Category Archives: Free Speech

Ian McEwan was on holiday on the remote coast of north-west Scotland when he heard the news that his great friend Salman Rushdie had been attacked in New York. His wife, the writer Annalena McAfee, let out a cry from the next door room in the small hotel where they were staying. The numbness of his first response was quickly followed by a feeling of horrible inevitability: How could I have been so blind? Like Rushdie, McEwan had hoped the threat of the fatwa was over. The tragedy of this is Salman always wanted to get back to having an ordinary writing life, and that seemed to have happened, McEwan says on a video call a week after the incident. The 74-year-old novelist is back in his Cotswolds home, surrounded by books and looking slightly beaten up after his first bout of Covid.

The grim effects of coronavirus added to his sense of visceral disgust at the violence of the stabbing. It all seemed one with my own perception of it, he says. A colossal weariness and also disgust at the thought that it takes a lot of hatred, a lot of zeal, to push a knife deep into someones eye. It is beyond the edge of human cruelty. And only an intact ideology, not available to disprove in any way, could bring you to the point.

We had met earlier in the summer to discuss McEwans epic new novel, Lessons, in which the fatwa issued against Rushdie for The Satanic Verses in 1989 appears as part of the novels far-reaching look at postwar British history. It was a watershed moment for those of us around Salman, he says now. For writers, intellectuals and artists in the 70s or 80s, religion wasnt an issue: We didnt even deny religion, it just didnt come up. So when the fatwa was decreed, it was explosive. It cut across the sort of multicultural assumptions we had at the time. People whom we naturally most wanted to defend from racism were burning books in Bradford.

Although not originally part of the notorious gang of writers Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and the late Christopher Hitchens who made their names in the 70s and dominated the literary scene for much longer (too long, according to their critics), Rushdie arrived a few years later with the publication in 1981 of Midnights Children, which transformed both British and Indian writing, and won the Booker prize that year. It was amazing, it expanded horizons, McEwan says. Salman is a great conversationalist, with a great taste for fun and mischief, he adds. So we all got on straight away.

Audio extract: Lessons Listen to an excerpt from the audiobook of Ian McEwan's forthcoming novel

Sorry your browser does not support audio - but you can download here and listen https://audio.guim.co.uk/2020/05/05-61553-gnl.fw.200505.jf.ch7DW.mp3

McEwans ambition with Lessons, his 18th novel, was to show the ways in which global events penetrate individual lives, of which the fatwa was a perfect example. It was a world-historical moment that had immediate personal effects, because we had to learn to think again, to learn the language of free speech, he says. It was a very steep learning curve. It seems strange to remember that 1989 was also the year the Berlin Wall came down, a central event in the new novel. The fatwa just preceded a rather wonderful time when democracies were sprouting out across Europe, free speech was on the rise, free thought was on the rise, he says. Everything has changed from 33 years ago. We now live in a time of heavily constricted, shrinking freedom of expression around the world: Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China, you name it. Plus the self-inflicted free speech matter of the rich west.

It is exactly this trajectory from youthful optimism to disillusionment and despair that the novel charts, following the life of his central character, Roland Baines, from the Suez and Cuban crises right up to Brexit and the pandemic. McEwan finished writing Lessons before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or else he would have included it as a further example as part of the trashing of his hopes, which he compares to the thwarted dreams of Orwells generation at the end of the 30s. If he was still writing, the attack on Rushdie would be in there, too. It is horribly consonant with the times, he says. We live in an age of casual death threats, of the kind that washes towards JK Rowling, for example. For some lone, insufficient individuals, its a short step to carry out some terrible act. This is a very dark moment.

Things look much brighter when I meet McEwan in his immaculately white Bloomsbury mews back in July. He is tanned and healthy from a recent walking holiday (he is a committed hiker) in the Lake District with McAfee.

He shows me a photograph of Lingcove Bridge, which they visited, the site of a late scene in Lessons, when Roland, on the eve of his 70th birthday, has a tussle with a Tory peer and is pushed into the river. That was me feeling I was defeated by Brexit, McEwan admits. He describes Lessons as a sort of post-Brexit novel. Our world has got smaller, he says. The ceiling in our rooms has lowered by two feet. Its the day before Boris Johnson is forced to resign, and he tells a jolly story about a delightful hour he spent discussing Shakespeare with the former prime minister (who is writing a biography of the playwright), after a dinner, long before Brexit. He needs to get back to that book, McEwan says drily.

Few interviews fail to note the disconnect between the genial man in linen shirt and jumper, who might just as easily be an eminent scientist, and his enduring reputation as contemporary fictions prince of darkness. Over his 50-year writing life, which has included winning the Booker in 1998, becoming a fixture on school reading lists and blockbuster films, not least Atonement, McEwan has been accorded the position of national novelist; national psychologist even, a tag he winces at now. Lessons is teasingly alert to the perils of being white, hetero and old as a writer today.

If there is no longer a commotion when his novels dont make it on to the Booker longlist (Lessons hasnt), hes not complaining. We had our time, he says sanguinely. My generation, when we were first publishing in the 70s, it was very boyish. It was a tight world. Were all in our 70s now. We cant complain. And I especially cant complain. And for very good reason. We got the prizes and some money, and we had the writing life. And now its this tsunami of other voices. Everything has opened up wonderfully.

