Category Archives: Freedom of Speech

STATEHOUSE REPORT | ISSUE 21.30 | JULY 29, 2022

NEWS

By Samantha Connors | Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade June 24, state abortion laws, particularly in red, Southern states, changed rapidly. In South Carolina, for example, the ruling triggered a 6-week fetal heartbeat abortion ban and now, some lawmakers want a total ban.

The laws are designed to be very difficult for people to understand, said a North Carolina staffer at the two-state Carolina Abortion Fund (CAF) who wanted to be on record simply as Justine.

Right now, abortion is still legal in South Carolina, though procedures can only be performed when no fetal cardiac activity is detected, which typically begins around six weeks of pregnancy.

Six weeks is when most people dont even realize theyre pregnant, said Columbias Vicki Ringer, director of public affairs for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. Theyre late by two weeks, and for many women, depending on birth control methods, they may not have periods at all.

Many factors can cause menstrual periods to stop or become irregular birth control methods, high levels of exercise, taking certain medications all of which make it difficult to suspect pregnancy at six weeks.

The law says that every woman who wants an abortion has to have an ultrasound, even though it is not medically required for an abortion at an early stage of pregnacy, said Ringer. At six weeks, you can generally hear fetal cardiac activity through the use of a trans-vaginal ultrasound, but at six weeks, there is no heart. There are no chambers. What youre looking at is an embryo that has no measurable weight you cant even say that it weighs an ounce.

But according to current South Carolina law, an abortion would be prohibited at this point. Because of this accelerated time limit and short time frame today, womens reproductive health professionals generally recommend women seek care as soon as they suspect pregnancy, sources say.

In the past, we had people taking a little more time to raise the money that theyve needed to pay for an abortion. You know $500 is just not something most people have as disposable cash, said Ringer. Nowadays, we tell people dont wait until youve raised the money. We have abortion funds. We have amazing donors who have stepped up so that they can help these women get care earlier.

South Carolinians seeking abortion care are advised to contact Planned Parenthood South Atlantic or womens health clinics as soon as they suspect pregnancy. The health care provider will determine if the woman is eligible for an abortion in South Carolina. If not, they can help make an appointment in North Carolina, where laws permit abortion up to 20 weeks, arrange travel logistics and help with cost.

After making an appointment, women can also contact Carolina Abortion Fund, which serves North Carolina and South Carolina. The organization aids women seeking abortion care by helping with the finanical cost of the procedure and travel.

We have an active transportation network, said Justine. Well give people money for Uber; give people gas money. Well do everything we can to try and help them.

But for many women, traveling for a procedure is still unfeasible. North Carolina law requires a 72-hour waiting period between meeting with a health care provider and receiving care. This law is intended to deter women from abortion as providers are required to present patients with state-directed materials discouraging abortion.

As a result, South Carolinians traveling to North Carolina for health care must spend at least three days there. Aside from the cost of the procedure and travel, women must also take time off of work and find child care if they already have children.

South Carolina has a similar statute, requiring 24 hours between the presentation of materials about abortion and an abortion appointment.

A North Charleston resident this week spoke to Statehouse Report about her experience seeking an abortion in South Carolina seven years ago. Even then under the protection of the Roe precedent, South Carolina law still required providers to show state-directed materials.

When I went for my appointment, they brought me into a room with all these other girls that are getting one and had us watch these videos about the life process, she said. It was a legal thing. They were legally required to try to talk you out of it basically.

She said the experience felt incredibly patronizing.

Everybody in that room has thought about every single option that they possibly could probably 8 million times before they ended up there. And you dont have any privacy during it. You dont have a choice.

Theres not another medical procedure in the world that makes you do that.

What happens now for South Carolina women who are past the 6-week mark and who are unable to travel? Legally, there are no more options in South Carolina to terminate a pregnancy. But some women are turning to Plan C.

Plan C is a term for medication abortion, also known as the abortion pill, which is the preferred abortion method. About 60% of abortions are performed with medication, according to Ringer. But using or possessing the two abortion medications mifepristone and misoprostol is illegal in South Carolina past six weeks.

When a medication abortion is provided, the patient typically takes the first pill at a health care center and then takes a second pill at home. Telehealth visits for abortion care are illegal in North and South Carolina, though the FDA considers receiving abortion medication via telehealth completely safe, said Ringer.

Women who are traveling to North Carolina for abortions are eligible to receive a medication abortion under North Carolina Law, but traveling back into South Carolina with the medication does put patients at the risk of being criminally prosecuted.

You could be charged with a crime and go to jail for just possessing [those two drugs], said Ringer. If you had them and you tried to sell them to others, that would be a crime. Youd have harsher criminal penalties for possessing those pills than you would if you had pounds and pounds of hard drugs that you were distributing.

Though it is illegal, many women feel they are in a dire situation and are choosing to order these pills online. Because of medical advancements, the days of coat hanger abortions are gone, many abortion advocates say, and illegally obtaining abortion medication is a much safer option for an unlawful abortion. Abortion medication is considered safer than Tylenol and Ibuprofen.

A platform called PlanC.org provides information on obtaining abortion medication in the U.S. and through online, international pharmacies. There are risks to ordering these pills online: They are not FDA approved and obtaining them is considered illegal in South Carolina. PlanC.org orders and tests pills from the recommended sites but cannot guarantee reliability in the future according to PlanC.org.

Opting to have a self-managed abortion (or an at-home abortion with no medical professional) has risks if medical complications arise or an incomplete abortion occurs, said Justine.

This was the case for the North Charleston woman who shared her story above. After receiving a medication abortion, a blockage occured in her uterus, causing extreme bleeding as her body tried to rid itself of the fetal tissue but could not. This required extra medical attention and a surgical procedure.

I was scared. I didnt know what to do, she said. I cant even imagine if that happened to me today because I had that option at the time to, no matter how scared I was, to still go back to the doctor. Today, if the language of the legislature says it is illegal to perform an abortion after six weeks, the second procedure I had, is that legal?

Though it is rare, this scenario is one of many playing out in health care centers and hospitals across the state. Complications with abortions and wanted pregnancies are leaving doctors confused and unable to act in the patients best interest at the risk of losing their license, getting sued or even being criminally prosecuted.

With Senate bill S.1373 currently in committee in the state Senate seeking to ban all abortions without exceptions for rape, incest or medical emergencies, the situation for women may become even more difficult.

I think that being forced to carry a pregnancy you do not want to carry is cruel, unusual punishment, said Justine.

Ringer added, The most extreme legislators dont believe there should be exceptions for rape or incest. They have limited the exemptions for womens health. A woman must be near death before she can get an abortion and there are situations where there can never be a viable pregnancy.

[In some situations] women are being force to, instead of having an abortion, they must go through labor and delivery of a dead fetus. It is terrible. Its cruel at the basic level, but women are suffering because doctors hands are tied.

Samantha Connors is an editor at the Charleston City Paper, a sister publication of Statehouse Report. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com

NEWS BRIEFS

Staff reports | The Mega Millions lottery jackpot is $1 billion today. If you win during this evenings drawing, you could take home a fat check of more than $600 million. (What would you do with all of that money, anyway?)

South Carolinians reportedly went into overdrive this week ahead of the drawing for the Mega Millions lottery. This is the fourth billion-dollar lottery prize in U.S. history. You have a one in 302.6 million chance of winning the jackpot.

In other headlines:

S.C. fetal heartbeat abortion ban remians in place. A state circuit judge on Tuesday denied a request by reproductive health supporters to temporarily block a six-week abortion ban request and asked that the case head to the state Supreme Court. In what is expected to become a protracted legal battle, the ruling allows the state to continue to enforce the abortion ban. A lawsuit challenging the ban argues that it violates the state constitutions rights to privacy and equal protection.

