Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

MSU graduate Alex Bissell protests convervative columnist George Wills commencement address in 2014.(Photo: Max Ortiz / The Detroit News)Buy Photo

A pair of bills introduced in the Legislature that seek the suspension or expulsion of outspoken students are causing a stir at Michigans universities.

Critics say the proposed measures could hinder student activism. However, the main sponsor, state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton Township, says the Campus Free Speech Act ensures invited campus speakers have their voices heard.

It makes sure they arent able to shout down the speaker, he said. Ideally, I think it would be nice to have engagement in debate if they are willing to have a civil debate on the topic. ... If that doesnt happen, they could hold their own forum.

The legislation would apply to Michigans 15 public universities and 28 community colleges. Institutions would be required to suspend for one year or expel students who have twice been found responsible for infringing upon the expressive rights of others.

The measures also would eliminate free speech zones that designate where students can engage in expressive activity on campus.

Opponents say the proposals would infringe on free speech, not protect it.

This is a very tricky situation, said Vikrant Garg, 21, a graduate student studying public health at the University of Michigan. What this does is criminalize people for expressing their freedom of speech.

Garg, a co-founder of Students4justice, a coalition for students of color, said the legislation could drive away any kind of dissent.

Theres so many applications of this bill, its so far reaching it could apply to almost everybody, he said. Thats what makes it even more dangerous.

Dan Hurley, CEO of the Michigan Association of State Universities, said the measures are intrusive and unnecessary.

Its a solution in search of a problem, Hurley said. The freedom of speech and expression are not an issue at Michigans post-secondary institutions. There have been some anecdotal incidents that youve probably read about that proponents would refer to. These are often incidents that are intentionally set up by individuals who are not students, not affiliated with the university.

Fostering discussion

Colbeck pointed to the cancellation earlier this year of a planned speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of California at Berkeley. University officials said threats of violence made it impossible to guarantee security at the event.

A Philadelphia-based group called the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, has found that Michigans public universities already have speech code policies that substantially restrict freedom of speech or have the ability to result in restrictions on protected expression because of their vague wording or for other reasons. The group annually rates the speech codes for the 400 of the nations largest universities and colleges.

FIRE found problems with protecting speech at all 15 Michigan public universities. Six universities, including the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and its Dearborn and Flint campuses as well as Wayne State, had at least one policy that substantially restricts the freedom of speech, according to FIRE.

The other nine universities, including Michigan State and Oakland universities, had policies that restricted a more limited amount of free speech or whose vague wording could easily be used to restrict protected expression, the nonprofit said.

Grant Strobl, a 21-year-old international studies and political science major at UM, supports the legislation, saying it would require universities to remove protesters who interfere with events.

Its something that needs to be addressed not only in Michigan, but across the country, said Strobl, chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, a campus conservative group. Its not a perfect bill. Im sure there will be changes. ... I think its a step in the right direction.

He concluded: Its unfortunate that some students have the mentality that if they dont agree with certain speech, they can shout down the speaker and silence them.

As an example, Strobl said he saw hundreds of shouting protesters stop a debate last September at UM about whether the Black Lives Matter movement harms race relations. The event was hosted by Michigan Political Union, an independent student organization.

I feel like a lot of what is important in the democracy was lost that day, he said. We werent able to have a discussion on relevant political issues. Theres no better place to do that than the university.

The legislation in Michigan follows action by Republican lawmakers in several other states to crack down on protesters who disrupt speakers at post-secondary institutions.

In Wisconsin, for example, lawmakers are weighing a bill that would penalize protesters who disrupt speakers. The issue is now before the state Senate.

UMs student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, wrote an editorial last month opposing Colbecks legislation. Officials at some state universities also have expressed reservations.

Targeted limits

Michigan State University spokesman Jason Cody said that while the school has not taken an official position on the legislation, officials are concerned about the bills and share the some of the objections raised by MASU.

Here at MSU, we encourage our students and faculty members to bring in speakers and events, regardless if they are deemed controversial by some, Cody said. By the same token, we encourage our campus community to make their viewpoints known on issues they are passionate about. In all of that, though, we ask both sides of any issue to be respectful and follow MSU ordinances.

