Category Archives: Free Speech

In today's fast-paced news environment, it can be hard to keep up. For your weekend reading, we've startedin-case-you-missed-it compilations of some of the week's topUSA TODAY Opinionpieces.As always, thanks for reading, andfor your feedback.

USA TODAY Opinion editors

By Joe Trippi

"As citizens, we must join each other in a pro-democracy coalition that confronts the authoritarian movement in our midst at every turn. President Biden and those trying to govern must find compromise and common ground wherever they can to get things done, and we all must give them the room to do so. But there is no compromising with those who continue to fuel the authoritarian movement with lies."

By Dr. Scott E. Hadland

"Many of us list of prohibited substances including me, an addiction doctor found ourselves scratching our heads at the World Anti-Doping Agencys seemingly antiquated rules on cannabis. The Agency classifies substances as prohibited if they meet two of three criteria that the substance is performance-enhancing, is a health risk to the athlete, or violates the spirit of sport.' I assert that cannabis does not meet this definition."

By Christopher F. Rufo

"Next, this framework teaches students to think that they bear responsibility for and are the beneficiaries of historical crimes committed by individuals who shared the same skin color; consequently, they must atone for their white privilege." Critical race theorists in practice sometimes refer to this as "internalized racial superiority" within white people."

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By Michael J. Stern

"Because an indictment triggers discovery obligations on the DAs part, Weisselberg will now have access to virtually all the evidence against him.I cannot count the number of times a defendant initially told me to shove my cooperation offer, yet ended up cooperating after seeing everything I was going to show to the jury that would decide his fate."

By Gretchen Carlson

"More than 60 million Americans are under the thumb of forced arbitration in their employment agreements, and over a third of American workers are bound by NDAs. They cannot tell their own truths; they cannot tell their own stories. Its time to remove the muzzles, not just to make people safer but to also create more productive, positive businesses. No one can be expected to do their best work in the presence of predators and their protectors."

By Paul Brandus

"Trump was astonishingly easy to grade. I gave him a 10 as in horrible in Moral Authority, Administrative Skills and International Relations. Others obviously had similar views. He finished rock bottom, the worst of the worst in the first two categories and 43rd (second-to-last) in International Relations.

By Suzette Hackney

"Leneal Lamont Frazier, 40, died Tuesday after his vehicle was struck by a squad car as police chased a robbery suspect, according to Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder. Police spotted a driver in a vehicle believed to have been stolen during a carjacking and linked to multiple robberies. The driver fled as officers attempted to make a traffic stop. As an officer pursued the suspect, he collided with Frazier's vehicle."

By The Editorial Board

"The Supreme Court could toss out qualified immunity but has repeatedly passed up that chance. In the past year, the court has taken a few baby steps to modify the doctrine, but it could take years for that to make a substantial difference. Fixing this travesty is a job for Congress, after lawmakers promised police reform in response to nationwide calls for change. The House passed a measure that among other changes would eliminate qualified immunity for law enforcement officers, but most Senate Republicans have sharply objected."

By Abigail Anthony

"A fundamental flaw in supporting speech limitations is the assumption that the arbiters who would impose restrictions share your precise evaluation of what should be limited. I challenge those willing to relinquish free speech to ask themselves whether they are comfortable with their political opponents legislating the regulations."

By Ben Crump

"Too often, Black life is treated as disposable, and those who threaten or end it face little or no consequence. How do we correct that? Changing hearts and minds is a lengthy, stubborn and often fruitless process. But the American justice system offers remedies criminal justice, which applies a punishment for taking a life, and civil justice, which attaches a monetary value for lost life. Of course, putting Chauvin behind bars for two decades doesnt equate to full justice. It doesnt give Floyd his life back. And no amount of money can make up for the loss of a human being. But both remedies are critical forms of accountability, and both can drive change."

By Connie Schultz

"Now that Joe Biden is president, a majority of U.S. Catholic bishops want to force a debate on whether he and other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be allowed to receive communion. The Vatican has warned against punishing support for a right, and Pope Francis recently preached that communion is not the reward of saints, but the bread of sinners.

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Lincoln Project, campus speech, critical race theory, Trump Org. charges and other top columns - USA TODAY

Hate speech regulation is hard to get right. As media law specialist Steven Price has pointed out, the challenge for a democratic society lies in targeting the harm hate speech is claimed to do while not capturing other legitimate forms of speech too broadly.

Its true, the scope, enforcement and effectiveness of hate speech law must be calibrated carefully. But these are practical and mechanical questions about how hate speech laws might operate, not assertions that the harm in hate speech is something the law cannot regulate.

While I accept these practical difficulties exist, in my view the harm done by hate speech is clearly something the law should be concerned with. But we also cant ignore persistent scepticism about the appropriateness of using the law to regulate this kind of speech.