S.C. has 16,570 new Covid cases, 9 deaths. South Carolina had an increase of more than 2,800 new cases of Covid-19 than last week, state officials reported today. Over the last week, nine people died from the virus. In related news, South Carolina now has 14 cases of monkeypox.

S.C. challenges Bidens proposed gun reform bill. South Carolina joined a 17-state coalition opposing President Joe Bidens proposed gun laws. The coalition states that the bill threatens the privacy of gun owners due to a national firearms registry.

Cunningham calls on McMaster for debates. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Joe Cunningham of Charleston has called on GOP Gov. Henry McMaster for five debates. The debates would be held in the states largest media areas, including Charleston, Columbia, Greenville and Florence/Myrtle Beach, and a statewide lieutenant governor debate.

Evette files to run for lieutenant governor. McMaster and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette made history Wednesday as South Carolinas first joint gubernatorial ticket to file for reelection. The pair have worked together since McMasters reelection in 2018, when a new law allowed for running mates. Meanwhile, Cunningham is expected to announce his running mate in Greenville Monday.

Ellis receives endorsement from top state education association. Democratic candidate for S.C. Superintendent Lisa Ellis officially received an endorsement from the South Carolina Education Association.

Boroughs sworn in as states top federal prosecutor. Adair Ford Boroughs, a Columbia attorney and former Democratic congressional candidate, was sworn in Tuesday as the states United States attorney.

Two Charleston judges being considered for S.C. Supreme Court. S.C. Circuit Court Judges Maite D. Murphy of North Charleston and Stephanie Pendarvis McDonald of Charleston are being considered for seat four in the South Carolina Supreme Court. Hearings are scheduled for Nov. 14.

S.C. guide to African American landmarks released. Spartanburg publishing company Hub City Press recently released The Green Book of South Carolina, a guide to African American landmarks in the state. The book is organized by region and features more than 200 museums, monuments, historic markers, schools, churches and public lands and includes suggested day trips for each region.

LOWCOUNTRY, by Robert Ariail

Cartoonist Robert Ariail often interprets things a little differently, but always has an interesting take on whats going on in South Carolina. Love the cartoon? Hate it? What do you think: feedback@statehousereport.com.

COMMENTARY

By Andy Brack | The mind-numbingly endless debate about abortion in South Carolina has gotten even weirder.

Radical Republicans in the legislature the very people who havent stopped talking about abortion for two decades and inject it into the legislative debate at the drop of a hat now want us to stop talking about it completely. And if we dont? We could be complicit in breaking the law.

Of course, the state Senate and then the House would have to pass a version of a bill to ban abortion that includes unconstitutional prohibitions on providing information about abortions.

The bill, S. 1373 by Sens. Richard Cash, Rex Rice and Danny Verdin, all Upstate Republicans, would make it a felony to knowingly and intentionally provide abortion information to a pregnant woman or anyone seeking information for a pregnant woman by telephone, internet or any form of communication. The proposal, now in Verdins Senate committee, also would make it a felony to host an internet website that provides abortion information.

In other words, the bill seeks to prohibit doctors from providing information to patients about how someone in South Carolina could get an abortion outside of South Carolina. But it would also prohibit anybody from sending an email or providing information on a website. And that would include any newspapers or media outlets that published stories in print or online about abortions and where people are getting them.

These guys want, in no uncertain terms, to chill our rights to free speech and my constitutional right to publish what I believe is newsworthy.

And theyre unabashed in admitting it, as one of the three said in a genial Thursday conversation.

The bill is drafted and in there for debate, said Rice, a Greenville Republicane. I would love to say you cant say anything about abortion and you cant tell anybody to go to North Carolina to get one.

But Rice also admitted the current bill likely wouldnt be passed with speech muzzles as written.

Id like to pass it that way, but do I believe it will pass that way? Probably not. But he repeated, I would like you not providing information about going to North Carolina to get one [an abortion].

When asked about the need to criminalize the news process and peoples ability to share information, Rice said, I think that is something we need to discuss in committee. Obviously that is an extreme position that myself as a cosponsor of the bill would like to address. We dont want that information provided.

Throughout a wide-ranging conversation, Rice was polite and seemed to listen carefully. He emphasized the bills proposals would be scrutinized in committee, which would take into consideration concerns about free speech and the free press.

The three of us that helped draft that bill, none of us are attorneys, Rice admitted. I think theres some stuff that obviously the [Senate] attorneys will say you cant do that, and were going to have to listen to those concerns.

But that hasnt stopped these zealots from poking the bear of free speech and free press. Its pretty amazing that in an America worried by government takeover of guns, health care or any number of issues, these very same leaders want to use the government to take away our constitutional rights of freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

They should be ashamed. How did we get to a place in America where people are using the legislative process as a hammer to talk about what they dont want us to talk about?

Now, however, the poked bear is awake. And these folks will have a hell of a battle on their hands to tell editors what they can and cant write.

And theyll also have to live with unintended consequences. Right now, for example, its completely legal to write a story about how someone in South Carolina can get an abortion somewhere else. Someone will. And Ill publish it.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper. Have a comment? Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com.

SPOTLIGHT

The public spiritedness of our underwriters allows us to bring Statehouse Report to you at no cost. This weeks spotlighted underwriter is The South Carolina Education Association(The SCEA), the professional association for educators in South Carolina. Educators from pre-K to 12th grade comprise The SCEA. The SCEA is the leading advocate for educational change in South Carolina. Educators in South Carolina look to The SCEA for assistance in every aspect of their professional life. From career planning as a student to retirement assessment as a career teacher, The SCEA offers assistance, guidance, and inspiration for educators.

FEEDBACK

To the editor:

I thoroughly enjoyed your story on the old picture. It took me down memory lane to a time when things were so simple but so influential to our development.

Your story reminded me that our lives are shaped by our ancestors in ways we dont often think about. Thanks for the reminder.

Ken Jackson, Florence, S.C.,

To the editor:

I thoroughly enjoyed your article on Saturday about your grandparents in Macon, Georgia. I have great-grandparents who were born near Macon and my father was born there. Your writing about your grandmothers cooking the biscuits made with lard and the delectable pies she made brought to mind fond memories of my maternal grandmothers cooking in York County, South Carolina. She and my grandfather were small farmers there until the 1970s when they passed.

This article touched my heart and was a refreshing departure from all of the disturbing news so prevalent today. I do appreciate, however, the thoughtful, fair-minded, unbiased articles you usually write.

Nancy Wilson

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MYSTERY PHOTO

Heres an interesting photograph taken by a reader somewhere in South Carolina. Where is this statuary and what can you tell us about it? Send your name and hometown along with your guess to feedback@statehousereport.com.

Last weeks mystery, 10:16 a.m., shows a clock in the S.C. House of Representatives. It was taken by photographer Travis Bell.

Congratulations to several readers who identified it: Susan James, Elizabeth Jones and Jay Altman, all of Columbia; David Lupo of Mount Pleasant; Allan Peel of San Antonio, Texas; and George Graf of Palmyra, Va.

>> Send us a mystery picture. If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: feedback@statehousereport.com and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.

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But now, we can use your help. If youve been thinking of contributing to Statehouse Report over the years, now would be a great time to contribute as we deal with the crisis. In advance, thank you.

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NEW for 7/29: How abortion now works in S.C., and more Statehouse Report - Statehouse Report

All Pakistani citizens are given the right to freedom of speech and expression, while there are some limitations, such as those related to the dignity of religion, rule of law, and national security. Many groups of individuals, including minorities, media, and human rights advocates, have been victimised by these limitations.