He started writing Lessons in 2019, after a long publicity tour for Machines Like Me. All he wanted to do was stay at home and write throughout 2020. One should be careful what one wishes for, he deadpans. All novelists are locked down. Lockdown is what we do. But I never thought Id have such opportunities for total immersion, seven days a week, often 12 hours a day, broken only by walking the dog. I really wanted to write a long novel, to relax into it, to live in it.

Coming in just shy of 500 pages, it is far longer than McEwans characteristically short, smart and saturnine novels, as John Updike summed up his work in a 2002 review of Atonement. So much for his assertion in previous interviews that he was going to spend his 70s writing novellas. I think you have written your last novel, a writer friend wrote after reading the end result. Even though I hope you will write more. As McEwan concedes, you know what he means. It is a novel of the backwards look.

Billed as the story of a lifetime, it is in many ways the story of McEwans life. Ive always felt rather envious of writers like Dickens, Saul Bellow, John Updike and many others, who just plunder their own lives for their novels, he explains. I thought, now Im going to plunder my own life, Im going to be shameless. Before readers assume that he was abused as a boy, or went through any of the misfortunes that befall Roland, parts of McEwans past are fictionalised and interwoven with the narrative. It is certainly my most autobiographical novel, but at the same time, Roland is not me. He didnt lead my life, McEwan explains. But in a way he lives the life I might have led. All of us have these moments, when we think about them later, where we could have gone down some other path. I could so easily not have become a writer.

While McEwans previous historical novels have zoomed in on specific periods unforgettably the second world war (Atonement), the cold war (Sweet Tooth, Black Dogs, The Innocent), the 80s (Machines Like Me) and post-9/11 (Saturday) Lessons marches through the political landscape of postwar Britain, taking in Thatcherism, New Labour (Tony Blair with his copious hair, good teeth, an energetic stride) to the new populism (Trump and Johnson are pointedly unnamed). He wasnt aiming to write the British equivalent of the Great American Novel: We dont have that phantom bearing a whip that American writers have. Instead he wanted to show how the actions of those all too human gods, our political leaders, can wreak havoc on mere mortals: a piece of dust as it were from their heels flies in your eyes.

The opening section, a minutely played out affair between the young Roland and his 25-year-old piano teacher at boarding school (very like the one the author attended), which Roland ony later realises was abuse, is vintage McEwan: psychologically gripping, erotically intense and morally troubling. On the brink of the Cuban missile crisis, the only question among Rolands classmates after lights out in the dormitory was what if the world ended before you had it? It. Roland isnt about to take any chances: chasing up overtures made by the seductive Miriam, he fetches up at her front door. The pair embark on a summer of throbbing duets and Lawrentian allusions. This was what the far-off belligerent gods, Khrushchev and Kennedy, had arranged for him, Roland reflects helplessly.

This story was not, McEwan makes clear, drawn from his own life, but from an abandoned earlier novel, part of which became On Chesil Beach, also set in 1962. Having taken on the biggest contemporary issues the climate emergency as comedy in Solar (2010), artificial intelligence in Machines Like Me (2019) it was only a matter of time before McEwan turned his dark-seeking antenna to the subject of historical child abuse. He admires Zo Hellers 2003 novel Notes on a Scandal, about a relationship between a teacher and one of her pupils. But the decision to have a female abuser was not simply McEwanesque contrarianism. I wanted to write it from the point of view of the victim, to show the consequences for the rest of the life, he says. But I didnt want to appropriate a womans experiences.

McEwan hadnt intended to write about his family history, but his discovery in 2002 of a brother, David Sharp, a bricklayer, was so powerful an illustration of the novels central idea that he found he couldnt step away. His parents came from very poor, hard-working families: both left school at 14, his father, David (Robert in Lessons), to become a butcher boy, before joining the army, where he worked his way up to major; his mother, Rose, went into service as a chambermaid. They met when his father was training in Aldershot and his mother was already married. After her first husband was killed fighting they married, but never reclaimed the baby who had been born as a result of their wartime romance. Wanted, Home for baby boy, age 1 month; complete surrender, reads the heartbreaking advertisement his mother put in the paper offering her illegitimate child for adoption.

McEwans father, with his Brylcreem and spit-and-polish ways, as well as the frustrations of a highly intelligent man deprived of formal education, which led to drinking and often violent anger, and his mothers anxiety and unexplained sadness, all that just fell on to the page. By the time the secret was finally revealed, his father was dead and his mother was in the late stages of dementia. My mother was worried, frightened and sad as a person, he says now. There would be moments when shed relax and laugh, but I think this matter hung over her all her life. When the story became news in 2007, it was widely described as like something out of an Ian McEwan novel. Now it is.

As a boy in Libya, growing up in an obscure crevice of history, as he puts it in the novel, the Suez crisis gave the young McEwan his first taste of freedom and adventure, when he spent a rapturous two weeks at a military camp, an experience he gives to Roland. It was just bliss, he says now. The long shadow or the light it cast over the rest of my life meant I never wanted a full-time job. This became clear to him after a visit to the careers office at the University of Sussex, when he was presented with a chart of civil service salary scales from 22 to retirement: Just looking at that, I knew I could never do anything like that. Ever.

