Monthly Archives: September 2021

Editors note: This message was sent to on-campus students on Sept. 13, 2021.

The Lory Student Center Plaza has always been a space of activity, conversations, and the sharing of ideas. At times, the ideas have been celebratory, welcoming, affirming, and uplifting. Other times, the ideas have been offensive, racist, homophobic, and hurtful. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution has been discussed, interpreted, and debated for centuries. Although free speech is one of the bedrocks of our nation, it can be a difficult concept in practice. One issue that we constantly grapple with is how to ensure our students feel welcomed, affirmed and respected while upholding the laws that govern freedom of speech, including those that protect speech that may be offensive or wholeheartedly opposed to our personal and institutional values.

Sometimes we have missed the mark in communicating our responsibility as a state institution to uphold free speech rights. Too often, we may have talked more about our duty to protect offensive speech and less about what you can do to exercise your own free speech rights, the often-disproportionate impacts of free speech on individuals holding marginalized identities, and how our Principles of Community call for us to care for one another.

As evidenced by the #CallOutCSU, free speech works both ways. Your voice is vital, just as valuable and can be used equally as effectively. For example, if a speaker whose ideology is opposed to yours comes on campus, the university cannot legally disinvite the speaker, but you can invite your own speaker, host a counter program, or peacefully protest. We encourage you to learn how to challenge, advocate, demonstrate, disagree and object to unpopular opinions in a way that moves public discourse forward. These critical skills are vital for democratic life and essential to the collective growth of our society. We also encourage you to care for one another, reach out to individuals who may be harmed by the offensive and hurtful speech.

For our part, while the law may guide us in what we, as an administration, can do to curtail offensive speech, we will always use our own university platforms to condemn speech that is not reflective of our institutional values. We recognize that what is legally permissible for the university to do sometimes doesnt feel like enough. As a state institution, we are essentially legally prevented from punishing, suspending or expelling students who say or write something many of us find insulting, derogatory and disrespectful. Still, we promise you this we will always do what is within the letter of the law to assert and affirm our own standards and disavow any speech that does not conform to our Principles of Community.

Finally, we want to acknowledge that speech hurts. The adage that sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, is simply not true. Negative and mean things that people say can cause real pain and mental anguish. We have resources available for those students who are impacted by hurtful words. For more information about available resources, go to the Student Affairs student support list online. And any time you experience or witness an incidence of bias, you can always submit a Bias Report online.

Link:
Statement on the First Amendment on campus - Source

The Westminster governments campus free speech bill could be helpful to universities, provided it is proportionate and manageable, according to Universities UK.

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which would strengthen existing free speech duties on English universities and extend them to students unions, is currently passing through the House of Commons.

Giving evidence at the committee stage on 14 September, Paul Layzell, chair of Universities UKs advisory group on free speech and academic freedom, said that the bill, which would also enable individuals to sue for compensation if their free speech rights have been breached, could be helpful as long as it does not cut across existing mechanisms in universities for complaints.

Professor Layzell, who is principal of Royal Holloway, University of London, said that vice-chancellors and their senior teams are concerned about the interplay of this legislation with other legislation.

There are plenty of mechanisms within universities to deal with complaints internally, he said, alongside, other routes such as employment tribunals, the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education and the English regulator, the Office for Students.

However, if the bill helps clarify the rules where a number of issues come together and brings transparency and clarity, then its welcome, he said.

Critics have pointed out that the bill could result in universities and students unions risk-assessing the life out of campus or even givefree rein to Holocaust deniers and other extremists.

Professor Layzell said that free speech was already a priority for the sector, and so did not believe that anybody in the sector would have a problem with the requirement positively promote freedom of speech. What we want is something that ends up being proportionate and manageable, he said.

This should include mechanisms to prevent frivolous and vexatious claims being made. Universities UK would also recommend that the scope was limited to those who are directly affected by alleged breaches of a freedom of speech. Our worry is this is apparatus get to use for other purposes, he said.