When the Race Relations Commissioner floated the possibility of hate speech reforms in 2017, ACT Party leader David Seymour argued there were already adequate laws controlling defamation or inciting violence:

Those things are already illegal. Anything further is actually censorship and we should be just as worried about the state starting to decide what is acceptable to say as we should be about people saying nasty things.

The insistence on a link to inciting violence being a prerequisite for curbing free speech has been repeated several times since the government announced its intention to reform hate speech law after the Christchurch mosque attacks.

Opposition Leader Judith Collins has promised the National Party will reverse any attempts Jacinda Arderns government makes to criminalise speech beyond the threshold of inciting violence.

Read more: NZ's hate speech proposals need more detail and wider debate before they become law

Similarly, when a division of Auckland Council cancelled a venue booking for controversial Canadian speakers Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux in 2019, a spokesperson for the Free Speech Coalition said the organisation accepted genuine hate speech that incited violence or illegal activity should be blocked.

But curbing free debate under threat of disruption is neither desirable nor acceptable in a free and democratic society.

Not everyone who is sceptical about hate speech law reform takes this line. But it demands attention when the leaders of both major opposition parties and a significant lobby group insist a link to violence is required before hate speech regulation can be justified.

The problem with the argument, however, is that this isnt how we treat many other existing forms of speech regulation in New Zealand law.

Defamation, for example, addresses the harm to a persons reputation and the related effects this has on ones ability to interact with friends, family, colleagues and the wider world.

The harm to those social bonds caused by defamation is seen as sufficient justification in itself to allow for civil damages to be recovered. No link to violence at all is required.

Read more: The Christchurch commissions call to improve social cohesion is its hardest and most important recommendation

Similar protections exist under laws governing invasion of privacy. These allow people to be sued if they share private facts about another person in a highly offensive way.

The harm here is to the dignity and autonomy of the affected person. Again, no link to violence is required, even remotely.

One might argue these are civil wrongs and the proposed hate speech laws include criminal liability. But civil hate speech regulation is also proposed. Conversely, we already criminalise many kinds of speech with no link to physical violence.

Obtaining by deception and blackmail are two obvious examples. These focus on speech which, without threats of violence, causes a loss to the victim and/or a benefit to the offender.

No link to violence is required in fact, no financial loss is required. The core of the harm covered by these offences is to the autonomy of the victim, which has been compromised by blackmail or fraudulent statements.

More generally, a diffuse public interest is upheld by offences such as perjury, which deals with systemic harm to the administration of justice, and public order offences, which uphold our collective right to enjoy public spaces.

None of these requires a link to violence. Moreover, the interests being protected dignity, autonomy, collective public good are exactly the sorts of things influential legal theorists argue are protected by regulating hate speech.

Read more: Facebook's failure to pay attention to non-English languages is allowing hate speech to flourish

In my view, then, the argument that a link to violence is a precondition of hate speech regulation is wrong.

This is not to say there are no good arguments against the governments proposed reforms. This is hard to get right, and there are things that can and should be changed.

As Steven Price has also pointed out, the proposal is oddly equivocal about whether speech intended to cause hatred also has to cause (or be likely to cause) hatred in society.

As well, serious thought needs to be given to whether the the potential inclusion of every group protected from discrimination under section 21 of the Human Rights Act is overly broad in the context of hate speech regulation.

We should focus on those very real concerns public submissions on the proposed legislation close August 6 rather than insist on a threshold for speech regulation that our legal tradition simply does not require.

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Why inciting violence should not be the only threshold for defining hate speech in New Zealand - The Conversation AU

None of those topics were on the agenda, except for a resolution that would update the mask policy. But the concerns brought forth reflected national conversations about racial awareness and free speech in the educational system.

Before the main business of the meeting, Brenda Hiniker expressed concerns about critical race theory. She said it's another form of discrimination.

"Critical race theory is very misleading," she said. "It talks about equity instead of equality. Equality is defined and supported by the Declaration of Independence, defended in the Civil War, supported in the 14th and 15th amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ... CRT creates reverse discrimination against the white population."

Hiniker also criticized the board for its April 27 decision regarding "government speech." At that time, the board passed a resolution designating several statements, such as "Black Lives Matter" and "Stop Asian Hate," as government-protected speech.

The resolution read, in part: "We believe in the importance of sharing a general message of acceptance and inclusion of historically underserved/marginalized individuals, which is consistent with the Districts legal obligation to provide a workplace and educational environment that is free from discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, and other legally protected classes."

Wes Lund came to the podium with a number of Dr. Seuss books, in an apparent reference to the decision by the business that preserves the author's legacy to stop publishing six titles because of racist and insensitive imagery.

Lund spoke past the allotted time about what he described as a hostile environment for anyone who doesn't subscribe to a particular set of beliefs.

"I look across our community, across this room, and I see a tremendous polarization," he said. "Students and teachers, parents and community members are afraid to voice their true opinions in our schools for fear of docked grades, threats to job security, and retaliation against their students and businesses. A singular social political narrative is being pushed, and anyone who dares to question it or speak against it is being attacked and demonized."