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Rolands peripatetic adult life unfolds alongside his childhood. It is 1986 and Roland is in his mid-30s. Theres a hosepipe ban and ominous news of a radiation cloud from Chernobyl. Rolands wife, Alissa, has suddenly deserted him and their seven-month-old son to return to her native Germany to fulfil her ambition to become the greatest novelist of her generation.

Ive read so many literary biographies of men behaving badly and destroying their marriages in pursuit of their high art. I wanted to write a novel that was in part the story of a woman who is completely focused on what she wants to achieve, and has the same ruthlessness but is judged by different standards, he explains. If you read Doris Lessings cuttings they will unfailingly tell you that she left a child in Rhodesia.

While McEwan was never left to bring up a baby single-handed, both his sons lived with him from their early teens after a messy custody battle with his first wife. Unlike Alissa, he never felt it was either/or in terms of his writing. His office door was always open If children come in and out, they rapidly find its very boring and he would work in the school hours. Theres no messing around, theres no third cup of coffee, he says. Today he keeps the door of his study, a converted barn, open for his sheepdog, who also likes to wander in. He works on two desks an old kitchen table and a headmasters desk he picked up in a junk shop in London in the 70s one reserved for the screen and one for longhand. He maintains the old disciplines: Do an hour, then empty the dishwasher, he advises firmly.

Decline and death inevitably creep into the final section of the novel. Ive had so many friends die of cancer, he says, the complicated last three years, the intrusiveness of the treatment. He wanted to pay tribute to their amazing bravery and incredible sense of purpose. He has also lost many people to less talked about smoking-related illnesses, he adds ruefully: his father; Malcolm Bradbury, his creative writing teacher at UEA; Ian Hamilton, his editor at the New Review; and he was at Hitchenss bedside shortly before he died.

He compares ageing to driving a car: The car is your body and one day you notice the wing mirror has come off. And someones taken the front bumper away in the night, and the passenger side door no longer opens. Then theres systemic change of course. Rushdies age makes the attack particularly cruel, he says when we speak later. People use the phrase life-changing injuries. This is very hard at 75. Being 75 is life-changing enough. It is going to take a good while for him to get to the other side of this and face the new kind of life.

Does he worry about his own legacy? I dont know, maybe. Honestly? Yes. Id like to continue to be read, of course. But again, thats entirely out of ones control. I used to think that most writers when they die, they sink into a 10-year obscurity and then they bounce back. But Ive had enough friends die more than 10 years ago, and they havent reappeared. I feel like sending them an email back to their past to say, Start worrying about your legacy because its not looking good from here.

He was greatly saddened by what he describes as the assault on Updikes reputation; for him, the Rabbit tetralogy is the great American novel. Saul Bellow, another hero, has suffered a similar fate for the same reasons, he says. Those problematic men who wrote about sex Roth, Updike, Bellow and many others.

Surely the reputations of his generation, many of them the self-styled British disciples of those problematic American men, none of whom have been shy about writing about sex, now seem similarly precarious? Weve become so tortured about writing about desire. Its got all so complex, he says. But we cant pretend it doesnt exist. Desire is one of the colossal awkward subjects of literature, whether its Flaubert youre reading or even Jane Austen. People will be compelled, theyll just have to write about it. He recalls listening to a young writer on the radio who said how difficult it is to write about male desire. I thought, oh, poor kid.

McEwan, like Alissa in the novel, was criticised for comments about gender at the end of a speech on identity at the Royal Institution in 2016. I said: Call me old-fashioned, but I tend to think of most people with penises as men, he recalls now. I did say most men, I didnt say all. He was accused of inciting violence against transgender people. Violence! he exclaims now.

It is important to resist the temptation to think because youre coming to an end, therefore the world is, he cautions. But its very, very tempting. He finds it chastening that many young people also feel fearful about the future, and timid in the face of history. Theres no big project, as it were, for a new kind of society. He worries about the return of Trump, or someone even worse, he says. We could be looking at a very authoritarian state, that could probably swing it so the Democrats are never in power again.

He recently set himself the challenge of writing a short story in which he had to be optimistic about the future up to 2060 (there are a couple of strategic nuclear explosions cheery). I thought, am I just writing a delicious fantasy? That old saying that most things arent as bad as you fear? But he is reluctant to make any real predictions. The world is so connected now its like a giant mind, he reflects. And just as with our own minds, or with our own fates, we can never predict what were going to do next collectively.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the new novel, it is that true comfort and happiness are to be found at home, and Lessons is touching on the quiet consolations of domesticity. One of the few compensations for getting old, he says, is becoming a grandparent. Like Roland, McEwan is a doting grandfather (he has eight grandchildren). Just when you think that youre never going to meet anyone new, you have this love affair, he says. There is another explosion of love in later life. Even having plundered his life for Lessons, he doesnt rule out writing a straightforward memoir: I keep saying I will and then I dont.

He is a firm believer in what, borrowing VS Pritchetts phrase, he likes to call determined stupor between novels: I just read and soak things up. His greatest pleasure when he is not writing is walking. Over the years he has hiked all over the world, especially across America. But he never feels totally free in the US. One of the things he most loves about England is the footpaths, historically laid down over the centuries. Every village more or less is connected; in every town, if you walk to the edge of it there is a footpath. He often hikes with a close friend with a bottle of good red wine in his rucksack. To be high on a ridge with a glass of wine in your hand absolutely transforms the landscape, he says looking wistfully into the distance. Suddenly its your vast drawing room. Its your space.