The bill also includes the creation of a director of free speech and academic freedom on the OfS board empowered to ensure compliance with the duties. Professor Layzell said it would be important that any sanctions given out should encourage greater consideration and greater opportunities to learn from one another.

He added that UUK would be concerned if there was no right to appeal those sanctions.

Also giving evidence at the hearings was Jonathan Grant, professor of public policy at Kings College London, who said that the bill was somewhat overkill.

This was particularly evident around so-called cancel culture, a particular focus of the Westminster government.

When you look at the data, it is a very rare events that events are cancelled or people get no platformed, Professor Grant said. But I do have concerns around issues the chilling effect, where people are self-censoring themselves in classrooms, but I wonder whether regulation is the way to address those concerns.

How we have a more sort of open culture on campus where people have different views, feel competent in expressing them; I think that would be a much more useful conversation.

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com

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'Proportionate' free speech bill would be 'welcome', says UUK - Times Higher Education (THE)

Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill into law that forbids the largest social media companies from removing users or their posts based on their political viewpoints. It also lets Texans sue social media websites with more than 50 million US users over perceived violations.

The law categorizes social media platforms as public forums and common carriers, a term often used to describe phone companies or utilities that in most cases cannot discriminate against customers. The law empowers the states attorney general and private citizens to sue over alleged violations.

While the law claims it protects individuals from censorship on social media websites, it also appears to violate private corporations own speech rights. Free speech scholars and advocacy groups say the Texas state government unconstitutionally dictates political speech on the worlds largest platforms by forcing platforms to carry favored views.

The tech industry group NetChoice wrote in a statement the Texas law forces websites to host obscene, antisemitic, racist, hateful, and otherwise awful content.

Kate Huddleston, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, says governments forcing private parties to carry political content violates the First Amendment protections under the US Constitution. Government efforts to curate online content on particular platforms is an impermissible exercise of editorial controljust as government cannot force newspapers to carry political speech, she said. A similar state law in Florida, which would have forced social media sites to host political candidates and their speech, was blocked by a federal judge on June 30 on First Amendment grounds.

Social media platforms enjoy First Amendment rights to set and enforce rules about content free from government restrictions, says Jonathan Peters, a media law professor at the University of Georgia School of Law. That means the platforms can decide what may be posted, who may have an account and under what conditions, when to honor requests to remove content, how to display and prioritize content using algorithms, and so on, he said.

Aaron Mackey, a senior staff attorney at digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation says Texas will face a tough battle to ensure the law survives judicial review. It does not appear that any lawsuit has been filed yet. Mackey explained that any law that restricts speech based on content would be subject to the strict scrutiny standard under the First Amendment, a high bar requiring the government to show the law was narrowly tailored with a compelling public interest. Mackey argued the law fails to meet this standard.

The office of Texas governor Greg Abbott did not respond to press inquiries.

Legal analysts say laws like the new Texas bill also appear to violate Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a clause shielding internet companies from liability for publishing and moderating potentially objectionable user-generated content.

The clause, which has enabled the internets evolution as a relatively unregulated forum, gives the worlds largest tech companies safe harbor to host, remove, or ignore content without fear of litigation.

But the foundational law is now under attack by Democrats and Republicans alike who say they want to reign in online excesses. Liberals have largely criticized social media companies for being too lax on policing their platforms from hate speech and misinformation during the Trump era, while conservatives have claimed (without much evidence) that these platforms stifle conservative speech. Peters at the University of Georgia School of Law said the Texas law amounts to political theater rather than a good faith effort to protect speech.

The Texas law is plainly unconstitutional, and it will be struck down, Peters said. It violates the First Amendment while cynically pretending to protect the First Amendment.

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Texass new social media law is a clear violation of the First Amendment - Quartz

The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2021, considered the definitive ranking of the best universities and colleges in the country, was released last week.

The list contained the usual suspects: the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras placed first in the Overall Category for the sixth consecutive year and in the Engineering Category. The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad placed first in the Management Category. The rest of the IITs, IIMs and Indian Institutes of Sciences (IISc) followed closely behind most of the eleven categories. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was also awarded a top spot in the University Category.