Oakland University officials say campus policy has always protected the rights of student groups and outside organizations that gather in a peaceful manner.

Our student affairs office works hand in hand with the Oakland University Police Departments chief of police and group leaders to ensure access and safety in organizing such events, said Nancy Schmitz, assistant vice president for student affairs and dean of students. In addition, we always comply with all federal and state laws on the matter and will follow developments with this latest legislation being proposed.

Free speech expert Gregory Magarian, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said he doesnt mind the parts of the bills that reiterate the values of the First Amendment. However, he considers certain areas problematic.

Why single out protests and demonstrations? he said. If I recall correctly, those terms arent even defined in the statute. So this bill, which is supposed to be a free-speech bill, is putting a particular kind of limit on certain kinds of free speech, so-called protests and demonstrations.

Magarian said the legislation could be interpreted as banning all forms of protest.

The effect of that passage would seem to be that a protest or demonstration can be shut down if it interferes with any other kind of expressive activity, he said. I dont know of any kind of protest that doesnt interfere with other kinds of expressive activity.

Magarian said the bills mandatory penalties of a one-year suspension or expulsion for second-time offenders create a conflict for universities. He said hes inclined to think its better for universities to figure the issue out themselves.

One thing that might backfire about the provision is that its a pretty severe sanction, he said. The mandate of that sanction might well encourage universities in disciplinary proceedings to go easier on disruptors than they would if they had less severe penalties to dish out. ... That would cut against what this legislation is trying to do.

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Campus free speech bills: Restrict or protect rights? - The Detroit News

James Madison, prime drafter of the Bill of Rights, would be appalled to find marauding mobs curbing speakers, but not surprised. This and much more that illuminates todays struggle over freedom of speech is the subject of a compact volume, The Soul of the First Amendment, by legendary First Amendment constitutional scholar Floyd Abrams.

Abrams traces the two-century history of the First Amendment, from its creation in the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, three years after ratification of the Constitution (which took nearly a year after its publication by the Framers of Philadelphia), The Framers were disinclined to adopt a Bill of Rights, whose protections they regarded as implicit in the text of the Constitution. Framer Roger Sherman of Connecticut said of bills of rights: No bill of rights ever yet bound the supreme power longer than longer than the honey moon [sic]of a newly married couple. Fortunately, Mr. Madison prevailed over such skepticism.

Abrams cites the mid-century historian Clinton Rossiter, who described the 1787 Constitution as plain to the point of severity, frugal to the point of austerity, laconic to the point of aphorism. Madison stated that the great object of bills of rights is to limit and qualify the powers of government, by excepting out of the grant of power those cases in which the government ought not to act, or to act only in a particular mode. Madison believed courts would act as an impenetrable barrier to infringement of speech. But speech is now under a sustained assault not seen since the 1798 Sedition Act saw more than 20 newspaper editors jailed by President John Adams.

Because Abrams covers only the First Amendment, he ignores the Courts seminal Bill of Rights case prior to 1925, the year the Supreme Court began to selectively incorporate clauses, thus applying them to the States. Until then the case that defined its ambit was Barron v. Baltimore (1833), in which Chief Justice John Marshall, our most influential Justice, authored the Courts opinion holding that the Bill of Rights limited only the powers of the federal government. Indeed, it was not until 1939 (NOT a misprint) that the final trio of the original 13 colonies Massachusetts (Mar. 2), Georgia (Mar. 18) and Connecticut (Apr. 19) ratified the document many consider our true fundamental charter. This view is widely held because the Constitutions text focuses on definition and distribution of powers, many arcane to non-lawyers; the first ten amendments collectively called the Bill of Rights is a charter that mostly defines substantive constitutional rights, to many our secular Ten Commandments.

Abrams offers six chapters: (1) the history of free speech and the First Amendment over the past 226 years; (2) comparison of free speech protection between America and the other Western democracies; (3) how English free speech law was explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court in a landmark decision; (4) comparison of relative protection of a right to be forgotten; (5) comparison of regulation of spending in political campaigns; (6) free speech issues that evade legislative and jurisprudential solution.