Lessons by Ian McEwan is published by Vintage on 13 September at 20. To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Hell be discussing it at the Southbank Centre in London on 14 September; tickets from 15.

This article was amended on 3 September 2022. Ian McEwan has eight grandchildren, not four as an earlier version said, and the bridge in the photograph that features in Lessons is Lingcove Bridge, not Lincoln Bridge. The author told us the VS Pritchett phrase he quoted as productive indolence should have been determined stupor; this has been corrected.

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Ian McEwan on ageing, legacy and the attack on his friend Salman Rushdie: Its beyond the edge of human cruelty - The Guardian

CONTACT

Edith Bullard, chief communications officerebullard@acluva.org804.418-1852

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. In a challenge brought by the ACLU and the ACLU of Virginia on behalf of local booksellers, ajudge rejected an effort to label two books as obscene and illegal to sell or lend in the state of Virginia.

The Circuit Court for the City of Virginia Beach rejected two petitions arguing that Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe and A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. K. Maas are obscene by holding that the statute pursuant to which the petitions were filed violated First Amendment free speech rights and the constitutional right to due process. Likewise, the Circuit Court vacated a lower court determination of probable cause for obscenity.

We are pleased with the outcome of todays proceedings, said Matt Callahan, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU of Virginia. The First Amendment protects literary expression, even when some people find portions of the works difficult or objectionable. All people should be able to choose what they wish to read.

The proceedings were initiated pursuant to Virginia Code 18.2-384a law that has not been used for decades, but which purports to allow any individual to file a petition claiming that any book is obscene. Under the statute, a book could have been deemed obscene and its distribution could have been made criminal without any noticemuch less an opportunity to be heard on the issue to the countless bookstores, book lenders, and other distributors who would have been governed by the result.

The books being challenged through two separate obscenity proceedings in Virginia state court are Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, an autobiographical graphic novel about adolescence, gender and sexuality, and A Court of a Mist and Fury, a fantasy romance novel by Sarah J. K. Maas. Gender Queer was the most banned book in the United States in 2021, according to the American Library Association.

The ACLU, the ACLU of Virginia, and Michael Bamberger of Dentons, and general counsel to Media Coalition, filed a motion challenging the proceedings on behalf of amici curiae Prince Books, Read Books, One More Page Books, bbgb tales for kids, American Booksellers for Free Expression, Association of American Publishers Inc., Authors Guild, Inc., Freedom to Read Foundation, American Library Association, and Virginia Library Association.

Click here for more on the proceedings.

# # #

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Virginia Judge Rejects Obscenity Proceedings Against Gender Queer and A Court of Mist and Fury - ACLU

xkcd: Free SpeechPreorder What If? 2 (all US preorders eligible) and enter our contest for a chance to win a dedicated comic and What If blog post!

Free Speech

[[A person speaking to the reader.]]Person: Public Service Announcehment: The *right to free speech* means the government can't arrest you for what you say.[[Close-up on person's face.]]Person: It doesn't mean that anyone else has to listen to your bullshit, - or host you while you share it.[[Back to full figure.]]Person: The 1st Amendment doesn't shield you from criticism or consequences.[[Close-up.]]Person: If you're yelled at, boycotted, have your show canceled, or get banned from an internet community, your free speech rights aren't being violated.[[Person, holding palm upward.]]Person: It's just that the people listening think you're an asshole,[[A door that is ajar.]]Person: And they're showing you the door.{{Title text: I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.}}

This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

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xkcd: Free Speech

Teens and adults in the United States differ on a key issue tied to online speech and its consequences. A majority of teens ages 13 to 17 say a welcoming, safe online environment is more important than people being able to speak their minds freely online, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. A separate survey of Americans 18 and older shows that adults views on the same question are more evenly divided.

Overall, 62% of teens say people being able to feel welcome and safe online is more important than people being able to speak their minds freely online, while 38% hold the opposite view. By comparison, half of adults say a welcoming and safe online environment is more important, while a similar share (47%) put more value on people being able to speak their minds freely online.

Adults ages 18 to 29 differ from their younger teen counterparts on this question. Some 57% of adults in this age group favor the idea that people should be able to speak their minds freely online. Those 65 and older, by contrast, are the only age group whose views are similar to teens: 58% of these Americans say feeling welcome and safe online is more important.

Pew Research Center conducted these studies to understand teens and adults views about online speech and the broader online environment. This analysis relies on data from two separate surveys. For the analysis of teens, the Center conducted an online survey of 1,316 U.S. teens from April 14-May 4, 2022, via Ipsos. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents who were a part of itsKnowledgePanel, a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses.The teen results are weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with parents by age, gender, race, ethnicity, household income and other categories. The research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board, Advarra, which is an independent committee of experts that specializes in helping to protect the rights of research participants.

For the separate analysis of adults, the Center surveyed 3,581 U.S. adults from March 21-27, 2022. All adults who took part in the survey are members of the Centers American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey of adults is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about theATPs methodology.

Here arethe questions used for the survey of teens,along withits methodology; andhere are the questions used for the survey of adults,andits methodology.