The persecuted Ahmadi community in Pakistan continues to be the target of blasphemy trials, keeping them in constant. At least 10 Ahmadi houses of worship have been vandalised this year. The reports of forced conversion of young Christian and Hindu girls are common. A parliamentary committee rejected the coerced conversion bill that the Ministry of Human Rights had proposed in October last year.

Given the situation, a thorough understanding of freedom of press must be redrafted and disseminated to the general public to prevent people from interpreting it as a license to disregard other peoples beliefs, views, and ideas.

Independent national and international observers have observed a gradual decline in peoples opportunity to exercise their constitutional right of free speech and access to knowledge over the past few months as well as a gradual narrowing of the nations space for civil and political discourse. Interestingly, a portion of this negative trend was linked to restrictions on information imposed by the state. Even though internet has given public access to platforms to express their opinions, rising polarisation in the community and the recent political instability has curbed this freedom.

Since 2018, Pakistans press and online regulatory institutions have maintained unreasonable legislative and regulatory limitations on speech and online content. The lack of laws on journalists safety has exposed them to physical, legal, and digital threats. They frequently experience online harassment for their critical and free expression.

Criminal legislation, organized efforts to harass and manipulate users, proliferating misinformation, and the random blocking and deletion of not just material but also whole social media applications have threatened peoples digital speech. The accusations against journalists were reported to the authorities in Sindh and Balochistan allegedly for promoting anti-national views.

Article 19 of the Pakistan constitution guarantees citizens the freedom of speech. The constitutional clause imposes a duty on the State to make sure that everyone can legitimately practice this right.

Article 19 of the Pakistan constitution guarantees citizens the freedom of speech. The constitutional clause imposes a duty on the State to make sure that everyone can legitimately practice this right. However, Pakistan has a dismal track record when it comes to preserving its citizens right to free speech. Public expression and press freedom in Pakistan have historically been severely restricted during protracted dictatorships. These restrictions on news and thought took on a regulatory function during democratic regimes. Criminal laws prevent people, particularly journalists and human rights advocates, from expressing their thoughts openly because they are afraid of being persecuted. The accessibility of the internet has provided people a chance to express their opinions, but more frequently, the state has begun to exercise control on internet. News networks are suspended for political reasons. The media industrys financial strains have resulted in layoffs and employment severance for media workers.

The history also reveals the oppressive laws against journalism that was in place during General Ziaul Haqs military dictatorship, as well as the three-staged resistance that the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists and the All Pakistan Newspaper Employees Confederation provided in opposition to them. Numerous working journalists participated in this rebel force by offering to be arrested voluntarily and suffering in jail. However,the bold reporters had to submit to the regime.

The military, which is Pakistans most important institution, frequently rejects accusations that it meddles in politics or the media. But according to a journalistic rights group, the Pakistan military has used force, brutality, and even terror to force journalists to practiceself-censorship. It has been using both direct and indirect means of censoring free speech. The risk of criticising the Pakistani military has increased, and a strengthened cyber-crimes statute targets journalists for trivial violations. The criticism of the nations strong security and political organisations has resulted in several journalists becoming the focus of violent attacks, while others have been interrogated, abducted, intimidated, driven off-air, or lost their jobs. The media has often been a target of militant organisations.

It is crucial that the state institutions effectively collaborate with the media persons to introduce new legislation to guarantee protection to journalists.

Read more:
Why Does The State Panic Over Free Speech? - The Friday Times

A recent investigation of eight abortion-rights supporters at American University, in Washington, D.C., offers yet more evidence that college administrators and diversity-and-inclusion bureaucratssome of whom undermine free speech as if their job duties demanded itneed new checks on their power.

This matter began in May, shortly after the Supreme Courts draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization leaked, prompting numerous law students at American to join an online chat about the impending diminution of abortion rights. One student fretted about whether conservatives would overturn other precedents conferring rights to buy contraception, or to marry a partner of the same sex or of a different race. What are they going to go after next? the student wrote. Griswold? Obergefell? Loving?

A classmate replied, As a Republican, I find it insulting that conservatives would be thought of as overturning peoples civil rights. After another classmate interjected, Can we shut the fuck up about personal opinions while people process this? the Republican student responded. I find it interesting how the call to silence our personal opinions happens after I defended my deeply-held religious beliefs and yet nobody has mentioned that same sentiment about the pro-abortion posts. The discussion was deeply offensive to both me and my Greek Orthodox faith, he declared. On a campus that adequately valued students free speech, thats where the matter would have ended, with everyone having expressed their opinion.

Instead, the offended Republican student filed a harassment complaint. Then the Office of Equity and Title IX at American sent a formal letter to eight students alerting them that all were under investigation for allegedly harassing a classmate on the basis of his political affiliation and religious beliefs, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free-speech-advocacy group that took up the accused students cause.

Conor Friedersdorf: Why I cover campus controversies

Cases like this underscore the problem with administrators, often operating within or in conjunction with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracies, who investigate speech on behalf of any complaining party no matter how weak their underlying claims. Some of the most easily offended university students in America have become adept at characterizing any speech they dislike as if it creates an unsafe, discriminatory, or hostile climate, or else constitutes harassment or even violence; and many of the accused find that being investigated in such cases is a punishment in itself.

Thats why, last month, I proposed a way to rein in such investigations: Universities should empower their faculty to check administrators and DEI staffers who undermine freedom of speech. If professorsor perhaps representatives chosen by professorscould sanction and, in extreme cases, terminate anyone who violates First Amendment rights or free-expression policies, administrators would have a powerful new incentive to avoid speech-chilling excesses. Administrators and DEI officials can, of course, be disciplined or fired by higher-ranking university bureaucrats, but they are essentially unaccountable to the scholars and students whose expression they are stifling. Faculty members are more likely than bureaucrats to understand that free speech is essential to academic freedom. On many campuses, when administrators have infringed on faculty or student rights, professorsespecially law professors steeped in First Amendment lawhave been unafraid to speak up.

Conor Friedersdorf: Professors need the power to fire diversity bureaucrats

A spokesperson at American argued in an email to me that universities are legally required to review all discririmination complaints and added that during the fact-finding process, no adverse action is taken by the university against any individuals. He went on to say that Americans Office of Equity and Title IX reviews only those matters related to a viable claim of discrimination and does not investigate matters related solely to disagreements based in speech.

But Alex Morey, a FIRE attorney who wrote to the university on the accused students behalf, lambasted Americans approach. This is absurd, he stated. Theres nothing even approaching harassment or discrimination in the chat. American cannot let its process for investigating actual discrimination and harassment be weaponized to investigate students opinions, but thats exactly whats happening. One of the accused students, Daniel Brezina, was similarly incredulous. I cant believe American is investigating us for having a frank discussion about abortion access, he said in a statement released by FIRE. This is going to have a massive chilling effect on honest discussions at the school. What good could possibly come of that? The investigation dragged into July before the students were told that they were not ultimately found responsible and would escape punishment.

Genevieve Lakier: The great free-speech reversal

When students can be investigated on the thinnest of pretexts and risk punishment for poorly defined transgressions, the safe approach is to self-censor rather than engage in exchanges on any sensitive subject. College administrators are seldom, if ever, punished for violating free-speech rights, even as they face significant incentives to expand the size and scope of their bureaucracies and to placate the aggrieved to avoid protests or negative publicity.

In recent weeks, Ive discussed my proposed solution to this problem with a variety of people in higher educationsome of whom, I should note, reject it entirely. I must disagree with the grounding premise that DEI administrators are serving to squash free speech and expression of University faculty members, Maria Dixon Hall, the chief diversity officer at Southern Methodist University, told me by email, noting that more senior administrators are typically calling the shots. She added, Inclusion is challenging to operationalize and enforce. But unfortunately, DEI Officers are made scapegoats by those on each side who feel we have too much power or not enough.

