making.

Those who might be ok with laws regulating speech around political campaigns should note that they do not have an obvious stopping point. One of the items likely to be high on the agenda of the likely new left-wing government is a law banning Israel HaYom, a free-distribution daily, Israels highest circulation paper, and very supportive of Netanyahu. (The law would not actually explicitly ban Israel Hayom in particular, but would rather ban free newspapers, of which it is the only major one.) The purported justification for the measure, which would be manifestly unconstitutional in the U.S. (and Israel, I think) is that the newspaper, owned by U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson, constitutes improper political funding because of its pro-Likud editorial stance.

Despite the deep hatred for Adelson on the Left, I cant imagine the Israeli Supreme Court upholding such a law, but one never knows. Certainly the paternalism behind the polling law sets a tone that could support more intrusive, and targeted, efforts to eliminate information that may unduly sway the citizenry. A further irony is the electoral victory that would make such a law possible would also seem to undercut Livnis argument that through the newspaper, Adelson controls our lives here.

Eugene Kontorovich is a professor at Northwestern University School of Law, and an expert on constitutional and international law. He also writes and lectures frequently about the Arab-Israel conflict.

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Volokh Conspiracy: Why todays Israel election polls are the last