Monthly Archives: September 2021

Freedom of speech is one of the most cherished and lately, also one of the most controversial rights we have as Americans. From accusations of fake news to the debate over politically correct speech, some believe free speech is being eroded before our very eyes.

Last week, to commemorate Constitution Day an annual event celebrated on Sept. 17, the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution Diablo Valley College hosted an expert panel via Zoom that included authors, journalists and professors to discuss the rising tide of cancel culture and what todays charged culture-war debates mean for the future of free speech.

The conversation was steered by the chair of the Journalism program at DVC, Professor Mickey Huff, and co-sponsored by the Social Justice Program, Social Sciences, the Journalism Department, and the History Area at DVC, as well as the Student Life Office, Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation.

Speakers included Dan Kovalik, author of Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture; Mnar Muhawesh Adley, editor-in-chief and founder of MintPress News and Behind the Headlines; and DVC professors Nolan Higdon (History and Media Studies) and Sangha Niyogi (Sociology and co-director of the Social Justice Program).

Professor Huff said the event was all about celebrating the freedom of expression the right to learn, the right to be heard and the right to listen, especially to the ideas that we may find abhorrent.

He opened with a brief history of the Constitution and the right to free speech in America, and provided examples of the numerous attacks against that freedom from the era of the abolitionists, through McCarthyism in the 1950s, to the Patriot Act signed by George W. Bush after 9/11. Huff ended by describing the rise of cancel culture as a growing case of censorship that I frankly find alarming.

The panelists debated a variety of viewpoints about todays fraught political and cultural climate, with some expressing deep concern about censorship and others saying they were relieved that hate speech today is less tolerated than it was in the past.

A common focus among the speakers was Big Tech, and the role that social media giants like Facebook and Twitter are playing in cases of censorship. Author Dan Kovalik noted that there has been a shift between the left and the right on free speech, and claimed that government censorship, once associated primarily with only right-wing ideology, is now being embraced by the left in the name of rooting out fake news.

Mnar Muhawesh Adley knows this all too well. Her journalistic work with Mintpress News covering abuses and the struggle for freedom in Palestine has been heavily censored and attacked as both fake news and anti-Semitic hate speech, she said.

In fact, Muhawesh Adley shared that after the 2016 partnership of Facebook and the Atlantic Council a think tank the social media giant brought in to censor so-called fake news the number of Mintpress viewers on Facebook drastically declined overnight.

The term anti-semitism is being weaponized to shut down any criticism of Israel, she said. We are living in a time where our First Amendment rights are being trampled on.

While she agreed that oppressed groups are often the most likely to be censored, politically and socially, Professor Sangha Niyogi argued that speech can incite violence against minority groups and raised the question of what kind of racist speech should be prohibited?

Niyogi spoke about hate speech, which expresses or incites hatred toward people on the basis of their identity, and said that censorship and cancel culture can be used in a positive sense to fight against it.

She emphasized that hate speech is something that society must take seriously, not dismiss as something that might, at worst, hurt the feelings of some over-sensitive liberals.

Once the panel opened up for a Q&A, many students asked questions about how to get involved in the movement to protect free speech and where to find out more information. Huff recommended both Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation as places for students to learn more.

He concluded the meeting by paraphrasing the famous fictional professor fighting for freedom in Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, saying: We live in a time where we can choose what is easy or what is right and we should choose what is right.

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DVC Celebrates Constitution Day Focusing On Cancel Culture and the Right to Free Speech - The Inquirer

By Dr. Marcy Adelman

At a time in their lives when they are most vulnerable, LGBT people and trans and non-binary people in particular, are subject to harassment and abuse by staff in long term care facilities. Without laws and guidelines, there is no way to ensure their safety and protection, which is why the recent ruling by the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento had such a broad and fierce reaction.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd District California Court of Appeal came to a unanimous decision that a provision in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Long Term Care Facility Residents Bill of Rights (SB219) violated the rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion. This ruling is a flat out misreading of the bills provision. This provision states it is unlawful for a long term care facility and its staff members to willingly and repeatedly fail to use a residents preferred name or pronoun after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns.

