Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

In the wake of Charlottesville, both GoDaddy and Google have refused to manage the domain registration for the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website that, in the words of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is dedicated to spreading anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, and white nationalism. Subsequently Cloudflare, whose service was used to protect the site from denial-of-service attacks, has also dropped them as a customer, with a telling quote from Cloudflares CEO: Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldnt be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.

We agree. Even for free speech advocates, this situation is deeply fraught with emotional, logistical, and legal twists and turns. All fair-minded people must stand against the hateful violence and aggression that seems to be growing across our country. But we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people whose opinions we agree with. Those on the left face calls to characterize the Black Lives Matter movement as a hate group. In the Civil Rights Era cases that formed the basis of todays protections of freedom of speech, the NAACPs voice was the one attacked.

Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no onenot the government and not private commercial enterprisesshould decide who gets to speak and who doesnt.

Earlier this week, following complaints about a vitriolic and abusive Daily Stormer article on Heather Heyerthe woman killed when a white nationalist drove a car into a crowd of anti-racism demonstratorsGoDaddy told the sites owners that they had 24 hours to leave their service. Daily Stormer subsequently moved their domain to Googles domain management service. Within hours Google announced that it too was refusing Daily Stormer as a customer. Google also placed the dailystormer.com domain on Client Hold, which means that Daily Stormers owner cannot activate, use or move the domain to another service. Its unclear whether this is for a limited amount of time, or whether Google has decided to effectively take ownership of the dailystormer.com domain permanently. Cloudflare, whose service was used to protect the site from denial-of-service attacks, subsequently dropped them as a customer.

We at EFF defend the right of anyone to choose what speech they provide online; platforms have a First Amendment right to decide what speech does and does not appear on their platforms. Thats what laws like CDA 230 in the United States enable and protect.

But we strongly believe that what GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudflare did here was dangerous. Thats because, even when the facts are the most vile, we must remain vigilant when platforms exercise these rights. Because Internet intermediaries, especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the world. And at EFF we see the consequences first hand: every time a company throws a vile neo-Nazi site off the Net, thousands of less visible decisions are made by companies with little oversight or transparency. Precedents being set now can shift the justice of those removals. Heres what companies and individuals should watch for in these troubling times.

Domain registrars are one of many types of companies in the chain of online content distributionthe Internet intermediaries positioned between the writer or poster of speech and the reader of that speech. Other intermediaries include the ISP that delivers a websites content to end users, the certificate authority (such as EFFs Lets Encrypt) that issues an SSL certificate to the website, the content delivery network that optimizes the availability and performance of the website, the web hosting company that provides server space for the website, and even communications platformssuch as email providers and social media companiesthat allow the websites URLs to be easily shared. EFF has a handy chart of some of those key links between speakers and their audience here.

The domain name system is a key part of the Internets technical underpinnings, which are enabled by an often-fragile consensus among many systems and operators. Using that system to edit speech, based on potentially conflicting opinions about what can be spoken on the Internet, risks shattering that consensus. Domain suspension is a blunt instrument: suspending the domain name of a website or Internet service makes everything hosted there difficult or impossible to access. The risk of blocking speech that wasnt targeted is very high.

Domain name companies also have little claim to be publishers, or speakers in their own right, with respect to the contents of websites. Like the suppliers of ink or electrical power to a pamphleteer, the companies that sponsor domain name registrations have no direct connection to Internet content. Domain name registrars have even less connection to speech than a conduit provider such as an ISP, as the contents of a website or service never touch the registrars systems. Registrars interests as speakers under the First Amendment are minimal.

If the entities that run the domain name system started choosing who could access or add to them based on political considerations, we might well face a world where every government and powerful body would see itself as an equal or more legitimate invoker of that power. That makes the domain name system unsuitable as a mechanism for taking down specific illegal content as the law sometimes requires, and a perennially attractive central location for nation-states and others to exercise much broader takedown powers.

Another lever that states and malicious actors often reach for when seeking to censor legitimate voices is through denial-of-service attacks. States and criminals alike use this to silence voices, and the Net's defenses against such actions are not well-developed. Services like Cloudflare can protect against these attacks, but not if they also face direct pressure from governments and other actors to pick and choose their clients. Content delivery networks are not wired into the infrastructure of the Net in the way that the domain name system is, but at this point, they may as well be.

These are parts of the Net that are most sensitive to pervasive censorship: they are free speechs weakest links. Its the reason why millions of net neutrality advocates are concerned about ISPs censoring their feeds. Or why, when the handful of global payment processors unite to block certain websites (like Wikileaks) worldwide, we should be concerned. These weak links are both the most tempting, and most egregiously damaging places, to filter the Net.

