Monthly Archives: July 2020

from the what-public-discourse dept

The Second Circuit just issued an ugly decision in a defamation lawsuit against Joy Reid. It not only revived the case against her, but it greased the skids for many more defamation cases to be brought in federal court, including plenty even less meritorious.

The case, La Liberte v. Reid, involves two of Reid's social media posts from 2018. The first was from June 29:

At some point during the Council Meeting, La Liberte was photographed interacting with a fourteen-year-old teenager who appears to be (and is) Hispanic (the "Photograph"). The Photograph showed La Liberte with her mouth open and her hand at her throat in a gagging gesture. On June 28th, a social media activist named Alan Vargas tweeted the Photograph along with the following caption: "'You are going to be the first deported' [and] 'dirty Mexican' [w]ere some of the things they yelled they yelled [sic] at this 14 year old boy. He was defending immigrants at a rally and was shouted down. Spread this far and wide this woman needs to be put on blast." The Photograph went viral. The next day, Joy Reid, a personality on the MSNBC cable station, retweeted (i.e., shared) the Vargas tweet to her approximately 1.24 million followers. (La Liberte is not alleging defamation by Reid as to that communication.) Later that same day (June 29), Reid posted the Photograph on her Instagram with the following caption: "He showed up to a rally to defend immigrants . . . . She showed up too, in her MAGA hat, and screamed, 'You are going to be the first deported' . . . 'dirty Mexican!' He is 14 years old. She is an adult. Make the picture black and white and it could be the 1950s and the desegregation of a school. Hate is real, yall. It hasnt even really gone away." [p.6-7]

The second was from July 1:

Two days later (July 1), Reid published another post about La Liberte, this time on Instagram and Facebook. This post juxtaposed the Photograph of La Liberte with the 1957 photograph showing one of the Little Rock Nine walking past a screaming white woman. Reid added the following caption: "It was inevitable that this [juxtaposition] would be made. It's also easy to look at old black and white photos and think: I can't believe that person screaming at a child, with their face twisted in rage, is real. By [sic] every one of them were. History sometimes repeats. And it is full of rage. Hat tip to @joseiswriting. #regram #history #chooselove" [p. 7-8]

Subsequently, further media coverage revealed that the plaintiff had not been the source of the cited racist comments. [p. 7] On July 2 the plaintiff contacted Reid to ask that she delete the posts and apologize, which Reid did later that day. [p. 8]. Despite her doing so, the plaintiff sued anyway, but the district court in EDNY then dismissed it.

The Second Circuit has now stepped in to revive the case, and in doing so opened the door not only to this troublingly weak case but plenty of others even weaker.

There are a number of issues with the decision:

Section 230 became an issue because Reid had raised it as a defense for her June 29 posting of the picture on Instagram with her caption (although not her July 1 post on Instagram and Facebook). The district court rejected that defense, and the Second Circuit agreed with that rejection. But whereas it mattered less in the district court because it had found other reasons to dismiss the case against Reid, because the Second Circuit kept the case alive, it doing so also on Section 230 grounds raises more concerns (plus, it is an appeals court, so its decision will reverberate more into the future).

In denying her the statute's protection the court did get the basic rules right: only the party that created the offending expression can be held liable for it. Furthermore, citing earlier Circuit precedent, "a defendant will not be considered to have developed third-party content unless the defendant directly and 'materially' contributed to what made the content itself 'unlawful.'" [p. 22]. But in denying her the protection it applied these rules in a way that may expose myriad other social media posters - and even platforms themselves - to litigation in the future, and in a way that Section 230 should really forestall.

Reid was ostensibly only being sued for the commentary that she added to her re-posts of the original picture, and not the photographer's original tweet. Had it been the latter, Section 230 would have more clearly applied. Asserting it for her own speech is an aggressive argument, but not a ridiculous one. It's also not one that the court dismissed out of hand. As that prior precedent made clear, liability for speech hinges on who imbued the speech with its allegedly wrongful quality. Reid argued that it wasn't her: The original post had been of a picture of the plaintiff seemingly shouting threateningly at a Latino boy, and included a caption indicating that this picture was captured at an event where racist invective was shouted at him. Thus it was reasonable to take the original post as the statement that La Liberte was one of the people doing that shouting. Unfortunately that statement turned out to be wrong, but Reid repeating that statement in her own words was not what introduced the wrongfulness. Therefore she was not actually the "information content provider" with respect to this message, and Section 230 should have applied.