I say that the Princeton professor Robert George has it right. In an email to me, he noted that universities have rules, some of which protect free speech. University officials who violate those rules by trampling others free expression should not be exempt from punishment, he suggested.

George wrote,

Their rule-breaking should be treated no differently than the rule-breaking of faculty members, students, or anyone else in the community. Whats more, freedom of thought, inquiry, and expression are so foundational and central to the mission of universities that violations of peoples rights in this area need to be treated as extremely serious offenses subject to sanctions in line with those typically imposed on students and faculty for plagiarism, for example, or other serious acts of academic dishonesty.

At present, few institutions, if any, recognize overzealous speech investigations as serious transgressionsincluding in instances when courts rule that college administrators violated the legal rights of faculty, students, or members of the public.

Even among college professors who find the status quo unsatisfactory, there are doubts about whether empowering faculty to discipline administrators is a viable or optimal solution. Michael Behrent, a history professor at Appalachian State University, in North Carolina, believes diversity is an important goal, and that diversity officials can be useful, but that their current approach does result in efforts to undermine academic freedom. I think your basic idea is correct, namely, that there should be a mechanism for holding administrators accountable so that they respect academic freedom and free speech rights, he told me in an email. The problem is that what you propose is almost completely unrealistic in the current university environment in the US Its virtually inconceivable to imagine a modern university that would grant faculty the kind of authority you describe. I cant even imagine such a proposal lending itself to discussion. It would be rejected outright. This is not reflective of your proposal, but of the current situation in higher education.

Others feared that if my proposal were put into practice, faculty members might ally with administrators against free speech, or fail to protect free speech. Professors have incentives to avoid antagonizing the university brass. DEI officials, after all, are part of a sprawling administrative bureaucracy that, as Dan Eisenberg, a University of Washington professor, notes, has substantial powers in many different areas of campus, such as deciding where money goes to support raises, new hires, teaching assistants, research, retention, and lab space. If an administrator lies, cheats or steals, I might not want to go after them to the fullest extent the system permits, Eisenberg explains. I might get the particular administrator to have to publicly admit their wrongdoing and face some consequences, but if they or their allies stay in power, I might lose more over the long term. Many academics spend decades at the same institution.

Conor Friedersdorf: The threat to free speech, beyond cancel culture

Any effort to empower scholars against university bureaucrats would need to take account of those potential pitfalls. But all thats required to test out my approach is one institution willing to experiment, probably over the objection of administrators. In California, where I live, reform of the flagship state university system could be achieved by state legislators, the University of California Board of Regents, or a ballot initiative. I would urge the UC system to create an Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech and Expression Commission, which might be composed of, say, 15 First Amendment experts chosen by the law faculties of UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Hastings, UC Irvine, and UC Davis.

Any time administrators wanted to open an investigation into the speech of a faculty member or student based on someone elses complaint, they would need approval from the commission. Members would analyze the speech in question to determine if the speecheven if accurately described by the complainantwould nevertheless be allowed under the First Amendment or university policy. If so, the matter ends there, and administrators are denied permission to act. As Morey told me, When its painfully obvious that the only issue is a matter of students exercising their expressive rights, the only appropriate response is to stop any proceedings lest they chill speech. Even notifying students theyre being investigated for protected speech can chill them from expressing themselves in the future.

If this approach works for the UC system, other universities might well mimic it. The commission could also review complaints from faculty or students who allege that University of California administrators or staff abrogated their freedom of expression or academic-freedom rights, with any faculty member serving on the commission recusing themselves on any matter that originates on their home campus to safeguard against perverse incentives. Administrators would be subject to investigation and sanction for violating the law or policy, enjoying due process and appeals rights as strong as whatever they offer students.

Of course, any public-university system could try a similar approach. And any private college could experiment with variations adapted to its size and needs. I wish several institutions would try different experimental variations, because new threats to intellectual freedom keep emerging.

At the University of Washington, for example, the computer-science professor Stuart Reges is suing administrators, alleging that they violated his constitutional rights by encouraging faculty to include land acknowledgments in course syllabi and then punishing him when they disagreed with the viewpoint that he expressed. (Reges, who views land acknowledgments as empty and performative, wrote, I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.) If a court finds in Regess favor, wouldnt it be better if representatives of the faculty had some way to sanction the relevant administratorsas compared with a system where administrators can violate a persons rights without themselves suffering any professional consequences?

Im not suggesting that sanctioning misbehaving administrators and diversity bureaucrats should be a scholarly communitys only defense against excessive investigations. The academics whom I consulted proposed a range of alternative or complementary measuressuch as faculty unionization and the careful cultivation of ties with the press and First Amendment lawyersby which professors can at least protect their own academic freedom and at best promote a broader culture of free expression.

Do professors want to be newly empowered, or continue ceding control over the university to administrators? That, to me, is the biggest question about the approach I propose: not whether faculty could eventually win a fight to wield some check on free-speech violations by administrators, but rather, whether faculty care enough to claw back power. When it comes to free speech, do enough members of the professoriate care to do the work?

Link:
How to Fix the Bias Against Free Speech on Campus - The Atlantic

Like most rules, free speech rules are better when shorter. The ideal would be one sentence, which says You can say what you like. The University of Oxfords statement on the importance of free speech does not go that far, but what it does say is pretty robust: Recognising the vital importance of free expression for the life of the mind, a university may make rules concerning the conduct of debate but should never prevent speech that is lawful.

But it seems not everyone likes this liberal approach. The Telegraph reports that a group of five Oxford colleges has banded together to create something called the Oxford Free Speech Forum, which is currently trying to rewrite Oxfords free-speech principles. And tellingly, it is doing so at the same time as the government prepares to pass its Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which aims to prohibit censorship on campuses. According to the Telegraph, the forum, which has already held two meetings this year, wants to replace Oxfords commitment to free speech with a framework to effectively and respectfully tackle difficult discussions on issues such as race and gender.

The forum is being led by David Isaac, provost of Worcester College and former chair of LGBT+ charity Stonewall. At the inaugural meeting of the forum in March, a recording of which the Telegraph has obtained, Isaac is alleged to have said that he does not recognise the description of left-leaning universities as places that censor or discourage open discussion. Nor, apparently, does he see the need for freedom of speech to be imposed upon universities, as per the governments Free Speech Bill.

Isaacs alleged denial of a free-speech crisis in universities is reminiscent of that phrase attributed to Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan in the middle of the Winter of Discontent: Crisis? What crisis?

It is virtually impossible to deny with a straight face that there is a free-speech problem at universities. We have seen numerous cancellations of speakers and events; the internal and external regulation of lawful speech on campus; the distortion of the syllabus to respect religious sensitivities; university administrations taking political sides on contentious issues; a university starting disciplinary action against a student for saying that women are born with vaginas; and attempts by activists to intimidate a feminist professor to the point where she needed a bodyguard in lectures. There is so much more where all that came from.

I have attended conferences on the Gender Recognition Act that have had to be held in secret locations on university premises, unadvertised, with a closed guest list. I have met academics who live in daily fear of violence for expressing a widely held scepticism about Stonewall and their universities do nothing to protect them. I know of 18-year-olds being ostracised within weeks of starting at university because someone dug up something they had written questioning this or that orthodoxy. All of this is happening in universities in Britain today.

Isaac argues against the Free Speech Bill on the grounds that universities do not want or need free speech imposed upon them. But the bill is not about imposing free speech on universities it is about protecting the free speech of individual academics and students. This ought to be the job of university authorities, but they are just not stepping up at the moment, hence the government has intervened.

