In the News
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Judge orders Francis Howell officials to stop censoring name of parents’ PAC at board meetings
By Jack Suntrup
A federal judge in St. Louis on Thursday told the Francis Howell School District to stop preventing speakers at its board meetings from mentioning a parents’ political action committee often opposed to district policies.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark issued a preliminary injunction barring the St. Charles County district from banning the plaintiffs’ use of the PAC’s name, “Francis Howell Families,” or the name of its website, “www.francishowellfamilies.org,” during public comment portions of board meetings…
Francis Howell Families supported the two conservative-backed candidates in the April 5 election, Randy Cook and Adam Bertrand, who won the two open seats on the Board of Education.
District officials had used a no-advertising policy to warn plaintiffs they would be stopped for mentioning “Francis Howell Families” and threatened to permanently ban the plaintiffs from speaking during the public comment portion of the meeting, Clark’s order said…
The plaintiffs said the district’s “selective enforcement” of the advertising policy amounted to “blatant unlawful viewpoint discrimination.” …
The Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Free Speech is representing the plaintiffs…
“The court saw what we all saw,” said Del Kolde, senior attorney for the Institute for Free Speech. “The board enforces one set of rules for its allies and another for its critics.
“This injunction was needed to ensure that every speaker is treated equally regardless of their viewpoint,” he said.
Supreme Court
SCOTUSblog: In lawsuit against Google involving ISIS recruitment videos, a chance for the court to take up Section 230
By Andrew Hamm
Petitions of the week- In a 2020 statement respecting the denial of certiorari in Malwarebytes Inc. v. Enigma Software Group USA, LLC, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that “in an appropriate case, we should consider whether the text of this increasingly important statute aligns with the current state of immunity enjoyed by Internet platforms.” Thomas was referring to Section 203(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act, which states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher of or speaker of information provided by another information content provider.” Congress passed this law in 1996 after a New York court held an internet service provider liable for a defamatory statement posted on the website’s message board. “And in the 24 years since,” Thomas wrote in Malwarebytes, the justices “have never interpreted this provision. But many courts have construed the law broadly to confer sweeping immunity on some of the largest companies in the world.”
The petition in Gonzalez v. Google LLC tries to present itself as the case Thomas has been looking for.
The Courts
The Hill: Watchdog group sues FEC over citizenship of liberal donor
By Brett Samuels
A government watchdog group is urging the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in a lawsuit filed on Monday to take action on a complaint against a Swiss billionaire who has funneled money to Democratic causes.
Americans for Public Trust filed the lawsuit in District Court in Washington, D.C., alleging the FEC has been slow to act on its May 2021 complaint against Hansjörg Wyss…
“Americans for Public Trust is suing the FEC for failing to investigate foreign money in our elections,” Caitlin Sutherland executive director of Americans for Public Trust, said in a statement to The Hill. “Mr. Wyss, who is barred from directly or indirectly influencing our elections, has done just that by potentially funneling hundreds of millions of dollars through the Arabella Advisors network to benefit liberal and left-wing causes. Until the FEC takes action, we won’t know the full extent of his foreign interference in our electoral process.”
Tallahassee Democrat: Minutes after bill is signed, lawsuit filed against DeSantis for ‘Stop WOKE Act’
By Ana Goñi-Lessan
A group of plaintiffs from across Florida have filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody and others challenging the constitutionality of HB7, the so-called “Stop WOKE Act.” …
They alleged House Bill 7, a law signed Friday that will ban critical race theory in K-12 schools, violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. They filed the complaint Friday in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Florida…
Lawyers for the plaintiffs said in a news release that the law prohibits Florida’s K-12 teachers, college and university professors and employees from espousing, endorsing or advancing important issues about race in America.
“The First Amendment requires us to decide these issues through open and free debate, not by the fiat of Florida’s governor and legislature through constitutionally oppressive legislation,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said. “This bill grossly infringes on the First Amendment’s fundamental guarantees of academic freedom, freedom of expression, and students’ right to access information regarding these topics.”
International
AP News: EU law targets Big Tech over hate speech, disinformation
By Kelvin Chan and Raf Casert
Big tech companies like Google and Facebook parent Meta will have to police their platforms more strictly to better protect European users from hate speech, disinformation and other harmful online content under landmark EU legislation approved early Saturday.
European Union officials clinched the agreement in principle on the Digital Services Act after lengthy final negotiations that began Friday.