The trouble is, in the court's view, she had been the one to imbue the message with its wrongful quality. What might have made this case a close call was that the original post had only included an unspecific "they" in reference to the shouters, whereas Reid had attributed it to the plaintiff by name. However that attribution had already been made in the original post not by her name, true, but by her picture. Thus Reid did not introduce anything new to the overall expression. Indeed, that she believed, albeit erroneously, that the plaintiff had screamed the invective at the boy was because that was the message the original post had conveyed. It may have been an erroneous message, but she was not the one who originated it.

The problem with now finding her the "information content provider" in this situation is that it reads into Section 230 a duty of care that does not exist in the statutory language, requiring people who share others' expression to make some sort of investigation into the veracity of that expression. While it might be good if people did we certainly would like for people sharing things on social media to be careful about what they were sharing Section 230 exists because it is hard to get intermediation of expression right, and we risk choking off speech if we make it legally risky to get wrong. (See what happened to Reid, where even if she had been wrong about the significance of the underlying tweet, it was a reasonable error to make.)

Worse, not only would it chill social media sharing, but this decision is unlikely to stay tightly cabined to that sort of intermediation of others' expression. If it were the rule that you had to vet the expression you allowed to be shared before you could be safe from sharing other people's expression, then Section 230 could almost never apply and *everyone* would be vulnerable to being sued over the expression they intermediate, since no matter how much care they took since they'd still have to defend those efforts in court. Such a rule would represent a profound shift in how Section 230 works, which up to now has not been conditional. Twenty-plus years of jurisprudence has made clear that Section 230 protection is not contingent on the intermediary vetting the expression produced by third parties that it helps share, and this decision undermines that clarity. And not just for social media users, but the platforms they use as well.

Ultimately, if Section 230 can apply to individuals sharing others' social media posts (prior precedent supports that conclusion, and this court accepted it as well [see footnote 8]) and if it can apply to original, summarizing content (as this court also accepted), then there's no principled reason it should not have applied here.

Limited-purpose public figures

Denying Section 230 protection is only the tip of the iceberg. Not only does it make people who share on social media vulnerable to being sued, but other aspects of the decision make it more likely that it is litigation they will lose.

The court's refusal to find that the plaintiff was a limited purpose public figure is one of these aspects. Because open discourse about matters of public concern is a value the First Amendment exists to protect, the Supreme Court has developed the concept of the "public figure" to help ensure that it is. A public figure is someone whose fame has so intertwined them in matters of public interest that they must plead "actual malice," a fairly exacting standard, on the part of a speaker in order to prevail on a claim that the speaker defamed them.

Here, no one argued that the plaintiff was a general purpose public figure. But there are also "limited-purpose public figures." These are people who are not inherently intertwined in matters of public interest but who may insert themselves in matters that are and thus become public figures within the context of that matter. In such cases they would also need to plead actual malice in any defamation lawsuit where there had been commentary about them in this context.

Reid argued that the plaintiff was a limited purpose public figure. In particular, she regularly appeared at council meetings about the immigration issue and had been visibly, and publicly, vocal on the subject. The court rejected the contention:

That is not nearly enough. [T]he district court did not take into account the requirement that a limited purpose public figure maintain "regular and continuing access to the media." One reason for imposing the actual malice burden on public figures and limited purpose public figures is that "[t]hey have media access enabling them to effectively defend their reputations in the public arena." We have therefore made "regular and continuing access to the media" an element in our four-part test for determining whether someone is a limited purpose public figure. [p. 24-25]

Per the court, "La Liberte plainly lacked such media access." [p. 25].