There is a simple way for every vice-chancellor in the country to stop anything from being imposed on their universities by the Free Speech Bill. All they need to do is stop the McCarthyite persecution of people on campus who hold the wrong views for instance, those women who dare to say that biological sex is real, something which seemed obvious to everyone until about 15 minutes ago.

Another speaker at the first meeting of the Free Speech Forum in March is reported to have said that free speech is not always a sincere expression of trying to expand thoughtful consideration about the world weve inherited and can often act to preserve existing power structures.

That is true. Not everyone is engaged in thoughtful consideration about the world weve inherited. Some do indeed say and write shocking things to draw attention to themselves. But this is hardly an argument against free speech. Nor is the argument that free speech can be used to preserve existing power structures. Of course free speech can be used to support, say, the power of the state to enforce lockdown. But free speech is also the principal means by which we can challenge power. As Ira Glasser, the former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, once observed: The real antagonist of speech is power.

There will always be speech in defence of existing power structures. But speech that opposes these power structures can only exist when and where it is free. That is why academics, perhaps especially those who claim to be standing up to power, must defend free speech at any cost.

Arif Ahmed is a lecturer in philosophy at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

To enquire about republishing spikeds content, a right to reply or to request a correction, please contact the managing editor, Viv Regan.

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Universities are in denial over the free-speech crisis - Spiked

As a political liberal and civil liberties crusader since my student days in the 1960s and 70s, I have long defended freedom of speech across the ideological spectrum. I continue to adhere to the longstanding liberal principle that Evelyn Beatrice Hall famously formulated in her 1906 biography of Voltaire, and which the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently enforced since the 1960s as the viewpoint neutrality principle: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Or, as Oscar Wilde spun it: I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make anass of yourself.

Liberals like me have long assumed that political and classical liberalism go hand-in-hand, and that for those of us on the political left, support for free speecheven for the thought that we hate, in Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famous phraseis a defining value, or at least a more important value than it is for those on the right. After all, former Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, arguably the courts most influential liberal in modern history, hailed the viewpoint neutrality principle as the First Amendments bedrock.

Yet in recent times, as were all well aware by now, this core tenet has come under heavy fire from left-leaning individuals and groups, including student activists, academics, journalists, cultural leaders, and Democratic politicians, many of whom have advanced the argument that words can be a form of violence itself. The question is: What accounts for this shift? Why has the political and cultural left in Americaof which I understand this magazine to see (or have seen) itself as a partappeared to turn so decisively against the First Amendment?

Perhaps its best to begin by considering whether this is such a new phenomenon after all. In 1992, the liberal journalist Nat Hentoff, a longtime Village Voice columnist, wrote the aptly titled book Free Speech for MeBut Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, demonstrating that the differences between the American left and right concerning free speech were almost never over whether speech should be censored, but only about which speech should be censored. Hentoffs book resonated deeply with me at the time, and has continued to do so, since it reflects my own long-standing experience in various leadership roles at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In 1977-78, when the ACLU defended the free speech rights of neo-Nazis in Skokie, Illinois, whose population included many Holocaust survivors, our position was opposed in the courts by another organization that had typically been our ally: the Anti-Defamation League. Even a full 15% of ACLU members at the time resigned their membership in protest. Also in the late 1970s, so-called radical feminists began advocating government restrictions on pornography, the term they used for sexual expression that is demeaning or degrading to women.

Starting in the 1980s, many liberals sought to restrict several types of controversial language in popular media, stressing child-protection rationales. Tipper Gore, for examplethen-wife of then-Sen. Al Gore, D-Tenn., and mother to an 11-year-old daughter who had acquired a copy of Princes Purple Rainspearheaded regulation of music lyrics that were deemed violent or sexist, leading to the now-ubiquitous Parental Advisory labels known as Tipper Stickers. Democratic lawmakers around this time also sponsored measures to restrict depictions of violence on television, and soon after access to the internet became widespread, the Clinton administration championed a law that criminalized indecent and patently offensive online expression. In 1997, after the conservative Rehnquist court overturned these key provisions of the 1996 Communications Decency Act on First Amendment grounds, the prominent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams wrote a blistering New York Times Magazine article titled Clinton vs. the First Amendment, concluding that it has become the norm, not the exception, for Clinton Administration lawyers to find themselves minimizing First Amendment interests and defending laws or policies that maximize threats to free expression.

Liberal advocacy of wide-ranging restrictions on expression about sex or gender on the rationale that it constitutes sexual harassment is another old story. Likewise, since the 1980s, many liberals have advocated campus hate speech codes that are invariably too broad, punishing and chilling all manner of expression about various categories of personal and group identity. Furthermore, in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many liberals in government and civil society have supported restrictions on extremist or terrorist speech, whose inevitably vague contours have actually had negative human rights repercussions, including by making it difficult for human rights activists to accurately document terrorist atrocities.

Nor has it been the case that the more politically liberal an administration is, the more it respects the freedom of the press, as indicated by the Clinton administrations record. In 2013, in response to revelations that the Obama Justice Department had secretly seized the phone records of a large number of journalists for The Associated Press and the chilling effect of the Obama administrations leak investigationsincluding the ramped-up criminal prosecution of those who provide information to the press, then-Public Editor of The New York Times Margaret Sullivan charged the Obama administration with unprecedented attacks on a free press.

Given this historywhich of course is the mirror image of an equally extensive history on the political rightshould we be surprised that todays political left is determined to censor disinformation, extremism, and hate, and to advance the belief that offensive language is the same as not only violent language, but also physical violence ?

Lets examine the words are violence phenomenon a little more closely, as it appears to be increasing in salience and influence on the left, perhaps posing even more of a threat to a robust free speech culture than right-wing attempts to shut down speech that conservatives deem hateful to, for example, American history, traditional values, or certain religious holidays. While these attacks from the right are generally reflected in government policies, which are therefore vulnerable to First Amendment challenges, the cultural pressures that shapeand limitdiscourse in academia, journalism, and other key private sector institutions are not subject to First Amendment constraints.

read more by nadine strossen

In the 1980s, as I said, left-leaning professors and students on U.S. college campuses launched the movement for campus hate speech codes, which sought to punish individually targeted racist slurs. Similarly, in the same time period, radical feminists sought to legally equate the depiction of sexual violencefor example, in works of art and journalismwith real sexual violence in the physical world. In the intervening decades, these initiatives have expanded in both support and scope. Today, accusations of hate speech and violent speech shut down even good-faith discussions of public policy options that are deemed inconsistent with the perceived consensus at that moment, even if such consensus is neither broadly held nor static. Worse yet, individuals who are accused of engaging in such expression have been fired from positions in culturally influential fields such as academia, journalism, and publishing, suppressing their speech across the board with literally incalculable chilling impacts on the speech of countless others.

Even though courts have consistently enforced the cardinal viewpoint neutrality principle to bar official suppression of ideas solely on the ground that any listeners consider them hateful or violent, powerful private sector forcesincluding social media mobshave been increasingly successful in suppressing disfavored ideas by invoking the false and dangerous equation between free expression and physical violence. This strategy has prevailed on many college campuses, where free speech is especially important, given the special truth-seeking and educational missions of universities. Surveys consistently show that substantial majorities of American college students and faculty members now engage in self-censorship across a spectrum of important political topics, both in the classroom and in social settings, to avoid the risk of retaliation.

Because many campus communities skew overwhelmingly liberal or progressive, and because progressive views tend to disproportionately dominate fields that favor workers with academic degrees, self-censorship is particularly acute among nonprogressives: conservatives, libertarians, moderates, the politically indifferent, and even old-style liberals. Empirical evidence confirms, moreover, that fears of retaliation are rational, given numerous documented instances of retaliatory measures ranging from social ostracism, to online and in-person bullying, to the denial of extracurricular leadership positions, recommendation letters, and career opportunities. Many left-leaning members of campus communities explicitly admit (or boast) that they would deny employment and other professional opportunities to academics with conservative views about public policy issues.