Online Speech Platforms
Wall Street Journal: Twitter, Elon Musk Deal Could Be Announced Monday
By Cara Lombardo and Dana Cimilluca
Twitter Inc. is in advanced discussions to sell itself to Elon Musk and could finalize a deal Monday, people familiar with the matter said, a dramatic turn of events just 11 days after the billionaire unveiled his $43 billion bid for the social-media company.
The two sides worked through the night to hash out a deal that would be valued at $54.20 a share, the people said. There are no guarantees they will reach one…
The potential turnabout on Twitter’s part comes after Mr. Musk met privately Friday with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal while repeating that the board has a “yes-or-no” decision to make, according to people familiar with the matter. He also pledged to solve the free-speech issues he sees as plaguing the platform and the country more broadly, whether his bid succeeds or not, they said.
Jonathan Turley: “A Magnet for Conspiracy Theories”: Wikipedia Kills Entry for Hunter Biden’s Investment Company
Wikipedia editors are under fire this week for removing the entry for Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment company connected to Hunter Biden and his alleged multimillion dollar influence peddling schemes. The site bizarrely claimed that the company was “not notable.” The timing itself is notable given the new disclosure that Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, made at least 19 visits to the White House and other official locations between 2009 and 2015. That included a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden despite Biden’s repeated claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business dealings. Schwerin was the president of Rosemont Seneca.
Wikipedia has been accused of raw bias in removing the entry at a time when interest in the company is at its peak, including the possibility of an indictment of Hunter Biden over his financial dealings. Rosemont Seneca is one of the most searched terms for those trying to understand the background on the Biden business operations.
Yet, an editor “AlexEng” wrote that the company was simply “not notable” — an absurd claim reminiscent of the recent claim by Atlantic Magazine’s writer Anne Applebaum that she did not cover the scandal because it simply was “not interesting.”
Washington Post: Twitter bans climate change propaganda ads as deniers target platforms
By Naomi Nix
Twitter is banning advertisements that promote climate change denial in an effort to curb the reach of groups seeking to downplay the extent of the environmental crisis.
Under the new policy, advertisements that contradict the “scientific consensus” on climate change will be prohibited along with other types of banned-ads such as campaigns that contain violence, profanity or personal attacks. Twitter will be relying on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a unit within the United Nations, to inform its decisions about which advertisements break its rules, according to the company.
“We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company said in a blog post. “We recognize that misleading information about climate change can undermine efforts to protect the planet.”
The States
New York Times: How to Make School Board Culture Wars Even Worse
By Michelle Cottle
School boards across the nation are being dragged onto the front lines of partisan battles…
Many people would look at the spiraling circus and think: This is bad. Low-level, nonpartisan school boards are not where these radioactive political issues should be hashed out. Someone should find a way to reduce the heat on these public servants.
Instead, Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature went the other way: passing a law last fall that allows for partisan school board elections, setting up a system that not only codifies the existing toxicity but also promises to exacerbate it. So much for putting students first…
The law’s supporters insist that partisan contests will give voters a clearer sense of school board candidates and their values and, more broadly, that they will increase involvement and public interest in what are typically low-profile races.
Critics of the new system counter that the law will change the fundamental nature of the position — and not in a good way. Among their biggest fears: To win their party’s primaries, candidates will need to focus more on hot-button issues that appeal to base voters, leading to more and fiercer culture clashes.
Tampa Bay Times: Florida’s Disney district crackdown may violate First Amendment, legal experts say
By Emily L. Mahoney and Bianca Padró Ocasio
At Gov. Ron DeSantis’ urging, Florida legislators sped this week to pass two bills stripping The Walt Disney Co. of certain special privileges, which DeSantis signed Friday.
The ultra-fast maneuver was a whiplash response to Disney’s public opposition to Florida’s recently passed Parental Rights in Education law, or the so-called “don’t say gay” bill.
It was also, experts said, legally dubious…
During the bill-signing Friday in Hialeah Gardens, DeSantis took a victory lap, referencing Disney’s position against the earlier education bill.
“You’re a corporation based in Burbank, Calif., and you’re gonna marshal your economic might to attack the parents of my state?” he said. “We view that as a provocation, and we’re going to fight back against that.”
But some legal experts say the move could run afoul of the First Amendment.
“Disney obviously has no right to have a business improvement district, but to take away something like that based on speech, that strikes me as highly likely to be unconstitutional,” said Daniel Greenwood, a law professor at Hofstra University in New York who specializes in corporate speech.
