Tag: Court

  • ‘I hate freedom of opinion’ meme leads to sentencing in German court

    ‘I hate freedom of opinion’ meme leads to sentencing in German court

    Last year, FIRE launched the Free Speech Dispatch, a regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world. Our goal is to help readers better understand the global context of free expression. Want to make sure you don’t miss an update? Sign up for our newsletter. 

    Guilty finding for German editor’s doctored “I hate freedom of opinion” image 

    Germany’s speech policing can’t stay out of the spotlight for long, apparently. This month, David Bendels, editor-in-chief for the Alternative for Germany (AfD)-affiliated Deutschland Kurier, received a seven-month suspended sentence for “abuse, slander or defamation against persons in political life.” 

    The offense? Bendels had edited and posted a photo of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser so that a sign she held said, “I hate freedom of opinion.” (Just think of how many different versions you saw of the Michelle Obama sign meme here in the U.S.) A Bavarian district court found Bendels guilty under a provision giving advanced protections to political figures against speech. Bendels’ sentencing has provoked criticism outside of his political circle, with figures like former Green Party leader Ricarda Lang questioning the “proportionality” of the ruling.

    Political speech under fire, from Thailand to Zimbabwe to Russia 

    • American academic Paul Chambers, a Naresuan University lecturer, has lost his visa and is facing trial after the Royal Thai Army accused him of violating Thailand’s oppressive lese-majeste laws. The laws, which ban insults to the country’s monarchy, regularly result in long prison sentences for government critics.
    • Hamas militants tortured a Palestinian man to death after he participated in anti-Hamas protests.
    • A St. Petersburg military court sentenced 67-year-old Soviet-era dissident Alexander Skobov to 16 years in prison for participating in the Free Russia Forum and making a social media post in support of Ukraine.
    • Indian comedian Kunal Kamra is experiencing a wave of retaliation after joking about state leader Eknath Shinde at a comedy club. Kamra is facing multiple criminal charges, including defamation, as well as death threats. But he isn’t backing down — his response on X included a “step-by-step guide” on “How to Kill an Artist.”
    • Zimbabwe police have detained journalist Blessed Mhlanga for weeks on charges of “transmitting information that incites violence or causes damage to property.” He had interviewed a veteran and political figure who called for the resignation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
    • Israeli military temporarily blindfolded, handcuffed, and detained filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, best known for the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,”  while he was receiving medical care after settlers attacked him during Ramadan near his home in the West Bank.
    • Burkina Faso’s military junta is accused of forcibly conscripting journalists who criticized severe press freedom violations in the country.
    • Nigeria’s Borno State arrested a 19-year-old for his viral social media post criticizing public schools in the region and intend to charge him with “ridiculing and bringing down the personality of” the governor.
    • Lawyers representing dissenting voices aren’t free from consequences, either. An Iranian court sentenced a dozen lawyers who provided legal services to clients from the country’s 2022 protest movement to three years in prison on “propaganda” charges. 

    Turkey targets journalists amid protests

    Protesters gather in Istanbul after the detention of the city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.

    Last month, Turkish police banned protests in Istanbul and arrested the city’s Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a popular rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The crackdown has extended to the press, too. Authorities arrested BBC correspondent Mark Lowen and deported him for “being a threat to public order,” arrested AFP photographer Yasin Akgül for “taking part in an illegal gathering,” and charged Swedish journalist Kaj Joakim Medin for allegedly “being a member of a terrorist organization” and “insulting” Erdogan. 