The earlier photograph, which showed her conversing, was in a Washington Post photo spread of attendees at an SB 54 protest. The article did not name La Liberte, let alone mention her views. The single caption described everyone depicted as [s]upporters and opponents of [SB 54] rally[ing] and debat[ing] outside Los Alamitos City Hall. Such incidental and anonymous treatment hardly bespeaks regular and continuing access to the media. [p. 25]

Furthermore:

Nor does La Libertes participation at city council meetings. La Liberte is said to have testif[ied] eight times around the state (Appellees Br. at 26 (citing App. at 102-05)); but Reid does not identify instances in which the media singled out La Libertes participation as newsworthy. Nor does speech, even a lot of it, make a citizen (or non-citizen) fair game for attack. Imposition of the actual malice requirement on people who speak out at government meetings would chill public participation in politics and community dialogue. [p. 26]

The problem with this analysis is that it better applies to why a person engaging in civic affairs does not become a full-fledged public figure, where every aspect of their life can be a matter of public interest. It misses the significance of why we have the limited purpose public figure doctrine in the first place, which is that in the context of a specific matter of public concern a person's behavior can become a matter of public interest. Here the plaintiff had concertedly inserted herself into a matter of public concern the policymaking surrounding immigration - on a "regular and continuing" and conspicuously public basis. The court's ruling puts that public behavior beyond the reach of effective public comment by treating it as if it were private and thus lowering the standard of what the plaintiff would have to plead to support a defamation claim.

State anti-SLAPP in federal court

The decision also reaches an unfortunate conclusion we've taken issue with before: disallowing state anti-SLAPP laws in cases that end up in federal court via diversity jurisdiction. It's a conclusion that seems to reflect dubious constitutional analysis, is bad policy, and in this case, conflicts with Ninth Circuit precedent.

As we explained before:

Diversity jurisdiction arises when the parties in the litigation are from separate states and the amount in controversy is more than $75,000 and the issue in dispute is solely a question of state law. Federal courts ordinarily can't hear cases that only involve state law, but because of the concern that it could be unfair for an out-of-state litigant to have to be heard in a foreign state court, diversity jurisdiction can allow a case that would have been heard in state court to be heard by the federal one for the area instead.

At the same time, we don't want it to be unfair for the other party to now have to litigate in federal court if being there means it would lose some of the protection of local state law. We also don't want litigants to be too eager to get into federal court if being there could confer an advantage they would not have had if the case were instead being heard in state court. These two policy goals underpin what is commonly known as the "Erie doctrine," named after a 1938 US Supreme Court case that is still followed today.

The first problem with the Second Circuit's decision is that it does not even *mention* the Erie doctrine instead it just dives right into a procedural rules' analysis. [p. 13]. The second problem is that its decision directly conflicts with Ninth Circuit precedent that applied Erie to find that California's anti-SLAPP law indeed applied in federal diversity occasions. In other words, the Second Circuit has just reached across the country and into the Ninth Circuit to snatch away the protection of a law that the Ninth Circuit already had assured Californians that they had.

The third problem is that it is bad policy because it would encourage forum-shopping, which is normally discouraged. As the Ninth Circuit articulated in that case, US Ex Rel. Newsham v. Lockheed Missiles & Space Co.:

[I]f the anti-SLAPP provisions are held not to apply in federal court, a litigant interested in bringing meritless SLAPP claims would have a significant incentive to shop for a federal forum. Conversely, a litigant otherwise entitled to the protections of the Anti-SLAPP statute would find considerable disadvantage in a federal proceeding.

The Second Circuit appeared indifferent to these concerns:

Finally, amici warn that refusal to apply the anti-SLAPP statute will encourage forum shopping and lead to an increased burden on federal courts in this Circuit. (Amici Br. at 11.) That may be so; but our answer to a legal question does not turn on our workload; and in any event, the incentive to forum-shop created by a circuit split can be fixed, though not here. [p. 16]

The concern about forum-shopping is not that it will overburden federal courts; the concern the is manifest unfairness to defendants that will arise when they suddenly lose the benefit of the the substantive protections for speech California gave them and upon which they may have depended on to speak because an out-of-state litigant was able haul them into federal court.