Abrams notes two emerging, divergent views on free speech protections. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his dissent as to free speech protection in the landmark 2010 Citizens United decision: The First Amendment advances not only the individuals right to engage in political speech, but also the publics interest in preserving democratic order in which collective speech matters. (Italics in original.) As rebuttal, Abrams cited Chief Justice Roberts in a later election free speech case, that the will of the majority plainly can include laws that restrict free speech. The whole point of the First Amendment is to afford individuals protection against such infringements. The case for new curbs on speech was carried further by former Harvard Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan, who identified opposing visions of free speech: one protects only such speech as is perceived to advance political equality by protecting designated rights holders; the other is negative, and bars the government from restricting speech, with a few very narrow exceptions. Sullivan supports the former, while Abrams supports the latter. Abrams follows the Framers; Sullivan, postmodern jurisprudential values.

The dominant limitation of speech from the founding into the 1920s was censorship. Only with the jurisprudence of Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis did protection of free speech, however unpopular, came to the fore. It was only in 1925 that the Frist Amendment was applied to the states; and not until 1965 NOT a misprint did the Supreme Court rely upon the First Amendment to strike down a federal statute.

Abrams is very effective in contrasting the great degree to which speech remains protected in America, versus its creeping strangulation in Europe. Prime culprits are rulings by national courts and administrative tribunals, plus pan-European international bodies. He cites several recent decisions that would not have been made on our side of the Pond. Speakers have been convicted for such offenses as calling for an end to Muslim immigration (Britain, Belgium); for putting ones country first (Britain and Belgium again); and attacking Christianity (Poland). But it is criticism of Islam that is most ferociously punished today. Dutch parliamentarian and unsuccessful candidate for prime minister Geert Wilders was convicted for giving speeches calling for an end to Islamicization in Holland. This is the steep price of multicultural political correctness.

Another landmark protection for American speakers and writers came with passage of laws preventing enforcement against Americans of libel judgments issued by European courts; militant Islamist plaintiffs had targeted authors whose works sold only a few copies overseas, suing in England rather than in the U.S., to take advantage of European speech laws. Abrams counts 23 nations in the European Union that have criminal libel laws, with 20 of them including imprisonment penalties; several have laws calling for greater punishment for libeling public officials.

In one major area even a free speech libertarian like Abrams draws at least a partial line: national security. He recounts that during the 1971 Pentagon Papers case (in which a massive archive of Vietnam war decision-making was published by the New York Times and the Washington Post) the Times withheld certain classified details. Earlier, in the 1950s the Times learned that the CIA was conducting secret reconnaissance overflights of the Soviet Union, and elected not to publish. Rampant disclosure of sensitive classified information is now close to a journalistic norm. While such may prevent abuses, which undeniably exist, they can also damage national security sources and methods regarding intelligence collection, for example.

Perhaps most dangerous of all is the growing trend towards suppressing speech by resort to mass violence. Violence is contagious, if unchecked. Democrats were silent when Madonna said on Inauguration Day that she imagined the White House exploding; when a rapper posted a video imagining President Trump being assassinated; and some even defended the profanation of a Julius Caesar Shakespeare in the Park production in which Caesar dressed as Trump was stabbed to death. Such attitudes spawn violence not only against the right. California Democrats, much to their surprise, have received death threats from members of their hardcore leftist base, warning them not to cede to President Trump on health care.

Many remember vividly the tragic and terrifying events leading up to November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was gunned down. For at least a year before that ghastly Friday of November 22, right-wing extremists had openly preached violence against the president. The contagion had spread, but a radical leftist was the assassin. Violent and hateful rhetoric, far from being tamped down, escalated though the massively destructive race riots of 1964-1968. The wave crested with the spring 1968 murders of Martin Luther King by a white racist, and of Senator Robert Kennedy by a Palestinian terrorist.

In what Abrams terms an historical irony the protections of the Bill of Rights have most often been invoked on behalf of leftist dissenters, yet it is the hardcore left that today aggressively moves to curtail such protections for speakers on the right. It was said of the French Revolution that in the end it, like the Roman deity Saturn, ultimately devoured its own children. Todays myriad leftist practitioners and the few of their ilk on the right of intellectual thuggee might do well to ponder this.