He also mocked the hiring of the district's interim superintendent, Kent Pekel.

"Does everyone in the room realize that we have some 'deep state' characters right here in the room?" Lund asked the crowd, referring to Pekel's work with the Central Intelligence Agency earlier in his career. "I don't think everyone's aware of that, because when you hired this guy, you did it over Zoom meeting. You should have had the public vet this character to find out who exactly he is."

Board Chairwoman Jean Marvin banged her gavel in protest against Julie Kisgen-Reed, who came forward after the public comment period was closed. Kisgen-Reed spoke passionately against mask usage, though much of her initial comments were hard to hear as the commotion in the room rose.

The crowd didn't stop there.

When Marvin introduced the meeting, someone in the crowd suggested the board start with the Pledge of Allegiance. The crowd of at least 50 then recited the pledge themselves, followed by a round of applause.

As the crowd began to leave the room at the end of the meeting, someone suggested they say the Lord's Prayer. Many of them did, some with their arms raised in the air.

Neither Pekel nor the board responded to audience members during the meeting, but they provided comments afterward.

Pekel and Marvin said many of the implications expressed were incorrect. For example, both clarified that Rochester Public Schools does not teach critical race theory.

"This kind of misinformation is really disheartening," Marvin said.

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Crowd protests 'government speech,' critical race theory at Rochester School Board meeting - Duluth News Tribune

Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of democracy, which cannot flourish unless citizens can articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship or sanction. So it should concern anyone who claims to be a democrat that there is growing evidence that women who have expressed a set of feminist beliefs that have come to be known as gender-critical have, in some cases, faced significant professional penalties as a result.

Gender-critical beliefs refer to the view that someones sex whether they are male or female is biological and immutable and cannot be conflated with someones gender identity, whether they identify as a man or a woman. The belief that the patriarchal oppression of women is grounded partly in their biological sex, not just the social expression of gender, and that women therefore have the right to certain single-sex spaces and to organise on the basis of biological sex if they so wish, represents a long-standing strand of feminist thinking. Other feminists disagree, believing that gender identity supersedes biological sex altogether.

Both are legitimate perspectives that deserve to be heard in a democratic society. Both can be expressed without resulting in the abuse, harassment and discrimination of trans people or women. Being able to talk about these alternative perspectives goes to the heart of resolving important questions about how we structure society. They include: whether it is right that the law permits the provision of single-sex spaces and services; whether official government data, such as the census, should record a persons biological sex as well as gender identity; whether women have the right to request that intimate medical examinations or searches are undertaken by someone who is female; what are the appropriate safeguards in the medical treatment of children with gender dysphoria; and whether it is legitimate to exclude those who have been through male puberty from competing in womens sport.

As a society, we need to resolve the question of how to protect the privacy, dignity and rights of trans women while also respecting the privacy, dignity and rights of those born female.

Yet there have been clear and significant attempts to interfere with womens freedom to express gender-critical beliefs. Maya Forstater lost paid work as a result of colleagues complaining about the gender-critical beliefs that she had expressed on social media. The academics Rosa Freedman and Jo Phoenix were disinvited from speaking at Essex University events because of their gender-critical beliefs and were subjected to violent threats from students, with serious wider professional consequences.

Two weeks ago, the Royal Academy announced in a social media post to half-a-million followers that it would no longer be stocking the artist Jess de Wahlss work because of her transphobic views, based on a gender-critical blogpost she wrote in 2019.

These are just a few examples but there have been many more of women being harassed, punished, censured and even physically assaulted for their gender-critical views. Meanwhile, the chief executive of Stonewall has likened gender-critical beliefs to antisemitism. The chilling result is the frightening of women into silence because they fear the consequences of expressing their feminist beliefs.

In recent weeks, there has been an overdue correction in the public realm, reinforcing the fact that both sets of beliefs gender-critical and sex-critical are legitimate perspectives that do not permit people to harass or abuse others or engage in hate speech and cannot be silenced. In the case of Forstater, an employment tribunal has found that her gender-critical beliefs are widely shared, do not seek to destroy the rights of trans persons and have the status of a protected belief under equalities law. The barrister Akua Reindorf undertook an independent review for Essex University and found its treatment of Phoenix and Freedman was unlawful and that the universitys policies misstated equalities law to the detriment of women. And the Royal Academy has issued an apology to de Wahls, conceding that it had betrayed its most important core value: the protection of free speech.

For centuries, patriarchal societies have tried to limit the free expression of women. For centuries, women have fought back against attempts to curb their fundamental human rights. It should not need stating that gender-critical feminists have the same free-speech rights as all other citizens. In a democracy, there is no debate to be had about womens freedom of speech.