The firmest, most consistent, defense these potential weak links can take is to simply decline all attempts to use them as a control point. They can act to defend their role as a conduit, rather than a publisher. And just as law and custom developed a norm that we might sue a publisher for defamation, but not the owner of a printing press, or newspaper vendor, we are slowly developing norms about who should take responsibility for content online. Companies that manage domain names, including GoDaddy and Google, should draw a hard line: they should not suspend or impair domain names based on the expressive content of websites or services.

Other elements of the Net risk less when they are selective about who they host. But even for hosts, theres always a risk that othersincluding governmentswill use the opaqueness of the takedown process to silence legitimate voices. For any content hosts that do reject content as part of the enforcement of their terms of service, we have long recommended that they implement procedural protections to mitigate mistakes, or are pressured by states to secretly censorspecifically, the Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability. The principles state, in part:

These are methods that protect us all against overbroad or arbitrary takedowns. Its notable that in GoDaddy and Googles eagerness to swiftly distance themselves from American neo-Nazis, no process was followed; CloudFlares Prince also admitted that the decision was not CloudFlares policy. Policies give guidance as to what we might expect, and an opportunity to see justice is done. We should think carefully before throwing them away.

It might seem unlikely now that Internet companies would turn against sites supporting racial justice or other controversial issues. But if there is a single reason why so many individuals and companies are acting together now to unite against neo-Nazis, it is because a future that seemed unlikely a few years agothat white nationalists and Nazis now have significant power and influence in our societynow seems possible. We would be making a mistake if we assumed that these sorts of censorship decisions would never turn against causes we love.

Part of the work for all of us now is to push back against such dangerous decisions with our own voices and actions. Another part of our work must be to seek to shore up the weakest parts of the Internets infrastructure so it cannot be easily toppled if matters take a turn for the (even) worse. These actions are not in opposition; they are to the same ends.

We canand we mustdo both.

Continued here:
Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression - EFF

Photo Joshua Wong during an October 2014 protest outside the offices of Hong Kongs chief executive. Credit Tyrone Siu/Reuters

To the Editor:

Re Three Young Voices Versus a Superpower (editorial, Aug. 15):

The three students were convicted because their disorderly and intimidating behavior broke the law during a protest. They were found guilty based on evidence presented in a fair and open trial.

Under Hong Kongs common law legal system, like others around the world, both the prosecution and the convicted can seek an appeal of sentence. The court will consider the case independently, fairly and openly. There is simply no basis to imply that political motive or the students political views are the reason for the appeal.

Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are protected in Hong Kongs Basic Law, our constitutional document, and underpinned by the rule of law and an independent judiciary. Hong Kongs judicial independence is ranked eighth globally by the World Economic Forum (the United States is 29th).

Your eagerness to label the alleged kidnapping case of Howard Lam, a member of Hong Kongs Democratic Party, as a brazen crackdown is also wide of the mark. Independent journalists have published evidence that contradicts his allegations. Mr. Lam has since been arrested on suspicion of misleading the police by false information.

CLEMENT LEUNG, WASHINGTON

The writer is Hong Kongs commissioner to the United States.

See the rest here:
Free Speech and Assembly in Hong Kong - New York Times

Free speech isn't an absolute and it doesn't mean you can say whatever you want whenever you want.

"First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech. The protection is mainly from the government, and it doesn't protect against the consequences of the freedom of speech," saidJohn Elmore, a legal analyst.

Because of the First Amendment protections, it's rare that a government will deny a permit to assemble, even if it is for a recognized hate group, like the White Nationalists who organized the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend. Plus, those groups can sue if their assembly permit is denied. But the government can restrict a protest to a certain place and time.

"The court has always had the ruling that if the government restricts speech based on the content of that speech, they have a very high standard. And it is very reluctant to allow that restriction," saidPeter Yacobucci, Ph.D., a SUNY Buffalo State political science associate professor.

The exceptions to freedom of speech include incitement, defamation, fraud, obscenity and lies, just to name a few. And there's a fine line between freedom to spew hate speech and inciting violence.

"For hate speech, as long as nobody is acting on it, it's still protected. If people are acting on it, we can say this person was engaging in incitement and incitement, we have laws against," saidClairissa Breen, Ph.D., a SUNY Buffalo State criminal justice professor.

Yacobucci added, "If a common person understood it that they were being directed to that violence, then the speech can be restricted, but that's a pretty high standard. To just say, 'I want to kill that person,' that's not a enough to be a threat. There has to be something substantial behind it."