The death of free speech would mark the demise of the American republic, tossing the Constitution into historys ash heap. It would be a terrifying triumph for totalitarians everywhere. Either we let speech run free, or we let the sensitivities of listeners (and readers) delimit what we may lawfully say. To prefer the latter is to empower most those who will most vociferously impose their sensitivities to silence others. They will always be the most extreme among us. And then we will have the least freedom of speech when we need most the broadest freedom to speak.

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Free Speech 2017 At War With the Framers of 1787 - American Spectator

Writing in the New York Times Sunday Review, Professor Lisa Barrett of Northeastern University posed a question this weekend:

"When is speech violence?"

Barrett, who specializes in psychology, tries to answer the question with two key points.

First, "Offensiveness is not bad for your body and brain. ... When you're forced to engage a position you strongly disagree with, you learn something about the other perspective as well as your own. The process feels unpleasant, but it's a good kind of stress temporary and not harmful to your body and you reap the longer-term benefits of learning."

No problem there. Stress is something we can internalize and compensate for.

But then Barrett warns against "long stretches of simmering stress. If you spend a lot of time in a harsh environment worrying about your safety, that's the kind of stress that brings on illness and remodels your brain." What kind of stress is Barrett talking about?

Milo Yiannopoulos.

The professor explains that "it's reasonable, scientifically speaking, not to allow a provocateur and hatemonger like Milo Yiannopoulos to speak at your school. He is part of something noxious, a campaign of abuse. There is nothing to be gained from debating him, for debate is not what he is offering."

Conversely, Barrett says, Charles Murray is worthy of our ears because he offers meaningful debate.

In this juxtaposition of Milo and Murray, Barrett wants us to regard her argument as nuanced and intellectual.

We should not do so.

After all, there's a moral and intellectual rot at play here. While Barrett might deride Yiannopoulos as a "hatemonger" who has no interest in the exchange of ideas, his supporters clearly believe the opposite. Whether defending Donald Trump or challenging college campuses to allow controversial speakers, to them, Yiannopoulos does serve social debate.

And that speaks to the broader issue here.

At its most basic level, Barrett's argument is neither intelligent nor constructive. It is simply hyper-arrogant. The professor believes her viewpoint of stress and speakers should be a guide for all society.

The opposite is true. Indeed, Barrett is exactly why the Constitution grants such latitude to the conduct of free speech. If not, a speaker's appeal or discomfort will be viewed subjectively by each individual. The Constitution represents the truth that the more individual viewpoints exchanged, the more opportunity for worthwhile social discourse.

Barrett concludes with a call to action "we must also halt speech that bullies and torments. From the perspective of our brain cells, the latter is literally a form of violence."

Well, from the prospective of my brain cells, Barrett's argument is a form of violence. Not because it threatens me, but because its arrogant idiocy causes me painful stress.

Yet unlike Barrett, I believe freedom of speech is too important to be subjugated to my misplaced emotions.

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The latest idiotic attack on free speech: Opinions as violence - Washington Examiner

BELLE PLAINE, Minn. A veterans park in Belle Plaine became a ground zero for constitutional debate after the city created a Free Speech Zone where memorials of any religious background could be placed.

In January, a Christian memorial was removed over concerns it violated the establishment clause of the Constitution. Now, a satanic memorial is set to move in, causing protests on Saturday.

The removal of the Christian memorial by the city of Belle Plaine sparked outrage. The city cited complaints that it violated Constitutional obligations to separate church and state. Later, the memorial was returned to the park.

In February, the Belle Plaine city council voted to establish the veterans memorial park a Free Speech Zone, welcoming any religion or group to take part.

This is what we support, this is what the community supports, said one protester. And it doesnt matter if you are Jewish, Muslimwe are all Americans fighting this war together.

But, promises of inclusion were quickly put to the test. The Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts, announced a plan to install a monument of their own: a black cube with a helmet on top.

The monument is intended to honor veterans who may not be Christian.

Counter-protester Army Reserve Lieutenant Kevin Lindow told Fox 9 that he supports any memorial, regardless of religion or background. He said he does not believe in God, but did serve his country and would like the monument to be in the park.

Others at Saturdays gathering believe Constitutional protection comes with exceptions.

My thoughts are, if you are calling Satan to be on your side, you are not going to expect any blessings, Bernard Slobodnik, a protest organizer said.