Mootness

It is also not clear why the Second Circuit even reached the anti-SLAPP question. If its public figure analysis was correct, the defense would be unlikely to be able to even use it, because by that logic the expression at issue would have failed to meet the anti-SLAPP law's requirement that it be about a matter of "public issue." Thus there was no need for this court to ever reach the anti-SLAPP question, and yet it chose to opine on it first, before even reaching the Section 230 and then the public figure discussions. But because after those latter two analyses there was no reason to reach the anti-SLAPP discussion, and it raises the question of whether at this point it was even a ripe enough issue for the court to have had appellate jurisdiction over. But even if it did, doctrines of judicial restraint should have precluded deciding the issue and creating a mess that speakers who thought they were protected will now have to contend with.

Filed Under: 2nd circuit, anti-slapp, defamation, joy reid, la liberte, public figure, retweets, section 230

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Second Circuit Wrecks All Sorts Of First Amendment Protections To Keep Lawsuit Against Joy Reid Alive - Techdirt

In December 2018, the Potsdam Village Board of Trustees passed a junk storage law to address issues of unsightly items left out in public.

The new local law requires that items that could be categorized as junk cannot be in sight of people traveling the public highways, streets or thoroughfares of the village, according to the law, according to a story published Dec. 4, 2018, in the Watertown Daily Times. In a statement on the purpose of the measure, the village Board of Trustees wrote that having visible junk on front lawn is detrimental to the health, safety and general welfare of the community. The board also claimed that junk posed an attractive nuisance to children and may imperil their safety and that junk depreciates the value of property upon which junk is found as well as neighboring properties.

Trustees said this law was not an attempt to target parcels of land owned by Frederick J. Robar Sr.; they just believed some folks needed to tidy up around their homes. However, its difficult taking this claim seriously.

Since 2004, Mr. Robar has displayed what he calls toilet gardens. Its no secret that village officials dont hold their constituents artistic sentiments in high esteem, and the junk storage law was the latest mechanism implemented to compel him to clean up his sites.

Mr. Robar popped onto the villages radar in 2004 when he asked to get a zone change at his property on 82-84 Market St. so he could sell it to a buyer who would put in a Dunkin Donuts. When the village denied his request, he set up what is referred to now as a toilet garden. Since then, he and the village have butted heads twice inconclusively and unsuccessfully in the village court system, a June 30 article in the Times reported. In 2008, the village issued Mr. Robar an appearance ticket for a code violation. Mr. Robar argued that the toilet gardens are art and its his First Amendment right to have them. The case was dismissed because code enforcement officer John F. Hill failed to bring documents to the court. In 2010 the village tried again, but after the presiding judge resigned amid cocaine-use allegations, the case was dropped and the village decided not to pursue it.

Representatives of Clarkson University, the St. Lawrence Health System and Temple Beth El spoke out against Mr. Robars gardens. There likely arent too many people who enjoy viewing rows of toilets on adjacent property.

But Mr. Robars attorney, Mark Snider, said the law was created to punish his client after the fact. This would violate his constitutional rights, Mr. Snider said.

The village has so far been unable to force Mr. Robar to dismantle the gardens. This unconventional artist has maintained his landscape scenery through a court of law if not the court of public opinion. Officials are scheduled to discuss the matter Monday.

But for Potsdam to pursue this further may be flushing good tax dollars down the well, you know. This could end up being an expensive legal battle for the village with nothing in the end being changed.

The junk storage law does not apply to Mr. Robars properties. Hes not merely dumping unused bathroom fixtures outside his home because he doesnt know what else to do with them. He placed the toilets there as a personal expression, an act clearly protected by the First Amendment.

Village officials may not appreciate his artistic objective, but thats irrelevant. Its not their job to define what constitutes free speech the U.S. Constitution already does that.

Potsdam authorities are violating Mr. Robars rights by mandating he adhere to their idea of an acceptable visual presentation, and they need to stop their campaign against him.

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Editorial A flushtrated community: Potsdam trampling on First Amendment rights of toilet artist - NNY360

On Thursday, the Technology and Press Freedom Projects Linda Moon will join Digital Strategist Tim Schwartz, author of A Public Service: Whistleblowing, Disclosure, and Anonymity, for a webinar dedicated to unpacking the rights of journalists and content producers during times of pandemic and protest. The webinar, hosted by Alley, a digital consulting firm, will explore strategies to help journalists safely document protests and police brutality and work with sources securely and remotely. Register for the webinarhere.