Elmore said, "No matter how untasteful the language is, that's protected speech."

But freedom of speech and assembly rights can be revoked if things turn violent. Plus, freedom of speech doesn't protect you from potential consequences.

"A private employer may be embarrassed by extreme political views of a person that is publicized, somebody that publicizes their Nazi views, their KKK views, extreme racist views. The government says you can say those things, but a private employer has the right to discharge an employee because that would affect their business," said Elmore.

But for government employees, it's more of a gray area. If the hate speech is something that could affect the way they do their job, like a police officer, they would be at risk for getting fired.

More:
Free speech comes at a price - Spectrum News

The violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, have turned a spotlight on the freedom of speech one of the first rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, and one of the messiest.

In Charlottesville, white nationalists and other extremist groups including neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan rallied but only after a federal judge ruled they had the right to gather at Emancipation Park and protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Their rights were defended by the American Civil Liberties Union, despised by many conservatives as a liberal bastion. The ACLU deplored the "voices of white supremacy," and condemned the violence that killed a 32-year-old woman and injured dozens of others. But the ACLU made no apologies for its defense of speech that many find distasteful or even dangerous.

"The First Amendment is a critical part of our democracy and it protects vile, hateful, and ignorant speech," the organization said.

So what are the boundaries of free speech? And how is it playing out in this politically charged landscape?

FREE SPEECH RIGHTS

"Even groups that have hateful messages still have a right under the First Amendment to express those positions, whether it's in rallies or protests or gatherings or writing," says Roy Gutterman, a First Amendment expert at Syracuse University.

But free speech does have boundaries. "You have no right to incite violence, you have no right to defame someone or disseminate child pornography," he says. "There are limits and some of the limits are easier to define than others. Even the concept of inciting a riot can get into some subjective and nebulous standards."

The limits of free speech were recognized in a 1919 Supreme Court decision in which the justices said the First Amendment could be restricted if the words represented a "clear and present danger." In that ruling, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said "the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic."

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

The ACLU has a long history of defending free speech rights, at times on behalf of bigoted groups with offensive messages. In one of its most controversial cases, the ACLU in the late 1970s argued that a neo-Nazi group should be allowed to march in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, which was home to thousands of Holocaust survivors. The demonstrators planned to wear Nazi uniforms with swastika armbands. Attorneys for Skokie argued that would be traumatic for many residents. The neo-Nazis ultimately won the legal battle as a free speech argument, but didn't follow through with the march. Instead, they held a rally in a federal plaza in downtown Chicago.

In a recent case the ACLU said it was defending right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos in a free speech lawsuit even though it disagrees with his positions, saying he has fostered "anti-Muslim views and disdain for women" and has compared Black Lives Matter activists to the Klan.

"We understand the pain caused by Mr. Yiannopoulos' views," James Esseks, director of the ACLU's LGBT and HIV Project wrote last week. "We also understand the importance of the principles we seek to defend. The constitutional principle here, of course, is that government can't censor our speech just because it doesn't like what we say."

TOLERANCE ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES

The debate over political expression and free speech has roiled college campuses in recent years, most notably at the University of California-Berkeley. An appearance by Yiannopoulos last winter was canceled after demonstrators dressed in black, broke windows, hurled rocks at police and set fires on the campus. A speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter at Berkeley was later canceled because of safety concerns. And in Middlebury College, a small liberal arts campus in Vermont, scores of students shouted down political scientist Charles Murray, the author of "The Bell Curve," a controversial book that deals with race and intelligence.

Syracuse's Gutterman says what's happening now is a dramatic shift from the era between the 1940s and 1960s when people on college campuses who were being punished, censored and kicked out of school were on the political left. "Fast forward to today," he says. "It's people on the right or the far right who feel they're not getting a chance to articulate their viewpoint."

"'I think college campuses are a pretty precarious place for the free exchange of information," he says. "Berkeley is the birthplace of the Free Speech movement in the '60s. There's a huge irony there. College campuses have become kind of soft places because of speech codes, codes of conduct and things like that that tend to over-insulate people."

But Fanta Aw, interim vice president of campus life at American University in Washington, D.C., told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June: "As an institution, we draw the line when expression has the potential to incite violence and/or is a direct threat to members of our community."

THE VIEW FROM ABROAD

Many other democracies do not share America's broad protections of speech.