There is a freedom of speech, but freedom comes at a price, as well, said one protester. They are free to believe whatever they want to, but they need to do it on their own grounds, not on public property.

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Satanic memorial sparks free speech debate in Minnesota city - Fox News

John Patrick Leary Published 11:04 p.m. ET July 16, 2017 | Updated 11:04 p.m. ET July 16, 2017

The recent flurry of activity on the crisis of campus free speech is manufactured, Leary writes.(Photo: David Guralnick / The Detroit News)Buy Photo

The Michigan Legislature, like the U.S. Senate, is a safe space for right-wing groupthink. Thats the conclusion Ive drawn from a recent flurry of activity on the manufactured crisis of campus free speech in Lansing and Washington, D.C. A pair of bills recently introduced by Sen. Patrick Colbeck would direct state universities to ensure the fullest degree of intellectual freedom and free expression, and would then require them to suspend or expel student protesters who infringe upon another persons free speech rights. Colbecks bill is similar to proposed legislation in Wisconsin, Colorado, and North Carolina. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Sen. Chuck Grassley recently concluded a Judiciary Committee hearing entitled Free Speech 101: The Assault on the First Amendment on College Campuses.

What is driving this concern with college activism? Conservatives have been in an uproar since a series of raucous protests against conservative speakers at campuses like the University of California, Berkeley, and Middlebury College in Vermont last year. In February, Milo Yiannopoulos, the disgraced former Breitbart.com editor, canceled a talk at Berkeley in the face of raucous demonstrations. The following month at Middlebury, student protesters interrupted a lecture by Charles Murray, an American Enterprise Institute Fellow and co-author of The Bell Curve, the book that argued that racial inequality is shaped by nonwhite peoples genetic makeup.

Grassley and Colbeck choose to read disruptive demonstrations like these as evidence of a pervasive crisis of free speech on campus. Grassley claimed that American colleges are becoming places of anti-Constitution indoctrination and censorship. His primary example of this dreadful development? Seventy percent of students today believe it is desirable to restrict the use of slurs and other language intentionally offensive to certain groups, he said. The First Amendment, to Grassley, protects Americans God-given right to be cruel in public. Colbeck echoes this assessment.

The Bill of Rights should be next on Colbecks summer reading list. One can argue about tactics, but Berkeley and Middlebury students had every right to loudly, disruptively, even rudely protest Yiannopoulos and Murray. The First Amendment makes no demands on politeness. And Yiannopoulos and Murray, in turn, had every right to give their lectures without state repression. But contrary to popular belief in the GOP, the First Amendment does not guarantee anyone, right or left, a platform or a polite audience.

Whats more, Colbeck seems not to recognize that the First Amendment applies to speakers he doesnt like leftist protesters, in this case as well as those he does. Senate Bill 349 stipulates that protests and demonstrations that infringe upon the rights of others to engage in or listen to expressive activity are not permitted. Violations of this vaguely-worded rule what does infringe mean? would result in either suspensions or expulsions for student demonstrators speaking out on the issues that matter to them. Under the law, student activists would have recourse to a disciplinary hearing and a lawyer if they have enough pizza money laying around to hire one, that is. Colbeck may have read 1984, but he has learned all the wrong lessons it. It is Orwellian in the extreme to propose a free-speech tribunal, presided over by college authorities, as a remedy for the suppression of free speech.

The stated reasons for the GOPs interest in regulating college campus activism dont stand up to scrutiny. What, then, are their unstated reasons?

Politics. Student activists, the clear targets of the bill, are on the left. Senate Bill 350 stipulates that universities must not shield students from protected speech, if they find the ideas and opinions expressed unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. I agree as does every faculty member I know. (Unlike Sen. Grassley, however, I dont consider racial slurs to be ideas.) But if Colbeck were serious about nurturing unpopular or controversial opinions in college, then he would be alarmed at the rise of neo-McCarthyist groups like Turning Point USA, which operates a Professor Watchlist that claims to expose and document leftist professors across the country. He would be disappointed that George Cicciarello-Maher, a Drexel University political scientist on this list, faces possible dismissal over a series of tweets that earned the ire of an right-wing outrage machine on social media.