But there is also nuance in peoples views of online speech. For example, when asked which of two statements about the way people react to offensive content online comes closer to their view, the majority of teens (59%) think that many people take such content too seriously, as do 54% of adults. Smaller shares in both groups believe offensive content online is too often excused as not a big deal (40% of teens and 44% of adults).

Similar to teens, about six-in-ten adults ages 18 to 29 (62%) say offensive content is taken too seriously, as do 56% of those ages 30 to 64. By contrast, just 41% of adults 65 and older say the same.

These new results are from two Center surveys one of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 conducted April 14-May 4, 2022, and one of U.S. adults conducted March 21-27, 2022. They come in the wake of heightened bipartisan calls for tech companies to address cyberbullying and create a safe environment for teens. They also come amid continued court battles over whether schools can impose consequences on adolescents for what they say online and broader debates about people being banned by social media platforms or canceled by their peers.

In both surveys, Americans views on these topics break sharply along partisan lines. But regardless of what party they identify with or lean toward, teens are more likely than adults with similar partisan leanings to say allowing for safe spaces online is more important than being able to speak freely online.

Some 71% of teens who identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party say this, compared with 62% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning adults. About half of Republican-identifying or GOP-leaning teens (49%) also back a welcoming and safe environment 13 percentage points greater than the share of Republican and GOP-leaning adults (36%) who hold the same view.

Among both teens and adults, though, there are substantial differences by party. Republican teens are 23 points more likely than Democratic teens to say being able to speak freely online is more important. Among adults, Republicans are 26 points more likely than Democrats to say the same. Democratic adults instead are more likely to favor welcoming, safe spaces by the same margin.

On the question of offensive content, teens and adults views within each party are similar. Gaps between parties emerge for both teens and adults: Democratic teens are more likely than Republican teens to say that offensive content online is too often excused as not a big deal (50% vs. 27%), and there is a similar pattern for Democratic versus Republican adults (55% vs. 32%). By comparison, 72% of Republican teens and 67% of Republican adults say many take offensive content they see online too seriously.

Among adults, views on these topics within each political party have continued to evolve over the past several years. In 2017, when Pew Research Center first asked adults these questions, Democrats and Republicans held largely similar views about the balance of online safe spaces versus freedom of expression. That changed in 2020 and the partisan split on this question has widened from 16 to 26 points in the past two years. On the question about offensive content online, the partisan gap among adults has slightly narrowed since 2020 but remains pronounced. Adults overall views on this question have remained largely unchanged during this period.

The changes since 2020 are largely driven by those at the ideological poles in their respective parties. The share of conservative Republican adults who say free speech is more important in this context has risen from 57% in 2020 to 68% today, even as the view that offensive content is taken too seriously among that group has dipped somewhat from 74% to 67%. Liberal Democrats are now slightly more likely to think offensive content is taken too seriously than in 2020 (rising from 31% to 39%), but the majority of this group think its too often excused as not a big deal (61% say this today, compared with 68% in 2020).

Views of the online environment that teens and adults encounter also vary by race, ethnicity and gender.

For example, Black and Hispanic teens are more likely than their White peers to say that feeling welcome and safe online is more important than free speech online, and that offensive content is too often excused as not a big deal.

Among adults, those who are Black (60%) are more likely than either White (50%) or Hispanic (46%) adults to prioritize feeling welcome and safe. Black adults are also more likely than Hispanic adults to say offensive content is too often excused as not a big deal (51% vs. 38%). The views of White and Hispanic adults are statistically similar on both questions. (There were not enough Asian teens or adults in the samples to be broken out into a separate analysis. As always, their responses are incorporated into the general population figures throughout this analysis.)

Teen girls are also more likely than teen boys to prioritize feeling welcome and safe and to say offensive content is too often excused. Similarly, adult women (58%) are more likely than adult men (42%) to value a welcoming, safe environment and to feel people too often excuse offensive material as not a big deal (50% vs. 38%).

In many cases, differences are still present when accounting for other relevant characteristics that may be playing a role. Differences in by party and gender remain among teens on both questions when controlling for other factors, as do differences by race and ethnicity for views of offensive content. Among adults, party, age and gender matter after controlling for demographics.

Note: Here arethe questions used for the survey of teens,along withits methodology; andhere are the questions used for the survey of adults,andits methodology.

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Views of free speech and online safety: Teens, adults differ - Pew Research Center

Faculty and staff saw significantly higher participation in the survey across the institutions than students. Some conservatives report a better learning environment in recent months.

More than a third of students enrolled at state Board of Regents institutions completed first amendment training in the spring 2022 semester.

On the University of Iowa campus, 35 percent of students and 57 percent of faculty and staff completed the training.

Across all colleges, faculty and staff had a higher completion rate, and the UI had the lowest participation rate of the three schools.

The University of Northern Iowa had participation from 39 percent of students and 76 percent of staff, while Iowa State had participation from 37 percent of students and 81 percent of staff.

Iowa law required Board of Regents institutions to implement the training. Instruction from UI President Barbara Wilson and Board of Regents President Mike Richards said students, faculty, and staff were expected to complete the training by the end of the spring 2022 semester.

This requirement came about in reaction to some instances on campus where conservative students reported not feeling able to express themselves. This included when College Republicans chalked messages in support of the police, former President Donald Trump, and anti-abortion sentiments. Other students then washed away the messages with water, prompting the UI to issue a statement on their chalking policy.