After World War II, several European countries enacted laws that were designed to curb religious and racial hatred. The punishment can range from fines to prison. In 2006, British historian David Irving was sentenced to prison in Austria for denying the Holocaust and gas chambers at Auschwitz. In 2011, a French court found the flamboyant fashion designer John Galliano guilty of making anti-Semitic comments at a Paris bistro.

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Strange bedfellows: The ACLU, free speech and Neo-Nazis - ABC News

At the height ofthe deadly racist mayhem last Saturday in Charlottesville, a so-called white nationalist named Preston Wiginton announced that he would hold a White Lives Matter rally on September 11 on the grounds of Texas A & M, a public university in College Station. The rally would feature Richard Spencer, a well-known white nationalist whose speech at an auditorium at the university in December sparked outrage and near violence on campus. The headline of Wigintons press release blared in all caps, TODAY CHARLOTTESVILLE, TOMORROW TEXAS A&M.

An opposing group immediately announced a counter-protest to be called BTHO Hate, borrowing from a campus sports-program acronym meaning beat the hell out of.

On Monday night, Texas A & M announced it was canceling Wiggintons rally, and issued the following statement:

After consultation with law enforcement and considerable study, Texas A&M is cancelling the event scheduled by Preston Wiginton at Rudder Plaza on campus on September 11 because of concerns about the safety of its students, faculty, staff, and the public.

Texas A&M changed its policy after Decembers protests so that no outside individual or group could reserve campus facilities without the sponsorship of a university-sanctioned group. None of the 1200-plus campus organizations invited Preston Wiginton nor did they agree to sponsor his events in December 2016 or on September 11 of this year.

With no university facilities afforded him, he chose instead to plan his event outdoors for September 11 at Rudder Plaza, in the middle of campus, during a school day, with a notification to the media under the headline Today Charlottesville, Tomorrow Texas A&M.

Linking the tragedy of Charlottesville with the Texas A&M event creates a major security risk on our campus. Additionally, the daylong event would provide disruption to our class schedules and to student, faculty and staff movement (both bus system and pedestrian).

Texas A&Ms support of the First Amendment and the freedom of speech cannot be questioned. On December 6, 2016 the university and law enforcement allowed the same speaker the opportunity to share his views, taking all of the necessary precautions to ensure a peaceful event. However, in this case, circumstances and information relating to the event have changed and the risks of threat to life and safety compel us to cancel the event.

Finally, the thoughts and prayers of Aggies here on campus and around the world are with those individuals affected by the tragedy in Charlottesville.

Texas A & M is a public university subject to the demands of the First Amendment. It cannot ban speech on campus simply because the content of that speech is objectionable to many or all. Even hate speech like that of White Supremacists is fully constitutionally protected. Courts long ago held that Nazis bearing swastikas must be allowed to march down the streets of a neighborhood populated by Holocaust survivors. Furthermore,Texas A & M permitsRudder Plaza to be used as a free-speech zone, whether or not the speakers are sponsored by a student group.

University lawyers know this, so officials have not announced a total ban on racist hate speech on campus. They are cancelling this particular event. And they are offering purported content-neutral justifications for the cancellation. Are they on solid First Amendment ground?

The first and potentially most compelling justification for the cancellation is a public safety concern. Given violent clashes in other places where political extremists have rallied, and especially the demonstration four days ago at the University of Virginia, its easy to sympathize with the university. Moreover, September 11 is an especially sensitive day on the American calendarwhich is no doubt the reason it was chosen for the rally. Protecting public safety is certainly a legitimate and indeed powerful concern of public officials. Speakers may not threaten violence or incite others to violence. Any actual acts of violence by speakers or counter-protesters could be punished.

The problem for Texas A & M is that, judging by the public record, we have no indication so far that organizers have made what courts would likely consider threats of violence. Its true that Wiginton linked his event to Charlottesville. But avague publicity reference to Today Charlottesville, Tomorrow Texas A &M is not enough to qualify as an unprotected true threat.

Theres also no evidence that organizers directly encouragedincitedothers to commit acts of violence. To constitute unprotected incitement, the speech must clearly advocate actual lawlessness (not merely hint at it) and be likely to immediately cause such lawlessness (not merely increase its likelihood). Under this test, the Supreme Court reversed the criminal conviction of a Klan leader who told armed membersat a cross-burning rally that there might have to be some revengeance [sic] taken against niggers and Jews.