Beyond encouraging self-censorship, much of the political left has also embraced more coercive modes of censorship. Contrary to important free speech principles, the hecklers veto has become a favored tool for suppressing disfavored ideas or expression in many campus contexts, ranging from student newspapers to guest speaker presentations.

When a speaker conveys ideas that some audience members find offensive, no rights have been violated. Nor have any rights been violated when some audience members nondisruptively protest by conveying ideas that are offensive to the speaker and to other audience members. But disruptive protests, which effectively veto the event, violate both the speakers right to convey information and ideas and the listeners right to receive them.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), on whose Advisory Board I serve, recently published a compilation of reported campus cancellation incidents targeting faculty members between 2015 and 2021. FIRE documented a total of 563 attempts to sanction faculty members for expression that was constitutionally protected but controversial in the campus community. In a full two-thirds of these cases, the faculty member was subject to some form of punishment; in one-fifth of cases the faculty member was fired; and most alarmingly, 30 tenured professors were fired for constitutionally protected speech. Of the total number of documented incidents, FIRE reports that 345 (61%) involved the expression of views that were suppressed by individuals and groups to the left of the targeted faculty member. Notably, the evidence indicated that a significant number of these 345 incidents may well have targeted liberal views espoused by liberal professors, which were attacked by campus factions even further to the left. As the FIRE report stated: [W]e think a significant number of these incidents involve a scholar who identifies as somewhat or slightly liberal being targeted by those who identify as very or extremely liberal. Furthermore, a substantial number of the total documented incidents202, or 35%targeted the expression of views that were suppressed by those to the right of the targeted faculty member.

People concerned about such developments are frequently told that cancel culture isnt real, or at least that it is grossly exaggerated. The FIRE numbers refute these claims while helpfully underscoring that the political left has far less of a monopoly on cancel culture than is typically understood. This evidence demonstrates that the viewpoint neutrality principle continues to serve as an essential safeguard for all people and persuasions, including those on the left. Contrary to prevalent left-leaning rhetoric, free speech is far more than a right-wing fig leaf for hate or violence, even if in certain cases it might be opportunistically exploited as such.

Every movement now considered progressiveabolition, womens suffrage, gender equality, reproductive freedom, labor rights, social democracy, civil rights, opposition to war, LGBTQ+ rightswas at one time supported only by a minority, and viewed as dangerous or worse. Unsurprisingly, many of these movements only began to flourish and progress toward the previously unattainable goal of majority consensus after the Supreme Court started to strongly enforce the free speech guarantee (including the core viewpoint neutrality principle) in the second half of the 20th century. The lesson many on the left seem to have forgotten is that in a democracy, there is a constant danger that minority groupswhether defined by identity, ideology, or otherwisewill be subject to the tyranny of the majority. The specific purpose of the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendments free speech guarantee, is to ensure that the majority cannot deny basic rights to any minority, no matter how small or unpopular. Powerful people and popular ideas dont need First Amendment protections; marginalized people and unpopular ideas do. The resulting beneficiaries are not only the exponents of ideas that are unpopular in their time and place, but also our overall society. As George Bernard Shaw observed more generally, All great truths begin as blasphemies.

Leaders of every equal rights movement in U.S. history have testified to the essential role that free speech played in advancing their cause. In 1860, Frederick Douglass famously declared that Slavery cannot abide free speech. Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the South. The great civil rights champion and longtime Georgia Congressman John Lewis memorably commented that Without freedom of speech, the Civil Rights Movement would have been a bird without wings. In 2019, law professor Dale Carpenter, a prominent champion of LGBTQ+ rights, wrote that [T]he First Amendment created gay America [G]ay cultural and political institutions ... would have been swept away in the absence of a strong and particularly libertarian First Amendment. No other [constitutional right] helped us more.

Powerful people and popular ideas dont need First Amendment protections; marginalized people and unpopular ideas do.

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To this day, advocates for equal rights and social justice are subject to censorial measures that seek to stifle their free expression. Government officials in the United States and other Western democracies have been enforcing many measures to curb the free association rights of peaceful protesters, and police have deployed speech-suppressive tactics, including unjustified force and arrests. Multiple U.S. states have imposed restrictions on K-12 and campus curricula concerning race and gender, and public schools and libraries have been subject to record levels of book bansin many cases targeting books by and about Black and LGBTQ+ Americans. Fortunately, free speech advocates have been mounting strong legal challenges to these repressive measures, but this is only thanks to the same robust free speech principles that also protect the expressive rights of people with opposing views.

It should therefore go without saying that any argument in favor of censorship, in addition to being questionable on the basis of principle, is strategically unwise. Every pro-censorship argument currently being made by the left and the right can and will be coopted by the other side once it has or regains sufficient power. In the 1980s, right-wing crusaders against sexual expression they viewed as inconsistent with traditional family valuesincluding speech in favor of feminism, reproductive freedom, and LGBTQ+ rightsopportunistically parroted the rhetoric of the radical anti-pornography feminists who were also active at that time; the Meese Pornography Commission under President Ronald Reagan bolstered its calls to censor sexual expression by invoking the radical feminists claims that certain sexual expression leads to discrimination and violence against women. Today, conservative Republican school boards, state legislatures, and governors are enacting laws that ban teaching about such vital topics as race and gender on the grounds that it might be divisive or make students uncomfortable. What progressive in good conscience could not recognize that this censorial rhetoric and rationale has deep roots in their own movement?

Cherian George, a fellow free speech scholar and advocate who was born in Singapore and teaches in Hong Kong, has discussed with me what he considers the bizarre phenomenon of the American lefts eagerness to suppress or punish speech. In 2018, after he spent three months teaching a seminar on censorship to Ph.D. students at the University of Pennsylvania, Georges conclusion was that members of the American left ... take the countrys freedoms for granted. As he commented:

Given the assaults against free speech that progressives suffer even in America, this is a risk they cant afford to take either.

Continued here:
Who Really Benefits From the First Amendment? - Tablet Magazine

The regulating of social media after the future Chief Justice of India Surya Kant was criticised for indicting former BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma for her blasphemous statements of the holy Prophet of Islam is a direct outcome of vituperative speech. The apex court bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and J B Pardiwala refused to club all the FIRs registered against Nupur Sharma and told her to approach the high courts, observing she did not even respect the magistrates by directly approaching the Supreme Court.

Advocates and activists who support Nupur Sharma have committed contempt of the Supreme Court by attributing motives to Justice Surya Kant and approaching the Chief Justice of India N V Ramana to have Justice Surya Kants oral remarks expunged without realising that judges have absolute freedom to say what they want within their courtrooms.

The first amendment of the US Constitution is the exact opposite of the first amendment to the Indian Constitution, because it guarantees absolute free speech to all citizens and the media whereas in India, Jawaharlal Nehru added public order, incitement to an offence and friendly relations with foreign states to the then existing five restrictions of defamation, contempt of court, security of the state, sovereignty and integrity of India and decency and morality.

This further curtailed free speech, which is necessary because unbridled freedom can be abused by the likes of Nupur Sharma and Canada-based filmmaker Leena Mahamekalai who has depicted the Goddess Kali with a cigarette. Articles 19 (1) (a) which guarantees free speech and Article 25 which guarantees the right to practice, profess and propagate any religion supplement each other because you cannot propagate any religion without exercising freedom of speech and expression. Our founding fathers borrowed the idea of the right to free speech from the Irish Constitution and the rest of the fundamental rights from constitutions such as the U.S. and French Constitutions.