The consistent positioning of these institutes as the best deserves scrutiny in light of recent events. Two months ago, an Assistant Professor at IIT Madras resigned after allegedly facing casteism in the institution. His resignation lent faculty support to the issue of institutional casteism in supposedly elite higher education spaces. Many students and alumni responded by demanding grievance redressal cells for Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities within campuses.

Related on The Swaddle:

IIT Madras Faculty Resigns Citing Casteism, Serving as Another Reminder To Hold Premier Institutes Accountable

IIT Kharagpur, which secured the top 5 spots in two categories, came under fire recently when a video of a professor hurling casteist abuse at students went viral. A letter, signed by more than 1,000 alumni across IITs, responded to the incident by stating: IITs are already notoriously hostile to Dalit, Adivasi and backward caste students.

When the NIRF was set up in 2015, the then Minister for Human Resource Development Smriti Irani said that the framework follows an Indian approach that considers India-centric parameters like diversity and inclusiveness apart from excellence in teaching and learning and research.However, a look at the specifics of the ranking system shows that this is far from the case.

The ranking is based on the following parameters: Teaching, Learning, & Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practice (RP), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI), and Peer Perception. Each parameter has its own subset of parameters. The one that deserves attention, however, is the vaguely defined Outreach and Inclusivity parameter.

Across all categories, OI is given a mere 10% weightage in the ranking the lowest, along with Peer Perception, among all five parameters. Further, OI has four sub-parameters: Percentage of Students from Other States/Countries (Region Diversity RD), Percentage of Women (Women Diversity WD), Economically and Socially Challenged Students (ESCS), Facilities for Physically Challenged Students (PCS). Out of a 100 mark OI score, ESCS constitutes a total of 20 marks. This means that the inclusion of marginalized students is given a 2% weightage to the overall rank in a particular category.

This is reflected in the percentage of marginalized students in the elite institutions listed in the rankings. The glaring exclusion of marginalized students in Ph.D. admissions at the IITs, as well as the high rate of dropouts, have been a subject of debate in recent months.

Moreover, while parameters include metrics like patents and publication quality, there is no metric to measure academic freedom a rapidly deteriorating quality. The Academic Freedom in India Status Report 2020 by The India Forum noted that attacks on dissenting students and faculty, political appointments, faculty selection, and the freedom to teach, study, and have an opinion, among others, have all contributed to academic freedom seeing a downturn in recent years.

Related on The Swaddle:

India Plummets From B to D Grade on International Scale of Academic Freedom

Further, the Free to Think 2020 report by Scholars at Risk (SAR), an international network to protect academic freedom, noted the rise in incidents compromising academic freedom. It also pointed out that Indias ranking in the Academic Freedom Index was at par with countries like Saudi Arabia and Libya. Over the past two years the space for ideas and dialogue in India is being constricted, and dissent punished, endangering scholars and students whose views are disfavoured by the ruling government. This pattern has the potential to shrink the space for academic inquiry and impede the development of a national higher education sector that benefits and is inclusive of all members of Indian society, the report said.

A few recent examples come to mind. A government rule, without state consultation, has made it mandatory for universities and academics to obtain clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) before holding online seminars or discussions on internal and sensitive topics that compromise national security. The rule specifically singles out the northeastern states, Jammu and Kashmir, and the Ladakh region as subjects not allowed for discussion. Academics have widely criticized the move as it has far-reaching implications.

Everything can potentially have security implications, and organizers will be under great pressure to also screen participants who are known to have critical positions, Alka Acharya, a professor from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), toldUniversity World News.

Syllabus and curriculum changes have also become a recent point of contention. Just last month, Delhi University removed renowned Dalit authors Bama and Sukhartharini from the English Syllabus.

With ranking parameters elevating certain universities as bastions of quality education, questions about what education means and whom it is meant for get overlooked. Moreover, in an atmosphere of shrinking space to ask these questions, education stands to lose its moral foundations and merely serves as a depoliticized vehicle towards job markets for an elite few. We may already be on our way there.