Undoubtedly,many people feel provoked to violence when they see swastikas or Confederate flags or hear slogans that evoke genocide like Jews will not replace us. Thus, the planned counter-protest in response to Wiginton employed the language of force (beat the hell out of hate). But provocation is not incitement.The university cannot bar controversial speech simply because listeners might be deeply offended or might themselves react violently when they hear the speech. Federal courts are wary of allowing such a hecklers veto of controversial speechespecially based on an undifferentiated fear that violence might possibly ensue. Shutting down or prohibiting speech is the last resort, not the first.

Minimizing and containing the threat of violence at the rally is a matter for negotiation between the speakers and the university, with a judge resolving outstanding differences. But safety concerns are unlikely to prevent the speech altogether.

The second justification for the cancellation is that the event would disturb the normal activities of the campus during a school day, including possible disruption to class schedules, and would impede the safe and free movement of pedestrians and vehicles through campus. These are legitimate content-neutral concerns of the government, but there is a fact question about whether a protest or event could be orchestrated in a way that would minimize disruption and allow adequate traffic flow. These are matters that could be negotiated by lawyers for the university and the speakers, with differences adjudicated by a judge. Again, these concerns wont justify wholly forbidding the speech.

The universitys cancellation is an opening bid in a negotiation with lawyers for the speakers. It may be that a different date or time or specific place on campus for the event can be arranged to address safety and other concerns. Certainly the university can take steps to protect the peace, like increasing police presence and erecting barriers between opposing groups. But I doubt the University will succeed in simply prohibiting this event on campus.

Texas A & M is not a one-off. The newly emboldened and brazen white racist movement is seeking similar publicity around the country. The constitutional issues raised by the universitys purported cancellation of a White Supremacy rally will recur. The First Amendment is not an alt-right slogan. We cant let it be distorted by our fear of bigots. And we cant let it be a tool for them alone.

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Free speech and White Supremacy at Texas A & M (and elsewhere) - Washington Post

Ryerson University canceled a panel Wednesday dedicated to discussing the silencing of free speech on college campuses, citing campus safety.

The Canadian school canceled The Stifling of Free Speech on University Campuses, an Aug. 22 panel featuring three doctors and a pro-free speech journalist, citing a prioritization of campus safety over free speech in light of recent events, according to correspondence obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Social justice activists set up a Facebook page entitled No Fascists in Our City!to protest the event. The pages header image depicted a swastika crossed out.

Fascists are planning to meet on August 22nd at Ryerson University to discuss how to avoid what they call SJW Culture, the protest description reads. Tickets are being sold for $20 and frankly it makes us virulently ill Considering the rise of Nationalism here and abroad we need to show these people and their guests that we will not tolerate their backward nonsense in our city.

Approximately 500 individuals signed up for the protest, with nearly 2,000 others stating that they were interested. Sarina Singh,a Ryerson graduate who was hosting the free speech event, received a call from Ryerson Wednesday morning informing her of the events cancellation.

The reason cited was security concerns and safety of the community, Singh told TheDCNF.

Singh noted that people from the U.S. had planned on attending the event, and that some people were taking time off work to attend.

I made three requests, suggested getting Toronto police involved for safety, [but the university] told me my event was canceled PERMANENTLY, the event organizer said.

There is often a tension at universities resulting from our commitment to be a place for free speech and our commitment to be a place that is civil, safe, and welcoming, Michael Forbes, a communications officer for Ryerson, told TheDCNF. In light of recent events, Ryerson University is prioritizing campus safety.

The free speech panelists expressed disappointment with backlash to the event and the universitys decision.

[Progressive activists] were calling me a Nazi, a fascist, and an anti-Semite, Dr. Gad Saad, a Concordia University marketing professor and one of the panelists, told TheDCNF. Im Jewish. So, theyve lost the plot. Its a form of lunacy thats difficult to diagnose.

Saad, who had already booked a flight and hotel for the now-canceled event, termed the social justice activists behavior ostrich parasitic syndrome, stating that they denied reality and behaved as though their brains were turned into mush.

Apparently supporting freedom of speech makes you a Nazi these days, Saad told TheDCNF. I think our existence is now hate speech that I exist as an independent person who spews his thoughts freely is an affront to those who wish to control him Orwell couldnt have come up with the realities that were facing today.

Saad noted that people who express incorrect opinions get beheaded in the Middle East. He said that while the West was not yet at that stage, activists could do the next best thing and go after a speakers livelihood, reputation, and platform to speak. He suggested that cowardice is the eighth deadly sin, and that universities did not possess the effort, courage, and testicular fortitude to stand up to those trying to silence speech.

You never pacify thuggery. You dont pacify someone whos trying to rape you. These people are intellectual terrorists. Theyre rapists of truth, Saad added.