Bill SB 219 is very clear on this, that criminality is only applied when a staff person has been informed of the patients correct name and gender and willfully and repeatedly misgenders the resident.There is a world of difference between intentional discrimination and abusive ongoing harassment and an occasional mistake. The ruling was met with a quick and fierce response to restore protection for LGBTQ senior residents of nursing homes, assisted living, and other long term care facilities.

The California Commission on Aging, SAGE, California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, and Openhouse signed on to a Justice in Aging amicus letter to restore the provision. Equality California, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and additional nonprofit organizations also submitted an amicus letter. These letters focused on the Courts error in claiming that this provision of SB219 criminalizes even occasional, isolated, off-hand instances of willful misgendering, the Courts failure to understand other California and federal non-discrimination laws that are important to civil rights protections, and the Courts minimization of the serious harm done to trans people by willful and on-going discrimination.

Research has linked discriminationin particular, intentional, ongoing misgenderingto high rates of suicide and depression in transgender people. The intentional misuse of transgender peoples name and pronouns in housing, health, school, and workforce settings has been well documented. Treating transgender and non-binary people with dignity and respect by using their correct name and pronouns is essentially treating them equally.

Sen. Scott Wiener, author of SB219, responded to the Courts decision by saying, The courts decision is disconnected from the reality facing transgender people. Deliberately misgendering a transgender person isnt just a matter of opinion, and its not simply disrespectful, discourteous, or insulting. Rather, its straight-up harassment. And, it erases an individuals fundamental humanity, particularly one as vulnerable as a trans senior in a nursing home. This misguided decision cannot be allowed to stand.

Sen. Wiener has a long history with this legislation and championing the rights of LGBT people. He authored both the state (2017) and local San Francisco laws (2015) that protect LGBT seniors in long term care facilities from abuse and discrimination. Prior to becoming a state senator, Sen. Wiener was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors as the representative from District 8. In 2015, then Supervisor Wiener sponsored and authored many of the recommendations from the LGBT Aging Policy Task Force, including task force member and esteemed elder law attorney Daniel Redmans recommendation to improve legal protections for LGBT older adults in long term care facilities. The LGBT Senior Care Facilities Bill of Rights was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors in March of 2015.

The current San Francisco representative from District 8, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, introduced a resolution calling on the state Supreme Court to reverse the 3rd Court of Appeals ruling on SB 219. It was passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors on September 14. In his statement to the Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Mandelman said,The appellate court treated this provision of the lawwhich prohibits singling out LGBTQ people for unequal treatmentas a regulation of protected speech, rather than conduct. The court was wrong.

State Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a petition of review with the states Supreme Court. In a statement to the San Francisco Bay Times, Daniel Redman wrote,We will never stand for our transgender nursing home residents being subject to abuse or discrimination.California law forbids itand SB219 has been a vital tool in the fight against it.A broad coalition of Californiansunion members, prominent legal experts, LGBT and elder advocates, and many moreurge the state Supreme Court to reverse the lower courts profoundlymistaken ruling and restore SB219 to full strength.

Dr.MarcyAdelman, a psychologist and LGBTQ+ longevity advocate and policy adviser, oversees the Aging in Community column. She serves on the California Commission on Aging, the Board of the Alzheimers Association of Northern California,the CaliforniaMaster Plan on Aging Equity Advisory Committee, and the San Francisco Dignity Fund Oversight and Advisory Committee. She is the Co-Founder of Openhouse, the only San Francisco nonprofit exclusively focused on the health and well-being of LGBTQ+ older adults.

Published on September 23, 2021

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Harassment and Abuse Should Not Be Confused with Freedom of Speech and Religious Freedom - San Francisco Bay Times - San Francisco Bay Times

Legislators, professors, and organization leaders discussed how free speech operates online.

Cecilia Shearon

Iowa state Senator Zach Wahls takes notes during a discussion series on Free Speech and Social Media hosted by the state Board of Regents, the University of Iowa Public Policy Center, and the UI College of Law on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021.

Sen. Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton, and Sen. Zach Wahls, D-Coralville, joined professors and leaders of organizations in the Old Capitol Senate Chambers for a forum about free speech on social media and the governments role in regulating social media.