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Amid Free Speech, Casteism Concerns, Should University Rankings Be Revisited? - The Swaddle

Britons believe freedom from abuse on the internet is more important than protecting freedom of speech, polling on the Governments online harms legislation suggests.

Nearly two thirds (60%) including a majority of both Tory and Labour voters prioritised the right to be protected from violence and abuse over the right for people to say what they want online (24%).

They urged the Government to make tackling abuse the top priority in its Online Safety Bill (44%), with tackling misinformation seen as less important (22%), according to Opinium polling published in a report backed by Compassion in Politics, FairVote UK, Glitch, and Clean Up The Internet.

The draft law will impose a duty of care on internet companies which compels them to remove legal but harmful content, including incitement to self-harm and Covid-19 misinformation.

Ministers argue that the changes will keep children safer online and make web firms responsible for the content they host.

But it has provoked concerns in some quarters.

Tory former Cabinet minister and civil liberties campaigner David Davis has warned it will amount to a censors charter that will allow trolls to escape the consequences of their actions by hiding behind big companies.

Comedian Stephen Fry has meanwhile led warnings that the laws could curb the free speech of LGBT people and other marginalised groups.

But a vast majority (69%) of respondents to the poll said the legislation should go further than planned by protecting adults as well as children from the spread of harmful content.

Under the current draft, platforms will have to publish terms and conditions which make it clear to users that content which is harmful to adults may be removed, but not act proactively to stop the circulation of harmful content, according to the report.

Racism (64%), hate (62%) and personal insults (57%) were identified the top priorities for social media companies to tackle on their platforms, with around half also calling for action against homophobic, xenophobic, ableist, sexist and transphobic content.

Jennifer Nadel, co-director of Compassion in Politics, said: This is a public mandate for the government to be bold and ambitious in tackling the scourge of online abuse and misinformation.

Its current proposals fall way short their draft Online Safety Bill marks yet another concession to the big social media companies who will continue to determine exactly how far they should go in moderating abusive content and judging how good they are at doing so. It is like giving the poachers the key to the chicken coop.

Kyle Taylor, Director of Fair Vote UK said: Big tech have shown time and again that they are incapable of regulating themselves.

From Covid disinformation that has led to loss of human life to racist abuse targeted at footballers and public servants, the evidence is clear and something must be done.

:: Opinium carried out the research on behalf of Compassion in Politics, FairVote UK, Glitch, and Clean Up The Internet. A representative poll of 2,000 adults was conducted online on 13 August.

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Online safety: Freedom from abuse more important than freedom of speech on the internet, poll finds - iNews

When COVID-19 forced universities to shut down their campus, Zoom became the platform that connected instructors and students. However, this also meant that its become easier for speech to be recorded and shared on social media. As a result, students and faculty, out of fear of reprisal, have become less likely to share their views freely.

That's the findings from a new report by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA).

To Dr. Jonathan Pidluzny, vice president of ACTA, the phenomenon of self-censoring on campuses started way before the pandemic.

We know that free expression is under assault on the ordinary college campus. And we know this from all kinds of anecdotes that we see in the news all the time, said Pidluzny.

A 2019 ACTA survey revealed that over 60 percent of students refrained from expressing opinions on sensitive political topics in class in fear that their professors might disagree with them. About 85 percent of students would stop themselves to avoid offending fellow students.

The self-censoring has worsen when colleges switched to virtual learning according to Pidluzny who co-authored the new report Building a Culture of Free Expression in the Online Classroom.

You don't have the trust that you can build by being in a classroom together where you have all kinds of interpersonal, non-verbal cues that help others understand that you might be playing devil's advocate or coming from a place of goodwill," he said. "It's harder to build the kind of trust that allows you to have those wide range of conversations."

Pidluzny said that he was surprised by how broad the stifling of free speech has become a crisis on college campuses.

Its not easy to promote free discussion in an American college classroom. Students are afraidand justly so, unfortunatelyof saying the wrong thing, which might subject them to rejection and ridicule from their peers," said Dr.Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history education at the University of Pennsylvania who is referenced in the report. "And some faculty reinforce this repressive atmosphere by propagandizing instead of teaching, pretending that complicated questions have only one right answer: their own,

But many higher education experts remain optimistic about the future of free speech on college campuses.