Reason is dead and the accursed university campus is to blame, Faith Goldy, another panelist and journalist for The Rebel Media, told TheDCNF. To those who shut us down: Programmed cowards, your victory is counterfeit. To those who stand with us: May your passion for truth be matched by your bravery during these dark days, characterizing a civilization in decline.

TheDCNF reached out to the remaining two panelists, University of Toronto Professor Jordan B. Peterson and clinical psychologist Oren Amitay, but received no comment in time for press.

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College Responds To Hosting Panel On Free Speech By Canceling It - The Daily Caller

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA)

The events in Charlottesville have rekindled debates over free speech and the unintended consequences that come with it.

Viral photos from the rally show men holding tiki torches and marching on the University of Virginia campus as they protest the removal of a Confederate monument.

In many of those photos, the men are clearly identifiable and through social media were named. In two particular instances, a University of Nevada - Reno student is facing backlash at school and a Berkeley man lost his job at the restaurant Top Dog.

Instagram/phedlund via CNN

KCRA 3s Dana Griffin sat down with two experts to talk about the Freedom of Speech and how it works.

Thomas Dodson is co-founder of Above the Fray, a social media awareness organization that empowers safe and responsible social media users.

KCRA

Brian Landsberg is a Constitutional law professor with the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

KCRA 3

Q: If someone is fired from a job, does that violate their Constitutional rights?

Landsberg: If being fired by a private employer, the answer is that your rights are probably not being violated.

Dodson: The thing that most people dont think about is that freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.

Q: What protections do people have under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution?

Landsberg: The Constitution only protects people from government action, not private companies. Theres some protections for public employees, but even those are somewhat limited.

Dodson: I can string together any number of words right now and spout them out to you and they can be as ugly and hate-filled and vile as possible. That doesnt mean Im free from the consequences from those words.

Q: Should people be fired for sharing opinions that differ from their employers?

Landsberg: Many employers just want to steer clear of politics and they dont want to be identified with political speech of their employees.

Dodson: Employers have to look at their employees when theyre going through something like this and say, "I dont want that person working at my company. I dont want that person associated with my business."

Q: Which groups are protected by the constitution?

Landsberg: The California Labor Code provides some limited protections for speech, for political-type speech. And the National Labor Relations Act provides protections for speech connected with unions.

Q: How does social media play a role in the court of public opinion?

Dodson: Everyone has a camera. Everyone has a phone. Everyone is taking pictures and shooting video.

So, when you go to an event like this, youre saying not just to the group thats there, but youre saying to the world, This is how I believe, this is what I think.

If you associate yourself with an extremist view, on any side, youre likely to come under the ire of your employer.

Q: What do you think about the UNR Student and Top Dog Restaurant employee who are facing criticism because they participated in the Charlottesville rally?

Landsberg: Thats too bad for them because the Constitution isnt going to help them.

Link:
Q&A: Experts break down Freedom of Speech, what it means - KCRA Sacramento

Few issues evoke stronger feelings or more basic divisions than abortion. Those who think it should be legal regard it as part of women's basic autonomy and liberty. Those who think it should be outlawed in all or some cases see it as the deliberate and unwarranted taking of a human life. Forty-four years after the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision, the two sides remain as opposed as ever.

The right to abortion, as the court ruled then, is protected by the constitutional right of privacy. But that leaves other questions unanswered. The one posed by an Illinois law is: To what extent can medical professionals who are morally opposed to the procedure be forced to facilitate it?

A state law passed in 1977 provides broad coverage for rights of conscience. It says no doctors or nurses may be required to "perform, assist, counsel, suggest, recommend, refer or participate in any way" in any procedure that violates their moral convictions. But last year, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill mandating that any medical professional who declines to provide abortion must, on request, give the patient a referral or information on where to get an abortion.

A group of medical clinics and professionals challenged the law in court, arguing that providing the required information would make them complicit in what they see as destroying human life. And last month, a federal court ruled in their favor.

One essential component of freedom of speech is the freedom not to speak. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled that public school students could not be forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In 1977, it said the state of New Hampshire could not require motorists to display its "Live Free or Die" motto on their license plates. The First Amendment, it said in that case, protects the right of all people "to refuse to foster ... an idea they find morally objectionable."

Judge Frederick Kapala found that the Illinois law likewise infringes on the right of medical professionals who object to abortion "by compelling them to tell their patients that abortion is a legal treatment option, which has benefits" and "to give their patients the identifying information of providers who will perform an abortion." The judge blocked enforcement of the law.