RELATED: University clarifies campus chalk policy after College Republicans chalk Pentacrest

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, said he was receiving a significant among of complaints from conservative on Iowa campuses about the environment a year and a half ago, but that the atmosphere seems to have improved significantly on campus in the last six to eight months, he estimated.

According to the University of Iowa Campus Climate Survey conducted in 2021, 44 percent of undergraduate students at the UI reported feeling less likely to be respected.

Ive actually had some people reach out and say, hey, whatever you guys did, whatever the university or whoever did, its sure working because we feel a lot more fairly represented and a lot more fairly treated, he said.

RELATED: University of Iowa College of Dentistry to alter approach to student speech

Rep. Mary Mascher, D-Iowa City, who has worked as an educator and is a member of the Iowa House education committee, said she supports the intent behind the training

I dont have a problem with teaching what is and isnt ok and making sure that everybody is on the same page in terms of freedom of speech and making sure that everybody is on the same page in terms of what that entails,Mascher said.

In the same vein, Mascher added she also doesnt want to see censorship of books including topics some legislators find controversial. Republicans, such as Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Des Moines, proposed punishing K-12 educators for offering books including topics of racial injustice and queer characters, claiming in the opening on of the 2022 legislative session that some educators had a sinister agenda.

I just think it sends a chill into the hearts of educators who are there to provide a good learning environment for students, Mascher said.

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More than a third of students participated in free speech training - UI The Daily Iowan

Category: Cases, Free Speech, Litigation

Can a powerful organization bully a critic into silence for condemning the use of electric-shock devices on residents? Not on FIREs watch.

NeuroClastic, Inc. is a small, autistic-led, nonprofit organization that criticized the Judge Rotenberg Educational Centers use of electric shocks on autistic people to suppress their behaviors. Based outside of Boston, the Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the United States using such electric-shock devices a practice so notorious that it was condemned by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture.

In August 2021, NeuroClastic surveyed professionals in the field of applied behavior analysis regarding the Rotenberg Centers use of the device. The findings, which were published on NeuroClastics website, note that 89% of survey respondents were strongly opposed to the electric-shock device.

On April 27, 2022, the Rotenberg Center sent NeuroClastic a cease-and-desist letter arguing that seven statements in the article were defamatory. It threatened to sue NeuroClastic for damages if it did not permanently and immediately delete the objectionable statements.

On August 30, 2022, FIRE demanded that the Rotenberg Center drop its baseless threat of litigation. As explained in the response to the cease-and-desist letter, the Rotenberg Center cannot clear the high bar imposed by the constitutional malice test for defamation. Because the Rotenberg Center is a public figure, the First Amendment requires that it prove by clear and convincing evidence that NeuroClastic knew its statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Additionally, defamation only applies to statements of fact. Opinions, including opinions on electric-shock therapy, are not actionable in a defamation suit. NeuroClastics statements are true or protected opinions. FIREs letter explains that the threatened defamation claims are meritless and puts the Rotenberg Center on notice to preserve all records of the electric-shock usage going forward given its threat of further legal action. Additionally, FIRE notes that an apology from the Rotenberg Center and retraction of its litigation threat is warranted.

The letter marks one of FIREs efforts as counsel defending the expressive rights of off-campus speakers following its June expansion beyond higher education.

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NeuroClastic: Autistic-Led Nonprofit Organization Stands Up for Free Speech Against Bully's Threat of Defamation Suit - Foundation for Individual...

Public Artwork Will Be Shown Every Evening Wed.-Sun., Sept. 1418

(NEW YORK)On five nights in September, the renowned artist Jenny Holzer will celebrate PEN Americas century-long defense of the written word and the fundamental rights that make free expression possible with a powerful new series of light projections that will illuminate three buildings in Manhattans iconic Rockefeller Center.

Starting after sunset at 8 pm on Wednesday, Sept. 14, and continuing until 10 pm each evening through Sunday, Sept. 18, the facades of 30 Rockefeller Plaza and 610 and 620 Fifth Avenue will be lit with selected passages from gifted writers and artists who have supported PEN Americas vital work to protect free expression.

The outdoor installation, titled SPEECH ITSELF, will include quotes from more than 60 authors in a visual tribute to the cherished freedoms to write, read, and speak. Among those whose words will be projected are Ayad Akhtar, Salman Rushdie, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Margaret Atwood, Ron Chernow, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Joy Harjo, Jhumpa Lahiri, Yoon Ha Lee, Toni Morrison, Alejandro Zambra, and Nadya Tolokonnikova of the performance art group Pussy Riot.

The collaboration between the 100-year-old organization of writers defending free expression for all and the impresario of language who makes words into visual spectaculars, as the New York Times called Holzer, comes amid rising threats worldwide to the rights of writers, journalists, scholars, artists and people from all walks of life to read, speak, teach, and learn freely.

For a century, PEN America has defended imperiled writers such as Salman Rushdie, a former PEN America president, who was savagely attacked in August after living for more than three decades under a fatwa issued by theocrats in Iran calling for his murder.