Dr. Samuel J. Abrams, a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence said that students today want to ask questions and wrestle with competing ideas.

Students today are not ideological extremists but are moderates who reject the idea of shutting down controversial speakers and limiting the dissemination of ideas that they find unpleasant, said Abrams.

Pidluzny added that there is much that faculty members can do to create a more civilized environment within the classroom. For example, professors could refrain from taking personal political positions when they can, to avoid signaling to students that there is a favorite viewpoint. He added that they should also encourage students to tolerate others who have different opinions. Another important step faculty and administrators could take is to discourage recording of class discussions or even making a policy that prohibits recording sessions.

Some of the nastiest and most unfortunate examples we have are when students take clips and rip them out of context and put them on social media, said Pidluzny. This isnt a partisan thing.

Dr. John Katzman, the co-founder of the Princeton Review echoed Pidluznys idea.

Airing something outside the walls of the university should be a serious offense and should be dealt with as such, noted Katzman in the report. To promote experimentation and debate, we should have the conversation here and only here.

When clips do get posted, Pidluzny said that university administrators need to train their communications department not to panic or intimidate anyone into silence.

It's important for faculty and administrators to begin by saying We are dedicated to academic freedom. We understand that viewpoints that are expressed can be offensive, but the campus is a place to talk about those things, he said, adding that hate speech is also protected under the First Amendment and public institutions are required to protect those rights.

When the speech is political, hateful or hurtful, the proper response to that speech is more speech," he said, with "people explaining why those positions are wrongheaded, or mean-spirited or rooted in prejudice that has no basis."

Link:
Report Addresses the Lack of Free Expression in Online Classrooms - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education

Controversial campus preachers return for first visit of the academic year

Brother Jed Smock and Sister Cindy Smock, both members of the Campus Ministry USA, sat in the campus designated free speech zone Monday at the center of some caution tape on the Library Quad.

With Sister Cindys recent TikTok fame more and more students gather to antagonize the famous evangelical, but many of the students at Eastern were there for the opposite reason.

Sharifa Etoe, junior TV and video production major and Vice President of Easterns Young Democratic Socialists of America, said that their organization wants to turn the attention from the Smocks and use their publicity for something proactive in the community.

Part of Sister Cindys rhetoric is good old-fashioned slut-shaming. Etoe and YDSA want to pledge that whenever Brother Jed and Sister Cindy are on campus that YDSA will either fundraise for their organization or give out free STD testing to students on campus. Etoe hopes to de-gender STD testing and make it free for the students.

If you want to be a whore, be a whore, but be safe, said Etoe.

YDSA is a sex-positive organization and is seeking social change that extends democracy into all aspects of life.

Maddin Herberger, a senior sociology major, said he came out to the quad for entertainment and that he had nothing else to do.

I dont believe anything that theyre saying. Im just here for the homophobia and transphobia, said Herberger, who was wearing a transgender pride flag as a cape.

Many students wanted to come and make fun of the Smocks and what they were doing on campus. Sister Cindy, who was wearing one of the Ho No Mo shirts that she sells as merchandise, had a line of students waiting to get a picture with her. One student even stopped her on the way back from the bathroom to get a selfie.

Shes ridiculous and its funny to make fun of it, said Maya Walter, freshman art history major. I dont take her seriously.

Reporters from Vice, a digital media and broadcasting company, were also there working on a series about internet personalities but declined to comment.

University President David Glassman, who observed the gathering for a while, said he was pleased that students were ignoring and walking past the Smocks group.

Everybody is behaving very civilly and respectfully and thats what I like to see in a free speech zone, said Glassman.

Dr. Anne Flaherty, Vice President for Student Affairs said the free speech zone signs were put together by Dr. Heather Webb, Director of Student Accountability and Support. The signs were placed in the Library Quad Monday before the Smocks gathered.