But you will not hear a word about them, or many others like them, from Colbeck or Grassley. Conservatives, no longer content to undermine public colleges by starving them of funding, now seem to prefer that the government regulate their intellectual lives more directly all in the name of free speech, of course. And in the name of freedom of speech and thought, we shouldnt let them.

John Patrick Leary is an assistant professor of English at Wayne State University.

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Column: The manufactured free speech crisis - The Detroit News

Amanda Roley , KREM 5:46 PM. PDT July 13, 2017

SPOKANE, Wash. -- A woman is facing multiple counts of malicious harassment after court documents said she yelled racially motivated comments at her neighbors.

Court records show the cell phone video was taken of Shalisha Israel yelling things like, "You guys drug dealers or something," and "I think you might be terrorists! This is not your America! You are evil!"

PREVIOUS STORY:Woman arrested after harassing neighbors, calling them 'terrorists'

KREM 2 posted the story online and many people commented that what the woman said was not right but what about her freedom of speech?

To verify when your first amendment rights are protected and when it turns into harassment KREM 2 talked to First Amendment lawyer David Bodney.

He said the line between your freedom of speech and harassment is drawn with three exceptions to your First Amendment rights. The first is, if the statement constitutes incitement. Meaning if there is a serious risk of imminent harm, it is possible your speech can be limited. The second exception is if the speech uses "fighting words" meaning if someone continues to provoke another in close proximity using language that would cause a person to respond aggressively. The final exception, is if the speaker says a true threat, which is where the speaker communicates in a way that is a true threat to the safety of the recipient. However, Bodney said these three exceptions are fairly difficult to prove.

"There are not a lot of fighting word cases out there, and there are not a whole lot of true threat cases out there. And thought the court recognizes this notion of what constitutes incitement, it's a very difficult standard to meet," Bodney said.

Bodney adds that your first amendment right is not absolute. In the case of this woman who shouted racial remarks at her neighbors, Bodney said the video does not show any pronounced evidence of the three exceptions to free speech. Even though the first amendment could be used as a defense, Bodney said it could still go in the victim's favor.

"If the speech is annoying, alarming or otherwise meets the test of a state statute that define harassment it may well be possible to get an order to restrain that kind of speech," Bodney explains.

KREM 2 can verify there are exceptions to your first amendment rights that would classify your speech as harassment. Before you exercise those rights, make sure your speech does not include fighting words, a true threat or constitute incitement.

Help our journalists VERIFY the news.Do you know someone else we should interview for this story? Did we miss anything in our reporting? Is there another story you'd like us to VERIFY?Click here.

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Verify: When does free speech become harassment? - KREM.com

We are led to believe that standing up for the Constitution and limiting the tax burden on citizens were Republican tenets. Unfortunately, members of the Republican Party are the ones now considering to stomp on both the First Amendment and the American entrepreneur by changing the way we expense advertising costs.

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) is reportedly contemplating the adoption of former Republican Rep. Dave Camps 2014 ad tax proposal, in which commercial advertising would no longer be 100 percent deductible as a business expenseas it has been since the creation of the federal income tax. Instead, it would be 50 percent deductible, leaving the remaining to be amortized over a decade. By holding corporations money for an entire decade, this new tax would treat ads as an asset like machinery instead of as a business expense like research and wages.

I know accounting can be boring, but these are fighting words!

In singling out free, commercial speech from other business expenses, this 50/50 proposal is in clear violation of the First Amendment. After all, the reason commercial advertising has been fully deductible since the income taxs founding in 1913 is because Congress has always known that it cannot constitutionally regulate free, commercial speech by making it a dollars and cents game.

The American Revolution was largely fought over this very issue. Remember the Stamp Act of 1765? The relationship between England and the Colonies was strained already when this tax pushed it to a boiling point. The Stamp Act imposed an across-the-board flat tax on advertising. It levied a tax of two shillings per ad no matter what it was or where it was being printed. Mob violence was triggered. Stamp collectors quit in fear and the British government repealed it a year later to quell the violence, but the goose was cooked. War was on the horizon and the Stamp Act was a rallying cry for the colonists.