According to PEN Americas annual Freedom to Write Index, rising authoritarianism worldwide is targeting a growing number of writers and intellectuals for persecution and imprisonment (277 imprisoned in 2021 according to the 2021 PEN America Freedom to Write Index). At home, PEN America is tracking proliferating threats including book bans, educational gag orders, disinformation, and self-censorship. The litany of attacks is chilling: more than 1,500 book titles banned in U.S. schools; educational gag orders censoring topics from race to LGBTQ issues in classrooms; the undermining of protest rights; online harassment of journalists to silence them; the stifling of out-of-step voices on campuses, and the disappearance of local news outlets. All of this makes PEN Americas mission of the last 100 years to defend and celebrate free expression more urgent than ever.

Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, said: Because her work reifies and celebrates words, there could not be an artist more fitting to celebrate PEN Americas centenary than the legendary Jenny Holzer. Her vision of elevating the ideas and stories unique to PEN America and making them accessible to a wider public has been transformational for our organization. To watch her keen eye pore through the annals of free speech and our history as an organization to choose messages, statements and questions that demand attention has been riveting. We are thrilled that the people of New York City will be able to join in this visually arresting, intellectually challenging homage to words, ideas, writers and voices that embody the ongoing, urgent battle in defense of free speech.

Holzer stated: PEN Americas extraordinary commitment to the written and spoken word, and to standing for open expression worldwide, inspires. PENs work to protect some rawness to borrow from Colm Tibn supports the purpose of language in public spaces. I am delighted and honored to collaborate with PEN on an installation that lights its significant century-long dedication to the freedoms to think, to write, and to speak.

Holzer has presented her astringent ideas, arguments, and sorrows in public places and international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Her medium, whether a T-shirt, plaque, or LED sign, is writing, and the public dimension is integral to the work. Starting in the 1970s with her New York City street posters and continuing through light projections on landscape and architecture, her practice has rivaled ignorance and violence with humor and kindness.

Jenny Holzers monumental tribute to freedom of expression demonstrates the immense power of public art and is a poignant reminder of PEN Americas vital impact over the past century, said EB Kelly, Head of Rockefeller Center and Managing Director at Tishman Speyer. The stirring messages that will be illuminated across Rockefeller Centers historic buildings each evening will invite visitors to pause and reflect on the urgent need to protect free expression.

PEN Americas yearlong centenary celebration includes PEN America at 100, an exhibit at the New-York Historical Society through Oct. 9, highlighting the concerns that have engaged PEN Americas writers in activism and community through the decades. PEN America at 100 traces the organizations evolution from a dining club formed by well-known New York writers in 1922 into a force for literary and human rights that unites writers and readers across the U.S. and world in defense of the fundamental freedoms to write, read, and speak. Spotlighting consequential debates and dramatic moments in history that continue to reverberate today, PEN America at 100 shines a light on free speech, inclusion and diversity, censorship, government intrusions in the free flow of information, digital and press freedom, and the exclusion, silencing, and persecution of writers and journalists.

The centenary began with the 2022 PEN America Literary Gala last May 23 in New York, which was highlighted by the unveiling of a fireproof edition of Margaret Atwoods best seller The Handmaids Tale (sold by Sothebys for $130,000 to benefit PENs work) and continues through the 2023 gala next May. Also included in the commemoration is a daylong public symposium called Words on Fire in New York City, with a scheduled lineup of literary stars including Atwood, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Dave Eggers, among others; as well as Flashpoints, a series of talks on free speech and civil rights in cities nationwide that continues through 2023.

Quotes to be displayed on the facades of Rockefeller Center buildings as part of SPEECH ITSELF include:

We have no richer capacity than the ability to formulate and express ideas.

Andrew Solomon

Life in which you are denied expression is a life in which you cant be fully who you are.

Kwame Anthony Appiah

In a world where independent voices are increasingly stifled, PEN is not a luxury, its a necessity.

Margaret Atwood

Free speech has long been a potent weapon for disenfranchised groups, used to expose repression and prevent the powerful from silencing dissent.

Suzanne Nossel

The biggest threat is apathy. Without the will to do something, however small, the tyrants win.

Yoon Ha Lee

About PEN America

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect open expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more atpen.org.

Contact: Suzanne Trimel, STrimel@PEN.org, 201-247-5057

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Artist Jenny Holzer to Light Up Rockefeller Center in Tribute to PEN America's 100 Years of Defending Free Expression - PEN America

Back in early July, after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, Governor JB Pritzker and the two Democratic legislative leaders, House Speaker Chris Welch and Senate President Don Harmon, issued a joint statement, which in part said: We plan to work closely together for the remainder of the summer to assess every possibility of what we can do and convene a special session in the coming months.

But the fine print of the rest of that statement has slowed things down: As we build on Illinois' nation-leading abortion protections and access, it is essential to bring lawmakers and advocates into the room to continue to work together. In the coming weeks, as the ripples of the decision to overturn Roe are felt throughout the nation, we expect to get an acute sense of our needs and how Illinois can play an even more vital role in standing up for reproductive freedom.

Lawmakers and advocates have been brought together for talks ever since that special session statement was issued, but, as always, the devil is in the details.

Advocates and several legislators appear to only want to pass bills with immediate effective-dates. And that means each chamber would have to come up with three-fifths super-majorities if anything is passed before the end of this calendar year. The voting threshold for immediate effective-dates drops to simple majorities starting January 1. Until then, per the state constitution, the earliest a bill passed with a simple majority can become law is next June 1.