Also, the First Amendment Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law is hiring alegal fellowfor the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 academic years. The fellow will work with Reporters Committee attorneys Gabe Rottman and Jennifer Nelson, who administer the Clinic.

Heres what the staff of the Technology and Press Freedom Project at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is tracking this week.

A journalist has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming police violated his federal and state constitutional rights, including the right to record police activity in public, after he was tackled and arrested while covering aJune 1 Black Lives Matter protestin Asbury Park, New Jersey.

According to a filingin the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Gustavo Martnez Contreras, a reporter for the Asbury Park Press, waslive-streaming the protestwhen he noticed police officers violently arrest two teenagers. The reporter was backing away from the scene, per instructions by the officers, but continued to record.

As documented in footage from the reporter and police body-worn cameras, officers then swore at Martnez Contreras, slapped his phone out of his hand, tackled him, and arrested him. The filing alleges that an officer later asked about the badge the journalist was wearing around his neck, which showed his press credentials, and that Martnez Contreras identified himself as a reporter on four other occasions.

The complaint, filed on July 13, notes that reporters rights must be as ingrained in policing as Miranda rights, and asks the court to order police not to interfere with First Amendment activities in the future. It also asks that the court require law enforcement to change their policies to prevent such interference, and for unspecified damages.

A press badge should not be a bullseye, the filing reads. Reporters should not be in danger of violence or arrest at the hands of the police seeking to silence their reports on public protests especially where those reports cover police violence against civilians protesting peacefully against police misconduct.

The same day the suit was filed, the Reporters Committeesent a letterto New Jersey officials protesting a local prosecutors reliance on Reporters Committee resources to clear the officers who arrested Martnez Contreras of wrongdoing.

Ininvestigative findingsreleased on June 8, the Monmouth County prosecutors office, which covers Asbury Park, claimed that the officers reasonably believed Martnez Contreras was a protester disobeying a lawful order. The report further claimed that the officers did not know Martnez Contreras was a reporter because he was allegedly not wearing bright clothing. The prosecutors office cited the Reporters Committeesguideandtip sheetfor journalists covering protests, which only provide practical safety advice, including that journalists should try not to wear clothing that matches what protesters are wearing.

The relevant legal standard, however, is whether officers reasonably should have known that Martnez Contreras was a reporter. The letter thus argues that the Reporters Committees resources do not support the prosecutors arguments, and asks that the findings be updated accordingly.

Abe Kenmore

NPR recentlyreportedthat foreign nationals working for Voice of America and other U.S. international broadcasters may not have their visas extended upon expiration, raisingfurther concernsover theeditorial independenceof VOA and its sister services. A decision not to renew these visas could impact dozens of employees, some of whom could face retaliation for their reporting if forced to return to their home countries.

The video app TikTok said it received500 demands for user datafrom governments in the first half of the year, up 67 percent from the second half of 2019. Most demands came from India which has since banned the app. The company reported that none of the demands were from China, the home of TikToks parent company. Reporters at theWashington Postrecently analyzed the data TikTok collects from users.

Verizon recentlylauncheda feature called Number Lock to provide added security to its customers. Number Lock allows users to prevent scammers from SIM swapping, or transferring a users number to another carrier in order to take control of bank, email, and social media accounts.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper has announcedan investigationwithin the Pentagon to weed out leakers, while White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadowsreportedly told some staffersthat he has fed information to suspected leakers to determine whether they then pass the information to the media. The inquiry comes in the wake of disclosures that led to reports of Russia offering bounties to Afghan militants for killing American troops.

On Thursday, Twitterreportedthat it was the target of a coordinated social engineering attack, which resulted in the accounts of hundreds of popular users posting spam-like messages about crypto currency. The company said the breach was conducted by unspecified individuals who targeted company employees with access to sensitive internal administrative systems.

Smart reads

Adeep diveby Voxs Recode explores the development and future of smartphone trackers, which can extract and aggregate data from a wide variety of apps.

Thisanalysisfrom the Columbia Journalism Review details the lengths media organizations have gone to in order to obtain and disseminate accurate data about COVID-19. Many news outlets have sued local officials for access to data, while others have created their own statistical tools to provide a complete picture of the pandemic in the absence of similar government resources.