    The latest in tech and censorship:

    • Late last month, a massive earthquake struck Myanmar, causing thousands of deaths and injuries. But the country’s military junta nevertheless continued severe restrictions on reporting and internet access, hampering recovery efforts.
    • The Kenyan high court in Nairobi ruled that a lawsuit alleging Meta’s content moderation practices fueled violence in Ethiopia can go forward.
    • Meta says it’s facing “substantial” fines because it “pushed back on requests from the Turkish government to restrict content that is clearly in the public interest” in the aftermath of Mayor Imamoglu’s arrest.
    • Turkish authorities also demanded the social media platform X block hundreds of accounts within the country, to which X partially complied but has since challenged some of the orders “to defend the expression of our users.”
    • X is also challenging the use of a provision of India’s Information Technology Act to issue content takedown orders.
    • India’s Supreme Court, in response to Wikimedia Foundation’s appeal against an order from the Delhi High Court, pushed back against that court’s demand that Wikipedia take down a page detailing Asian News International’s lawsuit against the Foundation.
    • The Investigatory Powers Tribunal issued a ruling opposing the UK government’s attempt to keep secret Apple’s appeal against orders that it offer a backdoor in its encrypted cloud service for users around the world.
    • European Union authorities are reportedly planning to announce penalties including “a fine and demands for product changes” against X for alleged violations under the Digital Services Act.

    Pakistan’s blasphemers still under attack

    Late last month, a Pakistan court sentenced five men to death for posting “blasphemous” content online, a common charge and penalty in Pakistan. But that’s not all. A Pakistani YouTuber is also facing blasphemy charges (not his first) for naming a perfume “295” — a reference to the blasphemy law in the country’s penal code.

    Let’s check back in across the pond…

    Lately, it seems not a day goes by without the UK’s free speech issues hitting the headlines. This month is no different. Here’s the latest:

    • As I’ve written about in recent editions of the Dispatch, the UK has been flirting with enforcement of blasphemy laws in the country. That risk has advanced with the charge of “intent to cause against the religious institution of Islam, harassment, alarm or distress” filed against a man who burned a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. The alleged target in the case — the “religious institution of Islam” — is notable.
    • On the other hand, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority chose not to act on hundreds of complaints filed over an allegedly anti-Christian KFC ad that “depicts a man being baptised in a lake of gravy before transforming into a human-sized chicken nugget.”(Last year, the ASA did act against a comedy tour ad that could cause “serious offence” to Christians.)
    • A lower court in Poole found anti-abortion activist Livia Tossici-Bolt guilty on two charges of breaching a public spaces protection order for standing outside an abortion clinic with a sign that read “Here to talk, if you want.” The court gave her a conditional discharge and ordered her to pay £20,000 (about $27,000) in legal costs.
    • Over 30 police officers arrested six activists from Youth Demand at a Quaker meeting house in London “on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.” One member said the group was “so incensed” by the raid “that they didn’t even offer officers a cup of tea.”
    • Hertfordshire police are conducting a “rapid and thorough review” after the arrest and 11-hour detainment of  a couple on various charges, including harassment and malicious communications because they voiced complaints about their daughter’s school on WhatsApp.
    • The aforementioned arrests are just a drop in the pond — data obtained by The Times found that UK police are detaining around 12,000 people annually for “sending messages that cause ‘annoyance’, ‘inconvenience’ or ‘anxiety’ to others via the internet, telephone or mail.”

    China’s critics targeted in Hong Kong — and Canada 

    Chinese dissident artists Badiucao

    Chinese dissident artist and human rights activist Badiucao holding his Lennon Wall flag that he designed in support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, October 5, 2019.

    Milan digital gallery Art Innovation is facing criticism for its response to an artist it featured in a short video broadcast on billboards during a recent art fair in Hong Kong. In it, artist, CCP critic, and frequent target of censorship Badiucao mouthed the words, “You must take part in revolution,” a Mao Zedong quote and the title of his new graphic novel. 

    When he announced that he planned to publish a statement about his effort to skirt Hong Kong’s censorship laws, Art Innovation warned him there would “definitely” be legal action if material “against the Chinese government is published.” And in a social media post, the gallery said Badiucao was not upfront about the “nature of the work” so they “can consider it a crime.”

    And that’s not all the news out of Hong Kong. In recent weeks, a 57-year-old man was sentenced to a year in prison for “seditious” social media posts including some calling the Chinese government a “terrorist state” and an “evil axis power.” Police also took in for questioning the parents of U.S.-based democracy activist Frances Hui, who is wanted in Hong Kong on national security charges.