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The Observer view on the right to free expression - The Guardian

Only the nerdiest of nerds are familiar with the Supreme Courts customs and traditions, and if theres anyone who may be inclined to treat these things as if they were holy sacraments, it is Justice Stephen Breyer. Among those rituals is the issuance of decisions by seniority, and as a result, Breyer, in back-to-back rulings on Wednesday, had starring turns as the senior-most member of the Supreme Courts liberal bloc, to make a statement about what the law is, or should be, for people it tends to treat with a measure of suspicion: students and workers without labor protections.

Broadly speaking, Breyer, in one case, stood up for the First Amendment right of students to express unpopular views when theyre not at school. In the other, he stood up for a California regulation that, for more than 40 years, has granted farmworkers one means to organize in the absence of federal protections that leaves them vulnerable to abuse.

Neither case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L. or Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, will likely be remembered as landmarks that will stand the test of time. When I virtually attended the oral argument for both cases, in March and April, that much was clearboth cases felt important, if only because each rested on history, and historic struggles, that this Supreme Court could decide to upend. Neither received the breathlessness of, say, the justices third bite at the Affordable Care Act. Or the future of gay rights in the face of an ascendant conservative, religious majority. In each of those cases, decided last week, the Supreme Court got away with limited rulings that had the virtue of deciding as little as possible, with as much consensus as possible, to feed the perception, at least outwardly, that everything is fine with the nine. Washington may be broken, but they arent. And Breyer, who has received a barrage of calls to retire to ensure President Joe Biden can make a Supreme Court appointment, may have wanted to keep things that way.

Yet if you read a little more closely, both Mahanoy and Cedar Point Nursery do break new ground in constitutional law that will remain with usone for the better, because students, after Wednesday, will have a little more freedom to be themselves on social mediaat least when theyre beyond the schoolhouse gate; the other for the worse, because if theres one group of people who deserve the laws auspices, it is the largely migrant workforce, essential since the pandemic began, that puts food on our tables.

Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority in both cases, and he may have decided to assign Mahanoy to Breyer because Breyer is the kind of judge who enjoys the work of judgingbalancing tests, cost-benefit analyses, things other than bright-line rules and strict constructionism. Law is hard, and Mahanoy, which asked the Supreme Court to determine whether the First Amendment protects the speech of a cheerleader who expressed a few choice words about cheer on Snapchat, seemed well-suited for a pragmatist, Breyer-like solution. Best of all, he didnt self-censor, as his colleagues or lawyers are sometimes wont to do when F-bombs are implicated: The first image B. L. posted showed B. L. and a friend with middle fingers raised; it bore the caption: Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything, he wrote, referring to Brandi Levy, the student, by her initials.

That language got her suspended from the junior-varsity cheerleading squad. And near unanimously, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that punishing this sort of speech violated her right to self-expression off school premises. But Breyer, writing for the court, pretty much stopped there. Given the many different kinds of off-campus speech, the different potential school-related and circumstance-specific justifications, and the differing extent to which those justifications may call for First Amendment leeway, Breyer wrote, schools simply have a diminished interest, under the First Amendment, in controlling how students behave or express themselves on, say, TikTok or Instagram.

The Supreme Court left it for future cases to decide where, when, and how different circumstances may call for a different outcome. These include serious or severe bullying or harassment targeting particular individuals; threats aimed at teachers or other students; the failure to follow rules concerning lessons, the writing of papers, the use of computers, or participation in other online school activities; and breaches of school security devices, including material maintained within school computers, Breyer added. The lone dissenter was Justice Clarence Thomas, who did self-censor and criticized Breyers vague considerationshe wouldve simply allowed the school to punish the student for her off-campus profanity, consistent with the 150 years of history supporting the coach. (One scholar of these kinds of cases has already branded the ruling painfully narrow.)

If Mahanoy, on the surface, seems like an exercise in unity and splitting hairs, Cedar Point Nursery, the other big case the Supreme Court decided on Wednesday, is breathtaking in its reach, bringing us back to the usual, conservative-liberal divisions of the new, 63 Roberts court. Implicitly, the case is about another freedom the First Amendment protects: the right of workers to organize for better wages and working conditions under a states labor laws. Except the Supreme Court looks a lot different since Donald Trump, who was no friend to labor, transformed it, and the case arrived at its doorstep, instead, as a case about property rights: Does a California law that allows labor organizers to briefly enter farmland, during nonwork hours, a few months a year, to engage in union-organizing activities violate the Constitutions prohibition against the government taking property without just compensation?

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Better the Devil We Know: Supreme Court Rulings on Free Speech and Labor Put Justice Stephen Breyer in the Spotlight - Vanity Fair

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The Texas House gave preliminary approval on Monday to the so-called Star Spangled Banner Protection Act, a conservative-backed bill that would require any professional sports teams with contracts with the Texas state government to play the national anthem before the start of a game.

Senate Bill 4 was passed on a voice vote, with no changes by the House. It is expected to receive a record vote and final passage on Tuesday and head to Gov. Greg Abbotts desk.