Gif of the Week:Many quick hits this week remind us that cell phones can raise paw-sonal privacy issues.

Like what youve read?Sign up to get This Week in Technology + Press Freedom delivered straight to your inbox!

The Technology and Press Freedom Project at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press uses integrated advocacy combining the law, policy analysis, and public education to defend and promote press rights on issues at the intersection of technology and press freedom, such as reporter-source confidentiality protections, electronic surveillance law and policy, and content regulation online and in other media. TPFP is directed by Reporters Committee Attorney Gabe Rottman. He works with Stanton Foundation National Security/Free Press Fellow Linda Moon, Legal Fellows Jordan Murov-Goodman and Lyndsey Wajert, Policy Interns Abe Kenmore and Joey Oteng, and Legal Intern Sasha Peters.

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This Week in Technology + Press Freedom: July 19, 2020 - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

TROY John Koletas has been testing this city's First Amendment resolve for a very long time.

Three decades ago, the controversial pastor of the Grace Baptist Church in Lansingburgh was best known as a street preacher who tried to save the souls of passersby in downtown Troy. In a not-quiet voice, he'd demand that they repent for their sins.

The shouting wasn't always appreciated, unsurprisingly, and Koletas was repeatedly charged with disorderly conduct. Eventually, Koletas filed a lawsuit arguing that he had a First Amendment right to preach on the street and that his repeated arrests amounted to unconstitutional harassment. Two national TV shows Fox's "A Current Affair" and NBC's "Inside Edition" even came to Troy to report on the controversy.

Koletas ultimately lost in court, when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 1995 that police did nothing wrong by arresting him.

Had I been a columnist for this newspaper back then, I generally would have been on Koletas' side. I would have argued, in other words, that he did in fact have a free speech right to preach outside, at least within reason.

No, a person shouldn't be allowed to holler on the street at, say, midnight. People do need to sleep, after all. Laws against unreasonable noise are justified.

But certainly, the city needed to accommodate the preacher's free speech rights without needless harassment. Koletas had the right to preach, even if few passersby wanted to hear it.

Fast forward three decades, and Koletas is again attracting attention. AR-15 rifle giveaways at Grace Baptist and Koletas' consistently hateful rhetoric toward Blacks, Jews, Muslims and Catholics have attracted Black Lives Matter protesters to the Fourth Street church in recent weeks.

As I noted in a column published Sunday that focused on Koletas' attacks on Catholicism, protesters aren't coming to Grace Baptist to attack Christianity or religion, as some in conservative media would have you believe. They're protesting what Koletas says, and justifiably so.

As has been well documented by bloggers and others, Koletas has referred to Blacks as "termites" and "savages." He has described himself as a racist who "believes the races should be kept separate as much as possible." Koletas says Catholicism, like the Muslim faith, is incompatible with democracy and the Bill of Rights.

In response to Sunday's column, a few supporters of Grace Baptist claimed I was attempting to silence or "cancel" Koletas' freedom of religion or speech. But I suggested no such thing.

I believe strongly that Koletas has the First Amendment right to pray and preach as he wants, assuming he stops short of advocating violence. Likewise, his followers have a First Amendment right to listen. And yes, protesters, columnists and Facebook commenters all have a First Amendment right to object to what Koletas says.

Free speech for everybody! What a concept.

Freedom of speech seems to be falling out of fashion, though. We increasingly hear that some words are too harmful to be spoken or that listeners have the right not to be offended. On college campuses, even relatively dull speakers such as economist Art Laffer can find themselves "deplatformed" for supposedly offensive views.

The shift, if widely accepted, will redefine free speech rights as we've long understood them. Actually, it would all but eliminate true freedom of speech. After all, if you can't say something that somebody might find offensive, you can hardly say anything provocative. You're limited to a fairly narrow range of expression.

The result would be a stifling monoculture of thought, devoid of intellectual diversity or compelling debate. And as any good gardener can tell you, there's nothing interesting about a monoculture.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear, wrote George Orwell in an essay planned as the introduction to "Animal Farm" that also included this gem of a line: "People don't see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you."