We ensure that everybody knows even if you dont agree with what a guest has to say, I mean it is a free speech zone and they have a right to speak as long as they stay within our guidelines of our free speech zone, Flaherty said.

People are allowed to speak on our campus, we are allowed to listen, participate or walk away, said Glassman.

Morgan Bledsoe can be reached at 581-2812 or at [emailprotected].

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Smocks return to campus The Daily Eastern News - The Daily Eastern News

By James A. Haught

Values that later grew into liberalism began stirring in the epoch now known as The Enlightenment, starting more than three centuries ago, chiefly in England and France. It was an era when kings still ruled brutally by divine right, and the church still sought to execute heretics holding irregular beliefs, or jail skeptics for blasphemy. Most people were agricultural serfs, working on lands inherited by wealthy barons and counts. The bottom-rung majority had virtually no rights.

But The Enlightenment roused a new way of thinking: a sense that all people should have some control over their lives, a voice in their own destiny. Absolute power of authorities either the throne or the cathedral was challenged. Reformers asserted that human reason and the scientific method can improve society and benefit nearly everyone.

The 1600s were a time of ugly intolerance, much of it stemming from alliances between church and throne. In Englands notorious Star Chamber, controlled by the Anglican archbishop, Puritan and Presbyterian dissenters were forced to testify against themselves, then sentenced to have their ears cut off or their faces branded with markings such as S.L. (for seditious libeler). One victim, John Lilburne, became a public hero because he wrote pamphlets claiming that all people deserved freeborn rights not subject to king or church.

Europe was emerging from horrors of religious wars and massacres between Catholics and Protestants. Catholic France persecuted Huguenot Protestants. Jews were attacked cruelly and banned from certain nations, including England. Sporadic executions of heretics and witches still occurred. Englands last accused witch was put to death in 1684. A few others were executed around Europe and the New World for another century.

This was the background that helped spawn Enlightenment reform.

England was shattered by civil war in the 1640s between Parliament and Puritans on one side versus King Charles I and Anglicans on the other. Charles was beheaded and the power of kings was reduced expanding an erosion that began four centuries earlier when barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, yielding certain rights.

By the late 1600s, some thinkers began pondering society and government.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) wrote Leviathan asserting that people need a social contract to secure safe lives. In a dog-eat-dog natural state, he said, everyone suffers from continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Therefore, he said, people must yield power to a sovereign government to enforce order and protect them. Hobbes supported a king as the sovereign but the tide away from absolute kings already was flowing. Hobbes raised awareness that the social order is made by humans, not by God.

In his many writings, Hobbes repeatedly affronted the clergy. A bishop accused him of atheism, possibly punishable by death. The allegation subsided, then flared again. Nearing 80, Hobbes hastily burned some of his papers and eluded prosecution.

John Locke (1632-1704) hatched notions of democracy, arguing that all people, male and female, deserve a degree of equality. He dismissed the divine right of kings, and advocated separation of church and state to avert religious conflict.

John Milton (1608-1674) was more than an epic poet who wrote in four languages. He also supported popular government and attacked state-mandated religion. When Parliament imposed censorship on writings, he defied a licensing requirement and published an Areopagitica pamphlet claiming that all thinking people are entitled to free expression of their beliefs. Books are not absolutely dead things, he said. He who destroys a good book kills reason itself. The principle of free speech and free press was furthered.

In France, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) championed democracy and envisioned an elected government with power divided between executive, legislative and judicial branches.

Francois Marie Arouet (1694-1788) that consuming fire called Voltaire, as Will Durant called was a brilliant French writer who became a heroic champion of human rights. Endlessly, he denounced cruelties of bishops and aristocrats.

Heres an example:

In the devout town of Abbeville, a teen-age youth, Francois de la Barre, was accused of marring a crucifix, singing impious songs and wearing his hat while a church procession passed. He was sentenced to have his tongue torn out, his head chopped off, and his remains burned. Voltaire wrote bitter protests against this savagery. He helped appeal the youths case to Parliament, which showed mercy by affording the blasphemer a quick death by with a copy of Voltaires Philosophical Dictionary nailed to his body.