House Republicans defeated several proposed amendments along partisan lines, signalling more division on the issue in the lower chamber than was seen in the Senate, which passed the bill last month with overwhelming bipartisan support and only two votes against it.

Athletes protesting the national anthem has become a divisive and partisan issue since NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling in 2016 to protest police brutality against Black Americans.

In February, Patrick named the bill one of his legislative priorities after Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, stopped playing the anthem prior to home games, which went largely unnoticed during the pandemic with no fans in the stands.

That decision quickly drew the ire of conservative lawmakers in the state.

Sell the franchise & some Texas Patriots will buy it, Patrick said in a tweet at the time. We ARE the land of free & the home of the brave.

In a public response to the outcry condemning his decision, Cuban expressed support for the anthem, but he said team executives also loudly hear the voices of those who feel that the anthem does not represent them. The NBA later said all teams would play the anthem before games.

During Mondays debate on the House floor, opponents questioned the constitutionality of a law that they said ties funding to free speech by threatening negative action against sports teams that choose to express their opinions by declining to play the anthem.

Once again, were carrying legislation that is openly and aggressively unconstitutional, said state Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat who unsuccessfully tried to turn the bill into a resolution, allowing the House to take a stand in favor of the anthem without the force of law.

The bills House sponsor, state Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, said the bill does not violate free speech because teams can still choose not to play the anthem and forgo the funding and business relationship with the state.

Its very simple. If they do not want to play the national anthem, they dont take the tax dollars, Burrows said. If were going to go ahead and subsidize with hard-earned American dollars the sporting facilities and the teams in the different ways that I think is articulated in this bill, then this would apply.

Attempts by Democrats to require teams to play both the Star-Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing, or to choose between them, were shut down along partisan lines.

Lift Every Voice and Sing is commonly known as the Black National Anthem, said Rep. Jasmine Felicia Crockett, D-Dallas, who authored one of the amendments.

I dont even understand why we would feel the need to force someone into singing any song, Crockett said. But if we are going to force people to sing a song, we should at least be mindful of the people playing on these teams, the people that are actually in the stands supporting these teams.

Burrows opposed the amendments with the deepest amount of respect to my friend and colleague because he wanted to avoid any changes to the bill, which would slow its progress to the governors desk during the final week of the legislative session.

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Texas House votes to yank state funding from sports teams that don't play national anthem at games - The Texas Tribune

Resignations, cancellations, breakings of connections and partnerships.

These are the impacts of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) censure of U of T, following the universitys failed efforts to dissipate the months-long hiring scandal at the Faculty of Laws International Human Rights Program (IHRP).

The controversy began last September over allegations that Dr. Valentina Azarova was denied the position of director of the IHRP after a university donor suggested that she would be an unwelcome choice, due to writings of hers that were critical of Israels policies toward Palestine. U of T has denied these allegations since they first arose.

The scandal bubbled beneath the surface for many months as U of Ts efforts to move on were moderately effective. Though individuals most concerned by it such as law faculty professors and former IHRP directors remained outspoken, the scandal had not fully caught the attention of the community at large.

That is, until the CAUT announced a rare censure of the university, and its members listened. Suddenly, countless events that would have improved the quality of learning and community experience at the university were cancelled. Entire groups, such as Amnesty International and Citizen Lab, have cut ties with U of T over the censure.

Support for the censure appears to grow by the day, as entire departments of the university most recently, the School of the Environment are expressing their support.

So what happens now?

The university has already attempted to put the matter at rest by commissioning an independent and transparent review, which has been criticized for being neither.

The Varsity has published many articles on the controversy as it has unfolded over the past year, and weve reported on the criticisms levied at the university by faculty and by the law community almost every step of the way. At any of these points, the university could have stopped its doomed attempts to sweep it under the rug and instead make substantive changes. For example, when met with criticism that the review process would be ineffective and lack transparency, U of T could have created a review body composed of a group of multiple diverse individuals, rather than tasking one former Supreme Court judge with the investigation.

As a result of the review, U of T has committed to creating guidelines around external attempts to interfere in hiring processes, and to review suggestions that academic freedom protections be implemented for certain managerial positions, such as law clinic directors.

Still, little attention seems to be paid to the many U of T community members, especially faculty, who wholeheartedly support the censure and have been calling for action from the university for weeks. It is clear that this will not end without substantive efforts made by the university.

The most prominent solution circulating and the solution that the CAUT cites as a requirement to end the censure is that U of T should re-offer Azarova the position. This idea has been offered for months, yet U of T has not acted upon it. U of T responded to this suggestion by saying that Azarova is welcome to apply for the position again following a review of the program as a whole.

So far, the university has not taken any productive action following the censure it has not even taken responsibility for the inadvertent effects of its inaction on the campus community. When the CAUT censure was announced, the universitys response was that it disagreed with the decision and that the CAUT had no jurisdiction over the case. Instead of taking the CAUTs censure as a sign that something was wrong, the university merely attempted to pretend that everything was business as usual.