We think the court got it right. And the decision is one abortion-rights advocates should approve, if only because the principle upheld here protects them. That's clear from a 2014 federal appeals court decision invalidating a North Carolina law requiring abortion providers to show each patient ultrasound fetal images and deliver a message meant to discourage her from having an abortion.

"While the state itself may promote through various means childbirth over abortion," the court said, "it may not coerce doctors into voicing that message on behalf of the state in the particular manner and setting attempted here." The Supreme Court let the ruling stand.

In either instance, the state is free to use its own resources and outlets to convey the information it thinks patients should have. But it can't make private individuals do that job. Government-compelled speech is a bad idea no matter which side is being compelled.

See original here:
Illinois' abortion notification law harms free speech - Chicago Tribune

Americans believe deeply in their right to speak freely and will proudly cite the First Amendment of the US Constitution to support it. Theres often a fundamental misunderstanding about what kind of speech is protected precisely, and Americans tend to believe they are more free than they really are.

In fact, employers in the US can fire almost anyone for almost any reason or no reason at all, as long as the termination is not discriminatory or retaliatory. This means that James Damore, the Googler fired for writing an internal anti-diversity memo claiming women arent biologically suited to engineering, probably will not have a viable wrongful-termination suit against his former employer.

Constitutional protections apply to government action, not private entities. The First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no lawabridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. In other words, the government cant limit your speech. A company certainly can under most circumstances: Google and other companies can fire employees for saying things that displease the bosses, with limited exceptions.

Of course, Googles termination of Damore does seem retaliatory since it follows the release and broad discussion of his memo. Thats not necessarily a problem for the company from a legal perspective.

Unless Damore can somehow prove that conservative male technologists are a protected class and that the company retaliated against him for exercising his right to speak freely under federal or state anti-discrimination law, Google likely would be OK. Considering that Google is also facing a US Department of Labor lawsuit for discrimination in the pay and hiring of female employees, it seems highly unlikely Damore will succeed in any legal action, His memo only supports the discrimination clams made by women, which led to the US investigation, and undermines Googles arguments that it ensures equal treatment in the workplace.

Damore told Bloomberg News that hes exploring his legal options. His chances of winning are probably quite limitedor perhaps nonexistentgiven the context of his termination.

Federal law prohibits terminating employees because of their race, gender, national origin, disability, religion, genetic information, or age (if above 40 years old). It also prohibits most employers from firing someone for being pregnant or having a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth.

Employers cant legally retaliate against employees who speak up about discrimination, assist in a government investigation, or refuse to participate in or choose to expose a companys illegal actions. A terminated employee who can prove one of those things will succeed in a wrongful-termination retaliation claim. Still, thats not so easy. To advance such a claim, an employee must prove three findings:

As the fact appear to be known, it seems highly unlikely Damore will succeed in a wrongful-termination suit. Yet he has already succeeded in making his employment and termination more widely known in the media than the plight of the women who say they were underpaid or never hired at Google. And now he has a job offer from Julian Assange.

More here:
Free-speech rights don't apply in the American workplace, as Google demonstrates - Quartz

By Doyin OyeniyiAugust 8, 2017

On August 1, the Southern Methodist University student group Young Americans for Freedom posted an open letter to their Facebook page. The letter, addressed to the universitys president, Robert Gerald Turner, criticized SMU for its response to the groups request to display a 9/11 memorial on Dallas Hall lawn, the same spot where the campus gathered after the attack in 2001. The memorial, a display of 2,977 American flags to represent the lives lost on 9/11, has been constructed on the lawn for the past two years.

This year, however, the memorial is barred from Dallas Hall lawn. The new location, designated for all lawn displays, is Morrison-McGinnis Park, or MoMac Park, which the YAF describes as far less prominent than the iconic Dallas Hall lawn, adding that thousands of students, faculty and local residents pass by [Dallas Hall lawn] every day and serves as the heart of our campus. But in addition to the location change, the organization particularly had a problem with the language used in the policy, which they received in July as a response to their request. The policy, titled Memorial Lawn Displays, read:

The University respects the right of all members of the SMU community to express their opinions. The University also respects the right of all members of the community to avoid messages that are triggering, harmful, or harassing. It is the policy of the University to protect the exercise of these rights. These rights come with the responsibility not to abuse or violate civil and property rights of others, or to interfere in the conduct of University business.

YAF criticized that language as an attack on freedom of speech and warned that the university was headed in the direction of indoctrination, not education if they continued to limit students right to share and express their beliefs. The open letter is signed by the chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, the president of College Republicans, the co-presidents of College Democrats, the president of Mustangs for Life, and the president of Feminist Equality Movement. The idea that a 9/11 memorial could be triggering, harmful, or harassing has drawn criticism online and even from Governor Greg Abbott.