Had I been walking down a street in Troy in the early 1990s, I suppose I wouldn't have wanted to hear Koletas' call that I repent for my sins. I wouldn't want to sit through one of his sermons today. (Happily, I don't have to.)

But we allow Koletas to speak so that we all may speak. We counter his words with our own words.

Freedom of speech for everybody! It's a crucial concept.

cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill

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Churchill: Troy preacher has the right to offend - Times Union

At least six more athletic conferences across various National Collegiate Athletic Association divisions announced on Friday that they were canceling fall conference play or postponing until the spring.

The Colonial Athletic Association on Friday canceled its schedule of conference football play for the fall due to the coronavirus pandemic, but member universities are permitted to pursue an independent football schedule. The CAA teams play in the NCAA's DivisionI Football Championship Subdivision.

The conference said it would explore the possibility of organizing a football season next spring.

A number of colleges that play football in the conference announced they were suspending fall sports, including football, or postponing the season until the winter or spring. Colleges that made such announcements included the College of William & Mary, in Virginia; the State University of New York at Albany; Towson University, in Maryland; and the Universities of Delaware, Maine and New Hampshire.

Several other conference members indicated they still plan or hope to play fall sports despite the cancellation of conference play. James Madison University, in Virginia, the reigning conference championship and runner-up in the FCS national championship game last season, said it remains committed to an open exploration of various options for its competitive seasons for all sports in keeping with evolving guidance on health and public safety.

The America East and Atlantic 10 conferences, both DivisionI conferences that do not sponsor conference play in football, announced they were postponing all fall sports until the spring. The Atlantic10 said, however, that its members had agreed to what they described as a look-in window in mid-September, allowing for a potentially truncated competitive schedule amongst conference opponents if the COVID-19 risk has substantially been reduced.

The East Coast Conference, which is affiliated with the NCAAs DivisionII, and two DivisionIII conferences -- the Commonwealth Coast Conference and the North Eastern Athletic Conference -- also announced cancellations of intercollegiate competition for the fall semester.

Several other conferences, including the Ivy League, the New England Small College Athletic Conference and the Patriot League, previously announced cancellation of fall sports. Two football powerhouse conferences, the Pacific-12 and the BigTen, have said they will only schedule conference games.

In nonathletic news, Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian college in Michigan famous for its refusal to accept government funding, held an in-person graduation ceremony on Saturday in defiance of state Attorney General Dana Nessel, whose office called the event illegal, The Detroit News reported. Outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people are prohibited under executive order in Michigan, where COVID-19 cases are rising.

The ceremony came at the end of three days of festivities including dinners, cocktails, music recitals and a party, according to The Detroit News. The college required attendees to wear masks and took their temperatures. At some events, attendees were seated six feet apart and instructed not to walk around.

Hillsdale defended the legality of its outdoor commencement, saying in a press release issued in advance of the ceremony it was "consistent with the governors executive orders providing that you can have these outdoor First Amendment expressive events subject to [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines."

This is not an act of defiance -- this is totally legal, Robert Norton, Hillsdale's vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. Because this is a core First Amendment expressive activity, the governors own guidance and the FAQs tell us that it is appropriate for us to be able to hold such an event as this if we follow leading medical guidelines. Were not only following those guidelines -- were exceeding them.

Ithaca College, a private college in the Finger Lakes region of New York, will not allow students from states on a travel advisory list maintained by New York State to travel to campus until their states are removed from the list, the Ithaca Journal reported. Students who hail from states on the list -- which as of Friday included 22 states -- will have to start classes online.

Under an executive order from Governor Andrew Cuomo, individuals from the 22 affected states must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in New York. Ithaca administrators said they do not have the resources or infrastructure to quarantine the large number of students who would be affected by the quarantine order.

"As a result, we have made the difficult decision that students who have not remained in New York during the summer and whose permanent address is in a state on New Yorks mandatory quarantine list will need to take their classes remotely until the state of their permanent address is removed from the New York mandatory quarantine list," Ithaca said in a letter to students and families. "No exceptions will be granted."

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More conferences cancel fall sports and other COVID-19 news - Inside Higher Ed