The discussion was the first event in a series on policy challenges for Iowa and the U.S. in collaboration with the state Board of Regents. On Oct. 14, the discussion topic will be the future of the Democratic party, and on Nov. 10 it will be the future of the Republican party.

The event, attended by about 30 people, came out of a directive for public universities to develop content and programs relating to free speech. In the last legislative session, the Iowa House passed House File 744, also known as the education free speech bill, 92-1, and the Senate passed it 46-0.

As previously reported by The Daily Iowan, the bill required the Board of Regents and directors of community colleges in Iowa to adopt a policy that includes specific statements regarding freedom of expression and the role of higher education in relation to free speech.

After hearing from Carl Szabo, vice president and general counsel at lobbyist group NetChoice, Mike Davis, University of Iowa alum and founder of the Internet Accountability Project a conservative lobbying group, and Traci Griffith, associate professor at Simmons University, Wahls said one of the most concerning parts of the conversation about free speech and censorship was the decline in trust of institutions.

We have very strong political disagreements about empirical facts in the United States, he said.

Szabo said he is a conservative, but that sometimes conservatives find themselves in an echo chamber where they believe they are being unfairly targeted by social media companies.

He said conservatives get upset when platforms delete content, especially when its perceived as a viewpoint-based removal. But he said tech companies, as private businesses, have a right to curate their content.

We respect the rights of private businesses to decide whats best for their users and their customers and their advertising, thats the basis for conservative decisions, Szabo said.

Griffith said the public has developed a disdain for experts and only wants to trust people like us.

Davis, a conservative, said he believed censorship online by social media companies is counterproductive.

Get the information out there, good or bad, right or wrong, and let people make their own informed decisions, Davis said.

Wahls said if the situation of free speech on social media improves, it will be because people believe the results of elections, speaking to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Sinclair said she traveled nearly three hours to Iowa City because freedom of speech on social media is one of the most important issues the legislature is facing.

Its difficult to find the intellectual dissonance, when I listened to both of you speak and can wholeheartedly agree with you both, Sinclair said, referring to Davis and Szabo. And finding the balance in where that comes in with the trust that we placed with the media, I think that this is a conversation thats worthy of having and I think that having that in a public square as well as when Senator Wahls and I are having these discussions at the Capitol.

UI President Barbara Wilson said free speech is fundamental to academic enterprise and that the institution encourages students to think about a variety of perspectives to make informed choices.

She said as a person who oversees a lot of young people consuming information on social media, its important to think about being critical media digesters.

I think about that a lot because my field is communication, and we are always talking about teaching media literacy, and so that didnt really come up today, the role of the consumer in all of this, Wilson told the DI in an interview after the event.

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UI series on state and national policy issues begins with conversation on free speech online, features Sens. Sinclair, Wahls. - UI The Daily Iowan

5 min read2 hr

Universities and student unions across the UK will have to pay burdensome legal insurance premiums to protect from 'vexatious' claims as a consequence of the governments new Freedom of Speech Bill, Labours Shadow Minister for Higher Education has warned.

The premiums would form just one addition to a 48.1 million cost the Department for Education has estimated universities and student unions could face as a result of the new legislation over the next decade.

Across ten years, key financial burdens contributing to the price tag include: familiarisation costs, costs of complying with regulation and enforcement, administrative paperwork costs and the cost of updating and introducing new codes of practice for student unions.

Labour MPs have warned this will take vital money away from teaching students and important research.

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which is currently in committee stage, will see universities fined by the Office for Students if they fail to upholdlegal responsibilities to free speech on campus.

The new legislation will also enable students, academics and visiting speakers to seek compensation from higher education institutions and student unions they believe have not upheld legal duties to facilitate free speech.

Speakers who believe they have been "deplatformed", if,for example, they are removed from events schedules following protest by students, could therefore seek compensation under the new law.

The proposed law has been described asauthoritarian and chilling by Shadow Higher Education Minister Matt Western.

The bill is going to result in the equivalent of ambulance chasing on our campuses, Western told PoliticsHome.