In response to the backlash, SMU released a statement explaining that YAFs requests for displays have been approved in previous years, and SMU as a community has held 9/11 memorial events every five years since 2001, including a notable event last year in collaboration with area first responders. The university also apologized for the inappropriate wording in the policy sent to the students, explaining that the policy had not gone through the appropriate approval process. The updated policy, now titled Lawn Displays, reads:

The University respects the right of SMU community members to express their opinions as individuals with varying points of view and interests. The university also respects the right of all members of the academic community to be free from coercion and harassment. Reasonable limitations may be placed on the time, place and manner of such expression activities in order to serve the interest of health and safety, prevent interference in the conduct of University business, and protect against the infringement of the rights of others. Because we seek truth, we encourage the expression of ideas, accept challenges to our assumptions, and treat those whom we question as colleagues sharing a common purpose.

Kent Best, a spokesperson for SMU, said that the wording on triggering or harassing lawn displays was only to explain why certain requests might not be approved, but that the restriction would never have applied to the 9/11 memorial.The policy change was made in the July, Best said, just a few days before YAFs request was received.I can assure you 100 percent that their display was going to be approved, Best said.

What didnt change between the two versions of the policy was the new location. Best said that there were no specific incidents that led to no longer allowing displays at Dallas Hall lawn, but rather a need to keep that area available for students use and other university activities. Referencing a map of SMUs campus, Best explained that MoMac Park was more centrally located on campus and that though Dallas Hall lawn was bigger, displays had never been allowed to use the entire space on the lawn.

When asked if there were events that would have conflicted with this years 9/11 memorial, Best explained that a football game tailgate on September 9 would take place on the lawn. Since YAF might need to put up the flags for the memorial the day before 9/11, tents from the tailgate might not be removed in time, Best said, but he added that the decision to move lawn displays to MoMac Park was made before the were aware of any scheduling conflict. On the YAFs Facebook page, the group posted a screenshot of a tweet from SMU in 2015, which includes a picture with the flags from their memorial next to tailgating tents.

SMU cant hide the fact that they celebrated and supported our 9/11 Memorial on Dallas Hall lawn, despite it being surrounded by remnants of tailgating tents from the weekend before, the photo caption reads. This isnt a logistical problem. This is a freedom problem. Our pressure will continue until this policy is changed.

Although the university has not confirmed it, Daniel Rosa, president of Mustangs for Life, and Matthew Lucci, co-president of College Democrats, believe that the policy change was a response to a Mustangs for Life display. Rosa said that for the past four years, during the spring semester, the organization has displayed a Memorial for Innocents to signify the number of abortions that happen per day in America. For the past three years, the display has been about 2,000 crosses spread on the lawn.In recent years, there have been counter-protests and displays by pro-choice organizations such as Feminist Equality Movement and Mustangs for Unity (an organization created in response to Mustangs for Life). Rosa says people have sometimes kicked over crosses in his organizations display, and this year, a student responded to the display by raising money for Planned Parenthood. But the representatives from the groups, who might publicly disagree on many things, both want Dallas Hall lawn available for displays again.

Of the three displays that occur every single year, the 9/11 display has never been controversial, whereas the other two have, Lucci said. And the text of the original policy change hints at that.Lucci doesnt believe that SMU had malicious intent toward the 9/11 memorial, but he still considers the restriction of lawn displays to MoMac Park as a limitation. Because the park is mostly surrounded by dorms and receives less foot traffic than Dallas Hall lawn, which he describes as the academic center of the university, relegating them to an area where lawn displays are not likely to receive the attention and response theyve received in the past, Lucci believes the university is in a way restricting their freedom of speech.

Best could not confirm any plans to change the lawn display policy, but students are holding out hope. On Monday, student leaders who signed the open letter met with Kenechukwu Mmeje, SMUs new vice president for student affairs, to discuss the policy changes. Although details of the meeting, which included representatives from SMUs development and legal departments, were scarce, Lucci seemed hopeful. Student and administrative leaders are working together on a solution to the problem at hand, the details of which are still under consideration at this time, he said after the meeting. I am confident that the administration of Southern Methodist University and the students in attendance will be able to reach an agreement in the near future.

Tags: Dallas, Education, Higher Ed, smu, southern methodist university

Link:
SMU Student Groups: Moving The 9/11 Memorial Restricts Freedom of Speech - Texas Monthly