And it almost seems like every few days brings a new legal twist from another anti-abortion state legislature. Just the other day, for instance, a federal judge temporarily blocked part of Idahos near-total abortion ban because it appears to violate a federal law mandating the provision of emergency health-care. The suit was brought by the U.S. Attorney General. Indianas sweeping new anti-abortion law takes effect in September. Iowas Supreme Court flip-flopped in June and ruled that the states constitution does not protect abortion rights after all. And new bans took effect last week in Tennessee, Texas, and North Dakota, according to NPR.

Also, new ideas are popping up with frequency as laws from other states are being analyzed. An idea from Democratic Secretary of State candidate Alexi Giannoulias campaign to block anti-abortion states from using Illinois traffic-camera images to track their residents who travel here for abortions is just one of them.

Giannouliasproposal would prohibit data gathered by automatic license-plate readers from being used to assist other states track their residents while theyre in Illinois for possible violations of abortion laws in their home states. Illinois must enact protections to ensure that data is not used to target women seeking access to abortion services, or employing it as any type of surveillance system to track them, Giannoulias told WBBM Radio.

His Republican opponent, Representative Dan Brady, has responded by saying hell stick to improving services and cutting wait-times and not involve himself in policy. Giannoulias replied that he could walk and chew gum at the same time.

It was a clever move to tie the mostly-ministerial Secretary of State office to actual public policy thats in the headlines every day and driving the nations political dialogue. And thats clearly a sign of a strong campaign.

Along those lines, one of the measures that the legislative leaders and the governor hoped to pass in a special session was an advisory referendum on this Novembers ballot asking if voters wanted a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights.

These sorts of referenda were a favored tool of former House Speaker Michael Madigan, who would use issues like a tax surcharge on millionaires to drive up Democratic election-day turn-out and, to a lesser extent, provide a boost to future legislative initiatives on the topic, or provide an excuse for not doing anything further.

A referendum has been rejected by many advocates and pro-choice legislators alike, who want to see actual results, not symbolism for obvious political gain.

The bottom line here is that a special session on abortion rights is not looking all that likely any longer.

And the same thing goes for gun-law reforms. There are a lot of moving parts to this issue, and some legislators, particularly Downstaters, would rather not poke the gun lobby before election day.

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.

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Will Giannoulias Inherit White's Seat by Tying Abortion Rights to Free Speech? - River Cities Reader

Donald Trumps legal team is struggling to come up with an adequate legal argument for why the ex-president brought government secrets down to Mar-a-Lago with him when he left office. The strategy so far has been to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks, but nothing is sticking. At first, Trumps team argued that he had every right to declassify sensitive information, but then it became obvious that the crimes hes being investigated for dont depend on the material being classified. Another argument they shifted to was that Trump liked to bring his work home with him, which also fell flat because he cant take work home from a job he no longer has. Next, some moved to saying he wanted the documents to help him write his memoirs which is a total joke since Trump doesnt read or write. Its no wonder the former president was having trouble finding a talented legal team to help him because he doesnt appear to have any valid argument that will get him out of this mess.

The David Pakman Show is a news and political talk program, known for its controversial interviews with political and religious extremists, liberal and conservative politicians, and other guests.

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Trump's Legal Team SCRAMBLING to Find an Argument - Free Speech TV

LOS ANGELES Citing First Amendment grounds, a judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Colorado teen who alleged she was sexually assaulted at Turn-About Ranch after Dr. Phil McGraw and his staff recommended and arranged for her treatment at the facility for troubled youth.

Plaintiff Hannah Archuleta, who was 19 years old when she filed suit last Oct. 19 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, said she was taken to the ranch in Escalante, Utah, when she was 17 after appearing on an episode of Dr. Phil with her parents in October 2019.

On June 28, Judge Stephanie Bowick heard defense arguments urging dismissal of Archuletas case based on the states anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law, which is a legal bar to preventing people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their free-speech rights.

The judge did not immediately rule, saying she wanted to ponder the issues further. She issued a final decision on Aug. 19.

Defendants carried their initial burden of that this action is barred because the causes of action arise from the content and pre-production activities of a television show broadcast which were acts in furtherance of the exercise of free speech on matters of public interest: television and mental health, the judges order stated.

The complaint alleged McGraw, now 71, and his show staff made glowing statements about the ranch and pressured Archuletas father to send her there immediately while negligently failing to mention the various complaints and charges of physical and emotional harm that befell minors sent to the facility.

Dr. Phil and the show staff members did not tell me anything about any risk that Turn-About staff would physically harm me there, Archuleta said in a sworn statement filed in opposition to the dismissal motion. I was not aware of any facts or allegations of such risks or misconduct before I was sent to Turn-About.

Archuleta further said she was taken directly to Turn-About from the Dr. Phil show by a male and a female escort who said they had to wake up at 5 a.m. that day to come and get her.

But according to the defense attorneys court papers, all the alleged representations by the defendants took place in the context of creating and broadcasting the widely viewed Dr. Phil television show and involved issues of mental health, a matter of public interest.

Archuletas parents contacted the show because of their teenage daughters out-of-control behavior, which included stealing, smoking marijuana, not going to school and terrorizing her father and mother, according to the defense lawyers court papers.

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McGraw, CBS win dismissal of woman's lawsuit on grounds of freedom of speech - 2UrbanGirls