Following the censure, a U of T spokesperson wrote to The Varsity: We remain committed to academic freedom for academics, including academic administrators, and to search processes that are confidential and insulated from external pressures whatever their source.

Despite its statements, we are echoing the calls for U of T to stop the scandal here by finally taking responsibility and accountability for any wrongdoing, and expressing an interest in true transparency so that the university may begin to repair its reputation.

Supporters of the censure have also been trying to shift the narrative to refocus around Palestinian rights, rather than just academic freedom, as the escalation of the censure has also coincided with escalating violence between Israel and Palestine.

The central question of the scandal is really whether U of T will unequivocally support individuals right to speak freely on Israel and Palestine. Ensuring this right to free speech is also a moral imperative right now, as Palestinians have been disproportionately killed by Israel over the past two weeks.

Violence erupted between the two sides after an Israeli court decided to forcibly remove Palestinian families from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah a decision that the United Nations called a potential war crime in addition to Israeli raids on al-Aqsa mosque that injured many Palestinians.

While there have been casualties on both sides, the effect on Palestinians has been far greater. In addition, there is an extreme imbalance of power between Israel and Palestine that makes it impossible to accept that both sides are suffering equally. Israel has an incredibly well-funded military, and the Palestinian people lack the same rights as Israeli individuals.

These developments also did not appear out of nowhere. Israel has been occupying Palestine and displacing Palestinians for decades, which has been widely criticized by the international community.

During the most recent fighting, Israel also targeted the offices of the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera in Palestine, claiming it was an attack on Hamas, rather than the media. As journalists, these developments are extremely concerning.

The Varsity stands in solidarity with Palestine and Palestinian community members at U of T. Over the next few weeks and throughout this volume of The Varsity we hope to increase our reporting on what the violence in Palestine means for our community members, as well as to make room for community members to write their own stories and experiences.

This is in line with an open letter that The Varsity has signed, along with hundreds of other prominent journalists and news organizations in Canada, demanding better and more nuanced coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict from Canadian newsrooms.

In addition, The Varsity has donated $200 to Save the Children, a non-governmental organization working in Palestine, as 58 children in Gaza and two in Israel have been killed. We do so out of a sincere belief that anyone regardless of their politics, background or religion can sympathize with the tragedy of violence that takes the lives of innocents.

Yet, despite the stance expressed here, The Varsity remains committed to a Comment section that is open to all well-meaning U of T community members. Students may write for the section from any position that is fair, well-reasoned, and based on evidence.

In light of recent events, at minimum, the university needs to affirm its commitment to protecting speech about Palestine, as that is the fundamental question of the IHRP hiring scandal: will U of T protect speech that is critical of Israel, even when pushed back upon?

The Varsity calls on U of T to finally listen to what its community has been saying, to take action and accountability, and to affirm a commitment to free speech for all community members but particularly for the Palestinian people who have felt silenced for so long.

The Varsitys editorial board is elected by the masthead at the beginning of each semester. For more information about the editorial policy, email [emailprotected]

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Editorial: In light of censure, U of T must take action to support free speech particularly speech about Palestine - Varsity

Just over a century ago, the United States government in the midst of World War I undertook unprecedented efforts to control and restrict what it saw as unpatriotic speech through passage of the Sedition Act of 1918, signed by President Woodrow Wilson on May 16 of that year.

The restrictions and the courts reactions to them mark an important landmark in testing the limits of the First Amendment, and the beginnings of the current understanding of free speech in the U.S.

As a scholar and lawyer focused on freedom of speech in the U.S., I have studied the federal governments attempts to restrict speech, including during World War I, and the legal cases that challenged them. These cases helped form the modern idea of the First Amendment right of free speech. But the conflict between patriotism and free expression continues to be an issue a century later.

The onset of war led to a patriotic fervor, fed by an intense government propaganda campaign. It also led to new challenges to the concept of free speech.

Within a few weeks of declaring war in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act.

This law, which is still largely in effect, makes it a crime to do three things. First, to convey false information in order to interfere with the American military, or promote the success of Americas enemies. Second, to cause or attempt to cause insubordination within the military. Third, to willfully obstruct military recruitment or enlistment.

Both the Obama and Trump administrations used this law to investigate unauthorized leaks of government information, including obtaining reporters phone records.

The more restrictive Sedition Act of 1918 went further, amending the Espionage Act to criminalize disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive speech about the United States or its symbols; speech to impede war production; and statements supporting a country with which the U.S. is at war.

These laws were unprecedented restrictions on speech, and challenged the First Amendments founding concept of tolerating criticism of government. But the courts, including the United States Supreme Court, generally upheld them as necessary wartime restrictions.

When a nation is at war, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Schenk v. United States (1919), many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.