Voltaires protest writings roused ferment across Europe and won reversal of a few cases. He freed Jean Espinas, who had spent 23 years aboard a penal galley ship because he sheltered a fugitive Protestant minister for one night. Likewise, he freed Claude Chaumont from a galley bench, where he had been sentenced for attending a Protestant worship service.

In The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine wrote that Voltaires forte lay in exposing and ridiculing the superstitions which priestcraft, united with statecraft, had interwoven with governments.

At first, Enlightenment ideas were somewhat suppressed in Europe, where kings and archbishops still prevailed, but they found fertile ground in Americas colonies. Brilliant radicals such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and James Madison read them ardently and adopted them as a pattern for the first modern democracy, the United States of America. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson summed up the essence:

All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Less-known founding father George Mason incorporated the principles into the Bill of Rights, keeping church and state apart, guaranteeing free speech, and protecting each person from abuses by the majority. Similarly, the personal liberties were reiterated in the Rights of Man and the Citizen adopted by the French Revolution, and eventually in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that Eleanor Roosevelt helped craft for the United Nations.

Thus democracy became self-contradictory. A basic premise is majority rule yet a bill of rights prevents majority rule. For example, a Christian majority cannot vote to banish minority Jews or skeptics. Personal beliefs are exempt from majority rule.

The Enlightenment was the seedbed that sprouted most of the liberal freedoms now enjoyed in democracies everywhere. It projected a model for humane, safe, fair modern life.

James Haught, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is editor emeritus of West Virginias largest newspaper, The Charleston Gazette-Mail, and author of 12 books.

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ESSAY: Ideas from 'The Enlightenment' Arrive in America - Pagosa Daily Post

When Twitter decided briefly last fall to block users from posting links to an article about Joseph R. Biden Jr.s son Hunter, it prompted a conservative outcry that Big Tech was improperly aiding Mr. Bidens presidential campaign.

So terrible, President Donald J. Trump said of the move to limit the visibility of a New York Post article. Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, said Twitter and Facebook were censoring core political speech. The Republican National Committee filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Twitter of using its corporate resources to benefit the Biden campaign.

Now the commission, which oversees election laws, has dismissed those allegations, according to a document obtained by The New York Times, ruling in Twitters favor in a decision that is likely to set a precedent for future cases involving social media sites and federal campaigns.

The election commission determined that Twitters actions regarding the Hunter Biden article had been undertaken for a valid commercial reason, not a political purpose, and were thus allowable.

And in a second case involving a social media platform, the commission used the same reasoning to side with Snapchat and reject a complaint from the Trump campaign. The campaign had argued that the company provided an improper gift to Mr. Biden by rejecting Mr. Trump from its Discover platform in the summer of 2020, according to another commission document.

The election commissions twin rulings, which were made last month behind closed doors and are set to become public soon, protect the flexibility of social media and tech giants like Twitter, Facebook, Google and Snapchat to control what is shared on their platforms regarding federal elections.

Republicans have increasingly been at odds with the nations biggest technology and social media companies, accusing them of giving Democrats an undue advantage on their platforms. Mr. Trump, who was ousted from Twitter and Facebook early this year, has been among the loudest critics of the two companies and even announced a lawsuit against them and Google.

The suppression of the article about Hunter Biden at the height of the presidential race last year was a particular flashpoint for Republicans and Big Tech. But there were other episodes, including Snapchats decision to stop featuring Mr. Trump on one of its platforms.

The Federal Election Commission said in both cases that the companies had acted in their own commercial interests, according to the factual and legal analysis provided to the parties involved. The commission also said that Twitter had followed existing policies related to hacked materials.

The rulings appear to provide social media companies additional protections for making decisions on moderating content related to elections as long as such choices are in service of a companys commercial interests. Federal election law is decades old and is broadly outdated, so decisions by the election commission serve as influential guideposts.

Campaign finance law does not account for the post-broadcast world and puts few restrictions on the behavior of social media firms, said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a law professor at Stetson University. There is a real mismatch between our federal campaign finance laws and how campaigns are run.