Justice Surya Kants indictment of Nupur Sharma for creating turmoil in India is justified because 12 countries belonging to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) have blasted India for alleged Islamophobia. Kuwait immediately removed Indian goods from its shelves in its supermarkets, whereas a tailor, Kanhaiya Lal was beheaded at Udaipur in Rajasthan on June 28 and a chemist, Umesh Kolhe, was earlier stabbed to death at Amravati in Maharashtra for forwarding posts about Nupur Sharma.

To go back to 1950, two weeks after the Constitution came into force, two magazines, Cross Roads and the RSS-backed Organiser published inflammatory articles and were banned from being circulated in Madras and Delhi respectively. The Supreme Court struck down these bans. In 1950, the founder of the Jan Sangh, Syama Prasad Mookherjee had reportedly delivered a speech that Pakistan wanted war with India and to reunify the two partitioned countries into an Akhand Bharat (reunified India), war was necessary.

The then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru asked Lokmanya Tilak what action could be taken to which Tilak replied that Mookherjee enjoyed freedom of speech which could not be curtailed under the existing restrictions. A Patna high court judge, Justice Sarjoo Prasad, declared in his judgment in 1950 known as the Shaila Bala Devi case that even incitement to murder was protected by Article 19 (1) (a). But the Supreme Court later reversed this ominous verdict, stating Justice Sarjoo Prasad showed a lack of understanding of the law.

These were the reasons for Nehru to introduce the irrational head of friendly relations with foreign states with two other headsincitement to an offence and public orderbecause Pakistan had protested against Mookherjees speech of an Akhand Bharat. The irrational head of friendly relations with foreign states does not find place in any other Constitution of the world. When Nehru criticised Justice Vivian Bose as lacking in intelligence during a press conference in 1951 for a judgment which he (Nehru) found repugnant, he later wrote to the then CJI apologising for it. The CJI wrote back accepting the apology and asking if Nehrus letter could be released to the media. Nehru acquiesced.

The point here is that freedom of speech can be abused by the likes of Nupur Sharma and film-maker Leena Manimekalai in Canada. Sharma denigrated the holy Prophet whereas Leena showed Kali smoking a cigarette. What is astounding is that an advocate of the apex court wrote to the CJI asking for Justice Surya Kants remarks against Nupur Sharma to be expunged because what she said was based on the hadith; ipso facto, her statements were truthful.

Religion and reason are incompatible because there is something irrational in every religion but if any religion is denigrated, it will give rise to unrest and fragmentation of the country. Judges do not deliver judgments based upon public opinion or vox populi, meaning the voice of the people, which is quite often unreasonable and fuelled by media debates. Judges have to strictly uphold the Constitution whereas the legislature enacts laws based upon public sentiment. The judiciary is charged with striking down laws which violate the fundamental rights.

We demand freedom of speech to compensate for freedom of thought, which we seldom use while abusing free speech.

Dr Olav Albuquerque holds a PhD in media law and is a senior journalist-cum-advocate of the Bombay High Court

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Legal Eagle: Is free speech abused to flout others rights? - Free Press Journal

Freedom of speech is at risk of being stifled on campuses after a record number of speakers and events were rejected last year, the universities watchdog has warned.

The Office for Students found that nearly 200 requests for events and speakers were rejected by English universities and colleges in 2020-21, up from 94 in the previous academic year.

Susan Lapworth, the watchdogs interim chief executive, said she was concerned about the possibility that lawful views are being stifled.

She warned universities that they would face regulatory intervention if they failed to meet their obligations on freedom of speech.

Topics that some may find offensive or controversial must be open to free debate on campuses and across research communities, she said.

The vice-chancellor of the University of Essex apologised last year after a seminar on trans rights and the criminal justice system was cancelled following complaints that the speaker was a transphobe who was likely to engage in hate speech.

The university was also criticised after Prof Rosa Freedman, an expert in international human rights law at the University of Reading, was not invited to speak at a seminar on anti-Semitism after concerns were raised about her gender-critical views.

Andrea Jenkyns, the higher education minister, said the watchdogs findings were very concerning.

She said: Universities and colleges must be places that champion debate and diversity of thought, and this government has warned of the chilling effect of censorship on our campuses.

Under proposals in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill currently going through Parliament, universities will have a legal duty to actively promote free speech. University governing bodies are currently required to take reasonable steps to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is maintained.

The Office for Students, which has the power to fine or deregister education providers, said it could not confirm whether it has previously penalised any universities over their handling of freedom of speech because it would risk prejudicing ongoing enquiries.

The regulator found that 193 events were rejected out of a total of 19,407 reported to it last year, the highest number recorded since it started collecting data in 2017.

Toby Young, of the Free Speech Union, said: This is a deeply worrying trend, but its just the tip of the iceberg.

In the past 12 months, the Free Speech Union has helped hundreds of students and academics whove got into trouble for pushing back against ideological orthodoxy on campus, whether its refusing to do unconscious bias training, criticising their universitys links with Stonewall, objecting to the decolonisation of the curriculum, or daring to point out that George Floyd had a criminal record.

Undergraduates are significantly less supportive of free expression than they were six years ago, according to research by the Higher Education Policy Institute.

The think tank surveyed 1,000 undergraduates and found that 61 per cent say when in doubt, their own university should ensure all students are protected from discrimination rather than allow unlimited free speech up from 37 per cent in 2016.

A spokesman for Universities UK said: Institutions do all they can to ensure a culture which encourages free speech and academic freedom so diverse groups and individuals can participate in debate and discussion, with mutual dignity and respect.

Vice-chancellors support universities playing a more active and visible role in promoting free speech and encouraging debate, and these latest figures show that universities and student unions continue to host tens of thousands of events each year, with less than one per cent not going ahead, often for logistical reasons such as late booking requests.

The rest is here:
Free speech 'stifled' as universities cancel record number of speakers - The Telegraph

Following Boris Johnsons resignation, the Conservative Party stands at a crossroad.

We have serious decisions to make about the future of our Party and our country. This will be one of the most important leadership elections in modern times. And it presents huge opportunities for a return to our values, including the protection of individual freedoms that are so often threatened by the excessive growth of the state. We have to make sure we take those chances.

The Commons is this afternoon debating a Bill, the Online Safety Bill, that is in parts wholly out of step with our tradition of protecting and promoting freedom of speech. I have long said, this Bill is a censors charter. Among the main reasons for this are the provisions in the Bill regarding so called legal but harmful expression.

Under the legislation, the Secretary of State will be granted the power to designate categories of speech as harmful, which social media companies will then have to deal with on their sites.

The Government insists this will not put us on a path to censorship. In fact, it claims that the Bill will actually strengthen free speech. But when legal speech is designated as harmful by the state, we all know what social-media firms will do. They will err on the side of censorship, not least because the Government could slap them with huge fines or even prison sentences if they do not.

As Conservatives, we should wholeheartedly oppose a two-tier speech system, where the public may be prohibited from saying things online that are lawful to say offline. The authoritarian and arbitrary distinction of legal but harmful speech is an attack on freedom and is as unConservative as it is unBritish.

Like many politicians and commentators, I know what it is like to be on the receiving end of online censorship.

Last year, I made a speech at Conservative Party Conference. My speech, which focused on the potential impact of vaccine passports on peoples rights, actively praised the COVID-19 vaccine. Yet despite this, the video was censored on YouTube, which claimed - bizarrely - that it went against expert consensus, whatever that meant.

I pored over my speech and found nothing inaccurate in my remarks, which almost solely focused on public-policy issues. YouTube relented and let the video go back up. But the episode served as yet another example as if any more were needed - of social-media companies attitude to free speech.