After the British were defeated, our Founders set up a form of government with a Constitution in which the First Amendment prevented the government from ever taxing advertising again. Freedom to advertise: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press

For centuries, the First Amendment has protected corporate advertising, which goes hand in hand with our formidable entrepreneurial spirit. Businesses must advertise to succeedin fact, advertising spending generates approximately 16 percent of the nations economic activity. Do the Republicans really want to be the party to tax that?

From Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein:

Commercial speech is protected by the First Amendment. In overturning a prohibition on legal advertising in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (1977), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that free speech includes paid advertisements or solicitations to pay or to contribute money. The Court elaborated on the consumer benefits of commercial advertising:

The listeners interest is substantial: the consumers concern for the free flow of commercial speech often may be far keener than his concern for urgent political dialogue. Moreover, significant societal interests are served by such speech. Advertising, though entirely commercial, may often carry information of import to significant issues of the day. [citation omitted]. And commercial speech serves to inform the public of the availability, nature, and prices of products and services, and thus performs an indispensable role in the allocation of resources in a free enterprise system. [citation omitted]. In short, such speech serves individual and societal interests in assuring informed and reliable decisionmaking.

A Republican-controlled Congress would go down in history as the party to regulate our First Amendment right in such a way as to extort more from the already burdened American businessmen and women.

Recently, a coalition of 124 House members, led by Reps. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to congress urging them not to mess with the current tax treatment of advertising.

Will Congress heed the warning? Only time will tell.

Steve Sherman is an author, radio commentator, and former Iowa House candidate. His articles have appeared nationally in both print and online. His most recent novel, titled Mercy Shot, can be found on Amazon or at http://www.scsherman.com

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Is Advertising Free Speech? - The American Conservative

Buffalo Business First

Did Carl Paladino engage in protected free speech? Buffalo Business First As I sit down to write this column over the Fourth of July weekend, my thoughts wander to our rights and duties as U.S. citizens and to the First Amendment's freedom of speech clause. We all know by now that Carl Paladino, developer, former ...

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Did Carl Paladino engage in protected free speech? - Buffalo Business First

Michigan is considering a pair of new bills aimed at protecting free speech after protesters have disturbed, interrupted and ended multiple debates.

Grant Strobl, thenational chairman forYoung Americans for Freedomat theUniversity of Michigan is leading the chargeto rid the campus of unfairdiscrimination against speech based on certainviewpoints,Michigan Livereported Tuesday.

The university does have the obligation to prevent students from heckling and basically taking over an event. They can protest outside or host their own event, said Strobl.

He noted that the universitys current free speechpolicyisnt bad but recommended improvements to encourageuniversities to adhere totheir policies. He said the biggest problem is that the policies arenot regularly enforced, and helped createtwobillsaimed at amending this weakness that will be presented to the Michigan State Senate. Bill 0349 and Bill 0350 are currently under consideration,according to a July 11 statement from Strobl.

Together called the campus free speech act,the billswould demand that collegesand universities allowcontroversial speakers and ideas to circulate, even those considered deeply offensive.

Freedom of speech has turned into freedom from speech said state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, lead sponsor of the legislation. Students are trying to shut down any discussion of issues that they dont agree with, he added.

The bills would applyto Michigans 15 public universities and 28 community colleges, and would require either a yearlong suspension or expulsion of students that repeatedly infringe on the speech rights of others.I think most of the provisions are effective means of encouraging us to enforce free speech polices, Strobl said.

Others, like the Michigan Association of State Universities, do not support the bills and insist thelegislation is unnecessary and duplicative.

This, to me, is typical of institutions cracking down against students that are advocating for themselves saidVikrant Garg, apublic health student and organizer of Students4Justiceat the university.This bill, and the people that make these decisionsoperate under a framework in which they can silence us and inflict violence against us with no consequences.

When a lot of students think conservative mainstream ideals equal violence, it creates an atmosphere where we cant talk to each other, Strobl said in response. Thats one of the things I was looking forward to in attending UM being able to have reasonable, civil discussion.

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University Of Michigan Considers Free Speech Protection Bills - The Daily Caller

Three pitched political rallies took place in Washington on June 25. And although all three purported to speak for the people on our most fundamental of rights, the experience of covering the rallies revealed sharply different views among the groups about the right to free speech.