There will be lots of proposed or mischievous requests to speak or for organisations to come onto campus, who will then be denied, and that will then lead to them perhaps not being invited, and later legal claims.

That's going to have two effects. One is a cost to institutions and student unions. Another, we believe, is that it will have the reverse effect of actually reducing free speech, as student unions and institutions will become seriously risk averse and actually closed down how they do the how they make speaking invitations to individuals and groups.

Some student union presidents, alongside the National Union of Students, have echoed the shadow ministers concerns.

In a submission to the Public Bill Committee scrutinising the new legislation, NUS Vice President Hillary Gyebi-Ababio stated: I think a direct unintended consequence of the Bill could be that student unions would become more risk averse to inviting speakers.

"They just cannot handle the prospect of having to pay lots of money in the case of litigation.

Responding further to the estimated 48.1 million cost of the bill, Western told PoliticsHome: Here we are at a time following the pandemic where student unions and institutions are really facing a difficult time financially, because they haven't had the same income over the last year that they would have had ordinarily.

Some of the larger universities will have income revenue streams that they may enjoy from on campus through or cafes, and the like.

But one thing that came out from the evidence sessions and then through the debate and Freedom of Speech Bill Committee, is not just the likelihood, but the absolute certainty that student unions are going to have to take out insurance to protect themselves from vexatious complaints against them by individuals or organisations.

Bryn Harris, Chief Legal Counsel to the Free Speech Union, has refuted claims that the new Higher Education Freedom of Speech bill in any way risks compromisingfreedom of speech on university campuses.

Harris also believes student unions have nothing to fear from a legal standpoint, so long as the bodies do not engage in any cancellations.

The only danger a student union faces of being sued under this bill realistically will be if they invite a speaker and then cancel them because of their views, Harris told PoliticsHome.

Yes, theres potentially a danger to the student union if they do the wrong thing. But simply inviting a speaking itself isnt going to involve any liability. Realistically, as long as student unions take a liberal approach and let events go ahead, everything will be fine, they arent going to be in danger.

An amendment brought forward by Labour to scrap the power to take student unions to court from the freedom of speech bill was rejected.

Defending the right to sue for compensation during a Public Bill Committee debate this week, Education Minister Michelle Donelan said: The purpose of (this power) is to bolster the enforcement of the new freedom of speech duties on higher education providers and student unions, so that there are clear consequences for those who breach those duties.

(It) will ensure a clear route to individual redress for all who have suffered loss where freedom of speech duties have been breached and will give those duties real teeth.

A Department for Education spokesperson said:The Bill will bring in important and necessary changes to strengthen academic freedomand free speech in universities in England so that all students and staff feel able to express themselves without fear of repercussion.

The figure highlighted in our impact assessment is an estimation representing costs shared across the higher education sector as a whole over a ten-year period.

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Freedom Of Speech Bill Could Cost Universities And Student Unions 48m - PoliticsHome

WHEN everything else seems turned upside down, one thing at least hasnt changed: in universities, freedom of speech remains as divisive as ever.

Over the past year, the Government has ratcheted up interventions in the sector, culminating in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, introduced in May.

Some proposals within the Bill largely replicate existing legal requirements on universities to uphold free speech within the law. Others are more far-reaching, including the proposal to fine institutions if they are deemed to uphold free speech insufficiently, and the proposal to extend free-speech requirements directly to student unions which would make it much harder for student unions to deny platforms to people with lawful views that the students dont like.

These plans will encourage students who currently feel unable to invite external speakers that they want in case they are perceived to be too controversial. But commentators have raised important questions about how the plans would work in practice, and about unintended consequences.

Legislating on this is a quagmire, as the Universities Minister, Michelle Donelan, discovered when it was suggested that the new law could force universities to host Holocaust-deniers.

The Government knows that the public is worried about universities, and there are votes to be won by taking action. In a 2019 YouGov poll conducted for the Theos think tank, 52 per cent of adults thought that free speech was under threat in universities (only 14 per cent disagreed); 29 per cent thought that Islamic extremism was common there.