    Hong Kong’s campaign to target its activists is causing a stir elsewhere, too — in Canadian elections. Canadian member of parliament and Liberal Party candidate Paul Chiang stepped down from the April 28 election days after a video of comments he made earlier this year surfaced. In it, Chiang encouraged people to bring Conservative party candidate Joe Tay, who is wanted by Hong Kong authorities, to Toronto’s Chinese consulate to collect a bounty for him.

    P.S. If you enjoyed this newsletter, you may be interested in my book, “Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech.” It comes out Aug. 19 and is now available for pre-order!

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  • Supreme Court takes education cases that could challenge the separation of church and state

    Supreme Court takes education cases that could challenge the separation of church and state

    The Supreme Court over the next two weeks will hear two cases that have the potential to erode the separation of church and state and create a seismic shift in public education.

    Mahmoud v. Taylor, which goes before the court on April 22, pits Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox families, as well as those of other faiths, against the Montgomery County school system in Maryland. The parents argue that the school system violated their First Amendment right of free exercise of religion by refusing to let them opt their children out of lessons using LGBTQ+ books. The content of the books, the parents say, goes against their religious beliefs.

    Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, which will be argued on April 30, addresses whether the St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School should be allowed to exist as a public charter school in Oklahoma. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa had won approval for the charter school from the state charter board despite acknowledging that St. Isidore would participate “in the evangelizing mission of the Church.”

    The state’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, later overruled the approval, saying the school could not be a charter because charter schools must be public and nonsectarian. The petitioners sued and ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming Drummond violated the First Amendment’s free exercise clause by prohibiting a religious entity from participating in a public program.

    Teachers unions, parents groups and organizations advocating for the separation of church and state have said that rulings in favor of the plaintiffs could open the door for all types of religious programs to become part of public schooling and give parents veto rights on what is taught. In the most extreme scenario, they say, the rulings could lead to the dismantling of public education and essentially allow public schools to be Sunday schools.

    Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

    At issue in both cases is the question of whether the First Amendment rights of parents and religious institutions to the free exercise of religion can supersede the other part of the amendment, the establishment clause, which calls for the separation of church and state.

    “I think a chill wind is blowing, and public education as we know it is in extreme jeopardy of becoming religious education and ceasing to exist,” said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an advocacy organization that has filed an amicus brief in the St. Isidore case. “The whole idea is to have churches take control of education for American children. It’s about money and power.”

    For some conservative lawmakers, evangelical Christian groups and law firms lobbying for more religiosity in the public square, decisions in the petitioners’ favor would mean religious parents get what they have long been owed — the option of sending their children to publicly funded religious schools and the right to opt out of instruction that clashes with their religious beliefs.

    “If we win this case, it opens up school choice across the country,” said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, an Orlando, Florida-based conservative Christian legal firm that has filed a brief supporting the petitioners in both cases. “I see school choice as a reaction to the failed system in the public schools, which is failing both in academia but also failing in the sense they are pushing ideology that undermines the parents and their relationship with their children.”

    By taking the cases, the Supreme Court once again inserts itself in ongoing culture wars in the nation, which have been elevated by presidential orders threatening to take away funding if schools push diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and state laws banning teaching on various controversial subjects. Legal scholars predict that the Supreme Court will lean toward allowing St. Isidore and the opt-outs for parents because of how the justices ruled in three cases between 2017 and 2022. In each case, the justices decided that states could not discriminate against giving funds or resources to a program because it was religious.

    Related: How Oklahoma’s superintendent set off a holy war in classrooms

    Of the two cases, St. Isidore likely could have the greatest impact because it is attempting to change the very definition of a public school, say opponents of the school’s bid for charter status. Since charter schools first started in the 1990s, they have been defined as public and nonsectarian in each of the 46 state statutes allowing them, according to officials at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Today, charter schools operate in 44 states, Guam, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., and serve roughly 7.6 percent of all public school students.

    “It would be a huge sea change if the court were to hold they were private entities and not public schools bound by the U.S. Constitution’s establishment clause,” said Rob Reed, the alliance’s vice president of legal affairs.