There was the Freedom of Speech Rally led by white nationalist Richard Spencer at the Lincoln Memorial. There was the Rally Against Political Violence, led by Jack Posobiec and Roger Stone at Lafayette Square, and the Speak Out Against Fascism, rally headed by ANTIFA which purports to be an anti-fascist group at the Metropolitan Police Headquarters.

The speakers of the Rally Against Political Violence were going to be a part of the Freedom of Speech Rally until Spencer was allowed to speak, at which point they dropped out and formed their own rally.

Posobiec told Accuracy in Media his was not a political rally or a Trump rally, that he had invited Democrats, independents and others and that even ANTIFA would be welcome to be here peaceably.

Peace and love is why were here today, Posobiec said. We want peace. We want an end to the violence and fighting.

There were many discussions at the rally, most of them peaceable. A few became somewhat heated, but there were no calls for violence or to restrict speech.

Our crew was free to move about the rally without restrictions on who we interviewed or what we filmed. Speakers, including Posobiec and Mike Cernovich, made themselves available for interviews. And attendees seemed excited to have a chance to appear on camera and express their views.

The mood was somewhat more tense at the Rally for Free Speech, where speakers included a Jewish man with a Jews For Trump sign, outspoken white nationalists and others from the alt-right. They didnt necessarily support the same things, although they agreed on the importance of free speech.

Counter-protesters lined up on the other side of temporary barriers, and the two sides shouted obscenities and other things at each other.

At one point a shirtless counter protestor began calling the rally attendees virgins. A rally member then offered the man a Dont Tread On Me T-shirt, but the shirtless man ignored him and continued to call the attendees virgins.

This went on for some time, and a few people would breach the barriers throughout the day and shout at each other. But for the most part, it was not violent and no one tried to suppress the speech of others.

And again, we were allowed to move about freely and interview whomever we chose. Participants still generally were willing to give interviews, and no one tried to block our camera or otherwise prevent filming.

The scene at the ANTIFA rally was entirely different.

As soon as we arrived, we were met with cold, angry stares from about 50 people, most with their faces covered. We were quickly approached by the non-covered face of a woman who identified herself as the media liaison.

As the media liaison was explaining to us that this was a really where they value free speech, an ANTIFA man with a ponytail approached us and asked what news outlet we represented. When we said aim.org, he looked us up on his phone.

As soon as he reached the aim.org website, he immediately called us fascists.

The media liaison ignored the ponytailed man and said we could film on the outside perimeter as long as we arent harassing anyone. This upset the ponytail ANTIFA member, and he pulled her aside and began arguing with her.

Then, my cameraman and I attempted to film and tried to interview people on the outside perimeter. Despite following the rules the ANTIFA media liaison had laid out, we were forcefully blocked by several large ANTIFA members, and others began using the ANTIFA flags they were waving to block our camera so we could not film the rally.

No ANTIFA members beside the media liaison would talk to us. It appears as if members of the Washington D.C. ANTIFA are now split on how to deal with the media. Some welcome or at least are willing to tolerate media exposure. Others, such as the man with the ponytail, want nothing to do with it.

For now, the ponytail mans contingent holds the upper hand.

For a rally where they supposedly value free speech, there was a distinct lack of it. And the group sought neither to advocate for free expression nor to push for peace and love.

Instead, it focused on bashing police officers and America with one speaker claiming the police molest and rape protestors and the ponytail ANTIFA member, who spoke later, to say, f*ck the troops, f*ck the United States, f*ck capitalism. Its not over until America is.

Several speakers called the felony charges against Disrupt J20 protestors for their violent actions on inauguration day unfair and called for them to be dropped. Paul Kuhn, the notorious J20 organizer who plotted to plant smoke bombs inside the Deploraball and was charged with conspiracy to commit assault, attended the rally.

We know this not from our own reporting our cameras were blocked and our access severely limited throughout our time there but from a livestream of the only media outlet ANTIFA did allow.

What our cameras showed was a group with an angry message, aggressively seeking to block our views. So much for the value of free speech.

Go here to read the rest:
What Freedom of Speech Looked Like at Washington's Freedom of Speech Rallies - Accuracy In Media (blog)