Still, the Republican National Committees complaint stretched the boundaries of campaign finance law, she added. The choice to delete or suppress certain content on the platform is ultimately going to be viewed through the lens of the First Amendment, Ms. Torres-Spelliscy said. I dont think that type of content moderation by the big platforms is going to raise a campaign finance issue.

Some Republicans are seeking to take a broader cudgel to the big internet companies, aiming to repeal a provision of communications law that shields them from liability for what users post.

In the case of the Hunter Biden article, Twitter reversed course within a day of its decision to block distribution of the piece, and its chief executive, Jack Dorsey, has called the initial move a mistake.

The Federal Election Commissions official vote on the case the commission is split equally between three Democratic-aligned commissioners and three Republicans is not yet public, nor are any additional statements written by commissioners. Such statements often accompany the closure of cases and can provide further insight into the commissions reasoning.

In addition to rejecting the R.N.C. complaint, the commission dismissed other allegations that Twitter had violated election laws by shadow banning Republican users (or appearing to limit the visibility of their posts without providing an explanation); suppressing other anti-Biden content; and labeling Mr. Trumps tweets with warnings about their accuracy. The commission rejected those accusations, writing that they were vague, speculative and unsupported by the available information.

Twitter and Snapchat declined to comment.

Emma Vaughn, an R.N.C. spokeswoman, said the committee was weighing its options for appealing this disappointing decision from the F.E.C. Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said on Tuesday that Big Tech is corrupt and accused it of interfering in the 2020 election to protect Mr. Biden.

Twitter would go on to permanently bar Mr. Trump from its platform entirely in January, citing the risk of further incitement of violence after the attack on the Capitol by his supporters as Congress voted to certify the 2020 election.

Out of office, Mr. Trump has sued Facebook, Twitter and Google, arguing that a provision of the Communications Decency Act known as Section 230, which limits internet companies liability for what is posted on their networks, is unconstitutional.

Legal experts have given little credence to Mr. Trumps suit, the news of which the former president immediately used as a fund-raising tactic.

Section 230 has been a regular target of lawmakers who want to crack down on Silicon Valley companies. While in office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order intended to chip away at the protections offered by Section 230, and Democratic and Republican lawmakers have proposed repealing or modifying the provision.

But technology companies and free speech advocates have vocally defended it, arguing that Section 230 has been crucial for the growth of the internet. If the measure were repealed, it would stifle free speech and bury social media companies in legal bills, the companies have said.

Twitter initially said that it had prevented linking to the Hunter Biden article because of its existing policies against distributing hacked materials and private information. The article, which focused on the Bidens Ukrainian ties, involved correspondence that The Post suggested had been found on Hunter Bidens laptop.

But Mr. Dorsey, Twitters chief executive, acknowledged in October that blocking links with zero context as to why had been unacceptable.

Soon after, Twitter said that it was changing its policy on hacked materials and would allow similar content to be posted, including a label to provide context about the source of the information.

Republicans said the damage was done and set a poor precedent.

This censorship manifestly will influence the presidential election, Senator Hawley wrote in a letter to the F.E.C. last year after Twitter blocked the article and Facebook said it was reducing its distribution of the piece.

The commission documents reveal one reason that Twitter had been especially suspicious of the Hunter Biden article. The companys head of site integrity, according to the commission, said Twitter had received official warnings throughout 2020 from federal law enforcement that malign state actors might hack and release materials associated with political campaigns and that Hunter Biden might be a target of one such operation.

The election commission said it found no information that Twitter coordinated its decisions with the Biden campaign. In a sworn declaration, Twitters head of U.S. public policy said she was unaware of any contacts with the Biden team before the company made its decisions, according to the commission document.

Adav Noti, a senior director at the Campaign Legal Center, said that he supported the rulings but that he had concerns about the election commissions use of what he called the commercial rationale, because it was overbroad.

It encompasses almost everything for-profit corporations do, Mr. Noti said.

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Under G.O.P. Pressure, Tech Giants Are Empowered by Election Agency - The New York Times