The current trajectory of the Bill threatens to compound the situation by bringing the state in as the enforcer of online censorship. It grants an enormous amount of executive power to the state in an entirely undemocratic way.

There will nothing to stop future Secretaries of State from using their powers to lean on intermediaries to remove speech they dislike. Indeed, the only scrutiny any Secretary of State will face when designating content harmful will come from a heavily whipped Delegated Legislation Committee.

Think about it: a future Secretary of State it could even be a Labour MP - with the power to effectively ban political content they do not want online. What would it have been like to go through the Brexit debates with that kind of infrastructure in place? It does not bear thinking about.

The Bill needs serious improvement in order to protect the civil liberties we hold so dear. Most importantly, it should not grant powers to the state to designate categories of free speech as legal but harmful.

Additionally, the Bill should not allow for the compromising of privacy on encrypted platforms like WhatsApp. We have the right to communicate without the Government spying on our every interaction.

Online safety is important to all of us. That is why I think we should make it a criminal offence to post content that encourages suicide or self-harm. We should do that under primary legislation, properly debated and challenged by the whole House of Commons.

But we must not compromise liberty under the guise of protection. Right now, the balance of the Bill is all wrong and it could end up being the biggest accidental curtailment of free speech in modern history.

The cut and thrust of a leadership contest will allow us to debate these issues and at least one of the leadership candidates has identified the Bill as being in need of reform. So as the Online Safety Bill returns to Parliament today, let us take the opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to protecting freedom of speech and radically reform the legislation.

We may not get another chance.

Rt Hon David Davis MP served as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union and was previously Shadow Home Secretary

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The Online Safety Bill could lead to the biggest curtailment of free speech in modern history - The Telegraph

Jessica Cruz, Twinkle Dont Blink

by FIRE

SEATTLE, July 13, 2022 When Professor Stuart Reges challenged the University of Washingtons position on land acknowledgements, administrators punished him, undermining his academic freedom. Today, backed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Reges sued the university to vindicate his First Amendment right to express his opinion even if it differs from the party line.

Colleges increasingly promote land acknowledgment statements that recognize indigenous ties to the land on which a college sits. On a list of syllabus best practices, UWs computer science department encourages professors to include such a statement and suggests using language developed by the universitys diversity office to acknowledge that our campus sits on occupied land. The fact that the statement could be adapted seemed clear until Reges wrote one that administrators did not like.

University administrators turned me into a pariah on campus because I included a land acknowledgment that wasnt sufficiently progressive for them, said Reges. Land acknowledgments are performative acts of conformity that should be resisted, even if it lands you in court. I am pleased that FIRE joined with me to fight back against University of Washingtons illegal viewpoint discrimination.

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On Dec. 8, 2021, Reges criticized land acknowledgment statements in an email to faculty, and on Jan. 3, he included a modified version of UWs example statement in his syllabus: I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington. Regess statement was a nod to John Lockes philosophical theory that property rights are established by labor.

On Jan. 4, the director of the computer science department, Magdalena Balazinska, ordered Reges to immediately remove his modified statement from his syllabus, labeling it inappropriate and offensive, and declaring that it created a toxic environment in the course. Reges refused because Balazinskas demand was viewpoint discriminatory other computer science professors included their own land acknowledgments on their syllabi. But UW did not investigate or punish them because those statements, unlike Regess, were consistent with the universitys viewpoint.

The university launched an official investigation into Reges for allegedly violating UWs unconstitutionally overbroad harassment policy. This investigation has now dragged on for over four months. Balazinska also created a competing section of Regess course (featuring pre-recorded lectures by another professor) so students wouldnt have to take a computer science class from someone who didnt parrot the universitys preferred opinions.

Its ironic that a university whose motto is let there be light would shepherd students into a shadow course to shield them from a professors opinion, said FIRE attorney Katlyn Patton. If UW encourages professors to take a political stance on their syllabi, it cannot punish those professors who diverge from the schools pre-approved stance. At UW, the message to faculty is clear: Toe the party line or say goodbye to your students.

As a public institution bound by the First Amendment, UW must uphold its professors right to free speech and cannot discriminate against them based on viewpoint. UW is free to encourage its faculty to include land acknowledgment statements in their syllabi, and even to suggest examples, but it may not mandate that they either use only approved statements or remain silent on the issue under threat of discipline.

UW ignored FIREs demands that the university protect the expressive freedoms of its faculty members.

UW accused Reges of creating a toxic environment, but the university is poisoning the free exchange of ideas, said FIRE attorney Josh Bleisch. Were taking UW to court so that Reges and other faculty can share their views on important issues without fear of reprisal.

Robert A. Bouvatte, Jr. of Robert A. Bouvatte, PLLC is serving as local counsel for the lawsuit.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nations campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.

CONTACT:

Katie Kortepeter, Media Relations Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org

Continued here:
LAWSUIT: Professor sues University of Washington after admins punish him for 'inappropriate' opinion - Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

KANSAS CITY, Mo., July 14, 2022 A student expelled from Kansas City Art Institute for retweeting sexual art won their appeal Tuesday, notching a victory for free expression. KCAI reversed the expulsion decision against student Ash Mikkelsen after a demand from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

When we have an art school investigating and punishing students for their artistic expression, we have a real problem, said FIRE program officer Sabrina Conza. Ash should have never had their academic future threatened because an art school didnt like the type of art they shared on their personal social media account.

Mikkelsen retweeted sexually explicit Japanese-style cartoons, known as hentai, on their personal, pseudonymous Twitter account. Allegedly, the art institute investigated Mikkelsen for sexual harassment in response to the complaint of another student, who found the account and told administrators about the images. Though Mikkelsen did not tag anyone from the university community in their Twitter posts or send messages related to the account to anyone , KCAI expelled Mikkelsen for their artistic expression and banned them from ever re-enrolling.

Im relieved that the school has recognized its mistake and rectified its actions, Mikkelsen said. Knowing that standing up for free expression will now allow other students to consume fictitious content without fearing punishment is icing on the cake.

KCAI attempted to justify investigating and then expelling Mikkelsen for non-Title IX hostile environment sexual harassment under its Student Code of Conduct. However, KCAI does not define sexual harassment under that code. Its patently unfair and unlawful to punish students under indefinite disciplinary standards. Moreover, Mikkelsens retweets dont come anywhere close to meeting the legal definition of sexual harassment.

As a private university, KCAI is not bound by the First Amendments protections for free speech. But KCAIs policies, which the college is morally and contractually required to uphold, state that the school is committed to freedom of expression, supports the rights of the campus community to engage in free speech and open assembly, and values intellectual and artistic curiosity together with critical and creative inquiry.

The school first notified Mikkelsen of the investigation into their Twitter account on June 15 and met with Mikkelsen the same day to discuss the investigation. On June 29, Mikkelsen again met with Assistant Dean of Students Joe Timson, who told Mikkelsen that they would be expelled for violating the Student Code of Conduct. Mikkelsen was not given an adequate chance to contest the allegations prior to the university imposing the most severe penalty possible.

KCAI gave Mikkelsen five business days to appeal the finding, which they did on July 6, with the assistance of FIRE Legal Network attorney Ted Green.

Im glad telling KCAI to van Gogh to hell resulted in Ash being cleared, Conza said. While KCAIs decision to overturn Ashs expulsion was correct, it should not have taken FIREs advocacy and an attorney to reach that conclusion. Unfortunately, the schools actions will have a chilling effect far past Ash to other students who fear punishment due to the nature of the art they create or share.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nations campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.

CONTACT:

Katie Kortepeter, Media Relations Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org

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VICTORY: Art institute reverses expulsion for student who retweeted sexual art - Foundation for Individual Rights in Education