More than 2,000 people were prosecuted under the Espionage and Sedition acts during the war. About half were convicted, many of whom were given jail time.

These included several people who distributed leaflets arguing that the draft constituted slavery (as in the Schenk case) and those who urged labor strikes against munitions plants (as in the U.S. Supreme Court case Abrams v. United States (1919). Those convicted included leaders of the Socialist and Communist parties, including anarchist writer Emma Goldman and Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, whose 1920 campaign was mounted from prison.

A few judges notably U.S. Supreme Court justices Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed concerns that the prosecution of war dissenters was contrary to the First Amendment protection of free speech. As Holmes explained in his famous dissent in the Abrams case, Congress certainly cannot forbid all effort to change the mind of the country.

The war ended in November 1918, but the Sedition Act continued to be used against so-called radicals, including a Justice Department campaign known as the Palmer Raids in response to several terrorist bombings. The effort was named for Wilsons attorney general, A. Mitchell Palmer, whose home was among the locations bombed.

The Sedition Act was finally repealed on Wilsons last day in office in 1921, although the Espionage Act remains.

All those who were jailed under the laws saw their sentences commuted by 1923. In 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone concluded that law enforcement should be concerned with only the conduct of individuals, not their political or other opinions. In 1931, President Franklin Roosevelt offered amnesty to all those convicted under the Espionage or Sedition acts during the war.

But speech restrictions returned. In the run-up to American entry into World War II, Congress adopted the Smith Act in 1940, which barred speech and organizations intended to overthrow any government in the United States. It was used during the war and the Red Scare of the 1950s to suppress dissemination of Communist ideas and thought.

Eventually, however, in 1969 the Supreme Court settled on the current legal standard, under which speech can be restricted only if it presents a threat of "imminent lawless action, based on the circumstances in which it is made.

This standard allows for controversial, even incendiary, speech, unless there is an immediate threat that the speech will foreseeably lead to illegal behavior by the audience.

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Despite calls for repression of dissent after the Sept. 11 attacks, no direct restrictions on speech were enacted. In 2020 Attorney General William Barr called for prosecutions of violent protesters, but no such charges were filed. There were also calls for President Donald Trump to be prosecuted for the fiery speech that preceded the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6. But the imminent lawless action standard is a high threshold.

This reluctance to prosecute speech may well reflect the lessons learned from the excesses of repression under the Espionage Act a century ago. The First Amendment right of free speech exists as a means of keeping a critical eye on government. Such scrutiny is always important, but is especially critical during times of war.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on April 6, 2017.

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Free speech wasn't so free 103 years ago, when 'seditious' and 'unpatriotic' speech was criminalized in the US - The Conversation US

A controversial bill forcing universities in England to promote free speech has been attacked by freedom of expression campaigners, who say the legislation is more likely to have the opposite effect.

A letter to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, from the leaders of Index on Censorship, English PEN and Article 19 says the governments plans including a free speech enforcer with powers to fine universities may have the inverse effect of further limiting what is deemed acceptable speech on campus and introducing a chilling effect both on the content of what is taught and the scope of academic research exploration.

The three organisations told Williamson they had significant concerns about the scope of the proposals, which would allow speakers to claim compensation if their free speech was curtailed by universities or student unions, and would appoint a free speech champion to the Office for Students (OfS), the higher education regulator in England.

Universities will also have to satisfy new conditions on freedom of speech to maintain their registration with the OfS, which allows their students access to public funding and government-backed loans.

Universities are already bound by government legislation and have a legally binding duty to support and actively encourage freedom of expression on campus, including the right to protest. Blunt statutory tools may fail to recognise the various rights at play in any given situation, for example the rights of the speaker and the rights of students to protest against that speaker, the letter states.

This is a delicate balancing act that universities are best placed to navigate, not state regulators or courts of law. On university campuses, freedom of expression issues are best dealt with by existing legislation and by the universities and student unions themselves.

The group said the extent of no platforming on campus needed to be further investigated, noting that the OfSs own research found it was rare. Of the 62,000 requests by students for external speaker events at English universities in 2017-18, only 53 were rejected by a student union or university, less than 0.1% of the total.

None of the signatory organisations have been meaningfully consulted in the development of the legislation thus far. We would welcome the opportunity for genuine engagement in the issue of academic freedom, the letter said.

Further research is needed on the main threats to speech on campus, while the scope of inquiry into academic freedom should be widened to encompass government interference.

Universities say they already comply with a complex set of legal obligations protecting free speech for staff and students, as well as Prevent anti-extremism regulations requiring them to monitor events and speakers.

The published bill will require student unions to register with the OfS, which will have new powers to fine them for failing to comply with free speech provisions. The bill also allows students, staff, applicants for academic jobs and visiting speakers to complain to the OfS, although they must first use internal complaints procedures.

The bill has also created conflict between the Department for Education and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, which hears complaints from students about their experience and education, over a regulatory overlap.