    A victory for St. Isidore could lead to religious-based programs seeping into several aspects of public schooling, said Steven Green, a professor of both law and history and religious studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

    “The ramification is that every single time a school district does some kind of contracting for any kind of service or curricular issues, you’re going to find religious providers who will make the claim, ‘You have to give me an opportunity, too,’” Green said.

    St. Isidore’s appeal to the Supreme Court is part of an increasing push by the religious right to use public funds for religious education, said Josh Cowen, a professor of education policy at Michigan State University and author of a 2024 book on school vouchers. Because of previous court decisions, several voucher programs across the country already allow parents to use public money to send their children to religious schools, he said.

    “What’s going to happen if the court says a public school can be run by a religious provider?” Cowen asked. “It almost turns 180 degrees the rule that voucher systems play by right now. Right now, they’re just taking a check. They’re not public entities.”

    The effect of a St. Isidore victory could be devastating, he added. “It would be one more slippery slope to really kicking down the wall between church and state,” Cowen said.

    Related: Inside the Christian legal campaign to return prayer to public schools

    Jim Campbell, chief legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing St. Isidore’s bid to become a charter, discounted the idea that a St. Isidore win would fundamentally change public schools. Like Staver, he views St. Isidore as simply providing another parental option. “We’re not asking the state to run a religious school,” Campbell said. “These are private entities that run the schools. This is a private organization participating in a publicly funded program.”

    Opponents of religious charter schools question whether St. Isidore would have to play by the same rules as public schools.

    “How are they going to handle it when there’s a teacher who has a lifestyle that doesn’t align with Catholic school teaching? They’re talking out of both sides of the mouth,” said Erika Wright, an Oklahoma parent and plaintiff in a lawsuit protesting a Bible in the classroom mandate by Oklahoma’s state superintendent of instruction. She also joined an amicus brief against St. Isidore’s formation.

    “As a taxpayer, I should not be forced to fund religious instruction, whether it’s through a religious charter school or a Bible mandate,” Wright said. “I shouldn’t be forced to fund religious indoctrination that doesn’t align with my family’s personal beliefs.”

    Notably, in the Montgomery County parents’ case going before the court, parents use similar reasoning to support their right to opt out of instruction. “A school ‘burdens’ parents’ religious beliefs when it forces their children to undergo classroom instruction about gender and sexuality at odds with their religious convictions,” the parents’ brief said.

    The school district in 2022 adopted several books with LGBTQ+ themes and characters as part of the elementary language arts curriculum. Initially, families were allowed to opt out. But then the school system reversed its policy, saying too many students were absent during the lessons and keeping track of the opt-outs was too cumbersome. The reversal led to the lawsuit.

    Historically, school districts have given limited opt-outs to parents who, for example, do not want their child to read a particular book, but the Montgomery County parents’ request is broader, said Charles C. Haynes, a First Amendment expert and senior fellow for religious liberty at the Freedom Forum in Washington, D.C. The parents are asking to exclude their children from significant parts of the curriculum for religious reasons.

    “If the court sides with the parents, I think the next day, you’re going to have parents across the country saying, ‘I want my kids to opt out of all the references to fill-in-the-blank.’ … It would change the dynamic between public schools and parents overnight,” Haynes said.

    Related: Tracking Trump: His actions to abolish the Education Department, and more

    Sarah Brannen, author of “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” one of the LGBTQ+ books Montgomery County schools adopted, sees major logistical issues if the school system loses. “Allowing parents to interfere in the minutia of the curriculum would make their already difficult jobs impossible,” she said.

    Colten Stanberry, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty representing the Montgomery County parents, disagreed. School systems manage to balance different student needs all the time, he said.

    A triumph for the Montgomery County families and St. Isidore would cause much more than logistical issues, said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association. It could lead to a public education system where parents can pick a school based on religious beliefs or try to change a traditional public school’s curriculum by opting out of lessons in droves.

    “For us to be a strong democracy, then we necessarily need to learn about all of us. To separate us flies in the face of why we were founded,” Pringle said.