As I explain in my recent book on this topic with Alison Scott-Baumann, Freedom of Speech in Universities: Islam, charities and counter-terrorism, there is a binary narrative about universities: both that free speech is in crisis because they are unfairly restricting it (and that students are snowflakes unwilling to grapple with ideas they disagree with); and that they are giving too much freedom to extremists (particularly Muslim ones).

Neither narrative is accurate. Radicalisation on campus is very rare: only 15 referrals were made by English universities to Prevent, the deradicalisation programme, in 2017-18. That year, out of 62,094 requests for external speakers, only 53 were rejected. And a survey of 61 students unions in 2019-20 found that just six events out of nearly 10,000 were cancelled.

High-profile cases of students denying platforms to those whom they dislike (such as the last-minute cancellation of the former Home Secretary Amber Rudds invitation to speak at the University of Oxford in 2020) are clearly problematic, but dont reflect the huge number of events that go ahead unimpeded. Moreover, according to a 2019 representative survey of more than 2000 students, by the Policy Institute at Kings College London (KCL), the overwhelming majority think it is important for universities to protect free speech, and 70 per cent feel comfortable expressing their views on campus.

This suggests that talk of a crisis of freedom of speech on campus is exaggerated. But that doesnt mean that there are not problems that need to be taken seriously.

WE DO not know how many students choose not to request speakers out of risk-aversion. In the same KCL survey, one quarter of students said that they did not feel able to express their views because they were scared of disagreeing with my peers. This is particularly the case among Right-leaning students; about a third of Conservative supporters and of Leave supporters feel this way. But so do about one fifth of Left-leaning or Remain-supporting students. Feeling restricted in speech is not solely a right-wing experience on campus.

Socially conservative students and particular religious groups may also feel pressure to self-censor. For example, online (self-selecting) polls have indicated that some Jewish students feel uncomfortable debating the Israel-Palestine conflict on campus, and some pro-life students feel unable to discuss their beliefs.

And, as found in a research project on Islam on campus, some Muslim students feel pressure to self-censor and avoid inviting potentially controversial speakers. This risk-aversion is due less to worry about criticism from their peers and more to fear of being falsely perceived as extremists under the Prevent duty, the requirement for universities to identify and report people at risk of radicalisation.

This is important to note, because much public debate about free speech on campus focuses solely on student activism rather than regulatory structures. My research with Alison Scott-Baumann found that another such structure, the regulation of student unions by the Charity Commission, has also led some students-union managers to discourage students from inviting controversial (though lawful) speakers, out of fear of breaching charity law .

To be clear, these challenges to free speech affect only a minority of students, and recognising the strength of open debate on campus is important for avoiding unwarranted moral panic about the sector. None the less, we must take these concerns seriously. University life, like society more widely, is severely diminished when viewpoint diversity is restricted.

WHAT, then, needs to be done? The Governments top-down proposals will keep university eyes on the prize of free speech, but are unlikely to help students with minority views feel more comfortable expressing them on campus. Alison Scott-Baumann and I argue that it is only action by universities themselves, not government pressure, that will lead to change.

An example of meaningful reform is the voluntary code for students unions recently developed by a group of students-union officers and the higher-education think tank Wonkhe; a code that would commit students unions to upholding free speech and political diversity.

University managers need to tackle the structural factors that can discourage free speech. They should encourage their students unions to be bold and host controversial (lawful) speakers if students request them. Managers also need to address the specific issue of Prevent, by recognising that some Muslim students feel alienated by it; and managers need to engage regularly and transparently with them to help to address their concerns.

They also need to be far more proactive in creating opportunities for students, across all disciplines, to engage in rigorous debate about relevant controversial issues in the classroom, with ground rules agreed in advance.

Finally, universities need to be proactive in challenging the flawed binary narrative about them. This means finding better ways to explain to a disillusioned public how universities contribute to democracy by providing space for frank, controversial debate, and for challenging perceived orthodoxies. It is only through rearticulating the value of universities that change will come to the free-speech wars.

Simon Perfect is a researcher at Theos. He is co-author with Alison Scott-Baumann of Freedom of Speech in Universities: Islam, charities and counter-terrorism , published by Routledge at 25; 978-0-36725-782-8.

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Education: Who gets a platform in universities? - Church Times