The OIA said in a statement: We remain concerned that it may be difficult for students to make a fully informed decision about which route is best for their individual circumstances and that the complexity of arrangements is still likely to create confusion for students.

The former universities minister Jo Johnson gave support to the new bill as a means of stopping universities self-censorship towards China, because of fear of retribution against students and staff. That to me is a genuine and real threat to freedom of speech and I think if the bill can perhaps help address that issue, too, it will serve a very useful purpose, he told a conference on UK-China research links.

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Campus free speech law in England likely to have opposite effect - The Guardian

Consequences matter. If there was one clear message from footballs temporary boycott of social media earlier this month, in protest at the torrent of online hate experienced disproportionately by black players, that was it.

The former England striker Ian Wright has said that hed almost given up reporting the vile stuff he receives daily because nothing ever seemed to happen to the perpetrators. It makes you feel very dehumanised. You feel like theres nothing you can do, youre helpless, he said. So two cheers, at least, for the inclusion in this weeks Queens speech of a long-delayed online safety bill aimed at holding big tech more accountable. Who wouldnt agree with the culture secretary Oliver Dowdens desire to rid social media of what he called the bile and the threats?

For all the good social media brings, it has also created unrivalled opportunities for the resentful, the bitter and the frankly sociopathic to reach those they couldnt previously touch. Children have been groomed for sexual exploitation, terrorists radicalised, the gullible sucked into conspiracy theories, teenage girls coached to self-harm, and hate normalised on platforms that have faced too little by way of consequence. Unlike some of the straw men set up by this Queens speech for ministers to knock down noisily, this problem is real. But as with too many of this governments grand plans, its one thing to announce youre going to fix the internet, and another to actually do it.

The case for action is so overwhelming that even Silicon Valleys smarter players are actively lobbying for governments to step in and regulate them, like teenagers whose illicit party has been gatecrashed by some scary-looking characters and who just want an adult to step in and deal with the problem they unwittingly created. Facebooks vice-president for global affairs, Nick Clegg, has long argued that its job would be easier if some of the sensitive decisions we have to make were instead taken by people who are democratically accountable to the people at large not by a private company. Let someone else take the flak for deciding whether Donald Trump should be banned for inciting riots, or in what circumstances posting an exposed nipple is acceptable. Judging by this rather vague and in places contradictory bill, however, it wont be that easy.

The governments proposals require tech companies to curb the use of their platforms for illegal purposes, under threat of sanction from Ofcom. So far, so clear. But it also imposes a duty of care on the biggest companies to prevent activities that arent necessarily illegal, but are potentially harmful capable of causing physical or psychological impact while simultaneously safeguarding the right to free expression, protecting political campaigners right to argue their case online and avoiding taking sides in political arguments.

All of which sounds eminently sensible, until you try applying it all in practice. Dowden ducked the question when asked by ITVs Robert Peston whether calling gay men tank-topped bumboys, as Boris Johnson once did in a newspaper column, should be outlawed online. But thats almost the easy bit.

To say that biological sex is real, and immutable, would be seen in some circles as transphobic hate speech, and in others as a perfectly reasonable statement of fact. Who decides whats harmful to whom when teenagers on TikTok are shocked and upset by very different things to their parents on Mumsnet? What about comments that arent discriminatory but are obnoxious, stupid or exhausting enough to cause cumulative psychological impacts if youre swamped with them? Where does an individuals responsibility to walk away end and the platforms responsibility to stop people feeling they have to leave begin? And how can a site not take sides in political arguments where one party chooses a liar or a bigot for a leader, and the other doesnt?

Answering these questions will shape popular culture profoundly, making the still vacant position of the Ofcom chair contenders for which reportedly include the former Daily Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre very powerful indeed. But they will also require from tech executives the judgment of Solomon, or at the very least, editorial skills more usually demanded of the BBC and newspaper executives who wont, incidentally, be covered by this bill. Online journalism is exempt in the interests of press freedom, but, interestingly, so is below-the-line comment by readers, meaning that what a person can write underneath a tabloid article about Meghan Markle may diverge sharply from what can be said about her on Twitter or indeed in a student union debate, where a separate free speech bill will guarantee the right of controversialists to sue for compensation if theyre no-platformed by universities.

Whats the guiding principle here, the one rule that makes the boundaries of free speech clear to everyone? There isnt one, partly because Dowden is right that in a democracy there are some things politicians shouldnt dictate, and partly because setting hard-and-fast rules on this stuff is like nailing jelly to a moving wall. Yet the success of this bill depends in some ways on pretending that there is; that deep down we know whats right, and that social media companies therefore have the power to fix things, if only theyre threatened with the right stick. Well, maybe. But if not, then the story of regulating big tech may continue to be one of a shrinking circle of people passing the hot potato endlessly, each one desperately hoping the music doesnt stop with them.

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The online safety bill will show just how blurred the boundaries of free speech are - The Guardian