    This story about church and state was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Supreme Court maintains freeze on teacher training grants

    Supreme Court maintains freeze on teacher training grants

    In a 5-4 split, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to maintain a freeze on millions of dollars in federal teacher training grants.

    The administration’s emergency application, filed on March 26, asked the justices to vacate a district court judge’s order requiring the U.S. Department of Education to reinstate some of Trump’s $600 million in slashed funding. The justices granted Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris’ call for an immediate administrative stay, which pauses the March 10 order by Judge Myong Joun of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts while the case continues.

    In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court majority wrote that the recipient programs wouldn’t suffer permanent damages if the funds were withheld while the case moves through the lower courts. The “respondents have not refuted the Government’s representation that it is unlikely to recover the grant funds once they are disbursed,” the opinion said.

    The opinion also suggested the lower court may not have had the authority to issue its order. 

    In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote that the notion that some grant recipients may seek to draw down funds that the Trump administration seeks to terminate was the “only hint of urgency that the Government offers to justify its unusual request for our intervention.”

    “If true, that would be unfortunate, but worse things have happened,” Jackson wrote.

    In a separate dissent, Justice Elena Kagan characterized the majority’s decision as a “mistake” that followed a “barebones briefing,” no argument and little time for reflection. Chief Justice John Roberts did not join either dissent but disagreed with the majority.

    The move is the first time the Supreme Court has considered any challenges to President Donald Trump’s efforts to significantly scale back federal education programs — and ultimately dismantle the Education Department. 

    In the administration’s March 26 emergency request, Harris said the case is an example of a broader question the Supreme Court needs to answer: “‘Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever)’ millions in taxpayer dollars?”

    “Unless and until this Court addresses that question, federal district courts will continue exceeding their jurisdiction by ordering the Executive Branch to restore lawfully terminated grants across the government, keep paying for programs that the Executive Branch views as inconsistent with the interests of the United States, and send out the door taxpayer money that may never be clawed back,” Harris wrote. 

    The case in question concerns the Education Department’s February cancellation of over $600 million in what it called “divisive” federal teacher training grants funds. The canceled grants had been made under the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development program. 

    In March, eight Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration to restore the awarded funds. In response, Joun granted a temporary restraining order for the department to reinstate those funds to the eight plaintiff states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin.

    If the Supreme Court were to order the Trump administration to reinstate the grants to those eight states, the acting solicitor general said, the department would have to disburse up to $65 million in remaining funds.

    On March 28, the eight states urged in a 44-page filing that the Supreme Court leave Joun’s order in place. The states said the Trump administration’s “real concern” appears to involve other cases “where courts are grappling with a raft of legal disputes arising out of recent actions by the Executive Branch.”

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  • Supreme Court maintains freeze on teacher training grants

    Supreme Court maintains freeze on teacher training grants

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    In a 5-4 split, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to maintain a freeze on millions of dollars in federal teacher training grants.

    The administration’s emergency application, filed on March 26, asked the justices to vacate a district court judge’s order requiring the U.S. Department of Education to reinstate some of Trump’s $600 million in slashed funding. The justices granted Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris’ call for an immediate administrative stay, which pauses the March 10 order by Judge Myong Joun of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts while the case continues.

    In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court majority wrote that the recipient programs wouldn’t suffer permanent damages if the funds were withheld while the case moves through the lower courts. The “respondents have not refuted the Government’s representation that it is unlikely to recover the grant funds once they are disbursed,” the opinion said.

    The opinion also suggested the lower court may not have had the authority to issue its order. 

    In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote that the notion that some grant recipients may seek to draw down funds that the Trump administration seeks to terminate was the “only hint of urgency that the Government offers to justify its unusual request for our intervention.”

    “If true, that would be unfortunate, but worse things have happened,” Jackson wrote.

    In a separate dissent, Justice Elena Kagan characterized the majority’s decision as a “mistake” that followed a “barebones briefing,” no argument and little time for reflection. Chief Justice John Roberts did not join either dissent but disagreed with the majority.

    The move is the first time the Supreme Court has considered any challenges to President Donald Trump’s efforts to significantly scale back federal education programs — and ultimately dismantle the Education Department. 

    In the administration’s March 26 emergency request, Harris said the case is an example of a broader question the Supreme Court needs to answer: “‘Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever)’ millions in taxpayer dollars?”

    “Unless and until this Court addresses that question, federal district courts will continue exceeding their jurisdiction by ordering the Executive Branch to restore lawfully terminated grants across the government, keep paying for programs that the Executive Branch views as inconsistent with the interests of the United States, and send out the door taxpayer money that may never be clawed back,” Harris wrote. 

    The case in question concerns the Education Department’s February cancellation of over $600 million in what it called “divisive” federal teacher training grants funds. The canceled grants had been made under the Teacher Quality Partnership Program and the Supporting Effective Educator Development program. 

    In March, eight Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration to restore the awarded funds. In response, Joun granted a temporary restraining order for the department to reinstate those funds to the eight plaintiff states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin.

    If the Supreme Court were to order the Trump administration to reinstate the grants to those eight states, the acting solicitor general said, the department would have to disburse up to $65 million in remaining funds.

    On March 28, the eight states urged in a 44-page filing that the Supreme Court leave Joun’s order in place. The states said the Trump administration’s “real concern” appears to involve other cases “where courts are grappling with a raft of legal disputes arising out of recent actions by the Executive Branch.”

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  • VICTORY: Federal court blocks Texas A&M’s unconstitutional drag ban

    VICTORY: Federal court blocks Texas A&M’s unconstitutional drag ban

    HOUSTON, March 24, 2025 —  A federal judge today upheld the First Amendment rights of a Texas A&M student group by blocking an attempt by officials to prohibit the group’s upcoming drag show on the College Station campus.

    In her ruling, Judge Lee H. Rosenthal of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas held that a student organization, the Texas A&M Queer Empowerment Council, was likely to succeed in showing the drag ban violated the First Amendment. The court held that drag is theatrical expression protected by the First Amendment and that the university’s justifications for prohibiting the student-funded, student-organized “Draggieland” performance fell short. Draggieland will now take place as planned on Thursday evening.

    “In recent years, the commitment to free speech on campuses has been both challenging and challenged,” ruled Judge Rosenthal. “There have been efforts from all sides of the political spectrum to disrupt or prevent students, faculty, and others from expressing opinions and speech that are deemed, or actually are, offensive or wrong. But the law requires the recognition and application of speech rights and guardrails that preserve and protect all our treasured First Amendment rights.”

    “Today is a resounding victory for the First Amendment at public universities in Texas,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who argued last week at the district court. “The court reaffirmed that state university officials cannot block student expression they claim is offensive. State officials should stop trying to score political points at the expense of students’ First Amendment rights.”

    Every year since 2020, students at Texas A&M University-College Station have held “Draggieland” (a combination of “Drag” and “Aggieland”) on campus. But in February, citing a recent executive order issued by President Donald Trump on “gender ideology,” the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents abruptly voted to ban drag performances across all 11 campuses, claiming drag was “offensive” and “inconsistent with” the “core values of its universities, including the value of respect for others.”

    That vote canceled Draggieland’s March 27 performance, which the Queer Empowerment Council plans and hosts in a campus theatre open to all student groups. But the regents’ edict clearly violated the First Amendment, which does not allow public university officials to censor student performances based on nothing more than their personal dislike of its content or perceived ideology. 

    FIRE sued on the Queer Empowerment Council’s behalf earlier this month seeking to have the ban overturned on First Amendment grounds, and filed a motion for an injunction that would allow the show to go on while the case made its way through the courts.

    “We’re overjoyed with today’s decision,” said the Queer Empowerment Council. “This is another display of the resilience of queer joy, as that is an unstoppable force despite those that wish to see it destroyed. While this fight isn’t over, we are going to appreciate the joy we get to bring by putting on the best show that we can do.”

    “Texas A&M, like any public university, has the utmost duty to respect the First Amendment rights of students,” said FIRE Supervising Senior Attorney JT Morris. “As public officials, they can’t banish speech from campus just because it offends them, any more than they could shut down a political rally or a Christmas pageant.” 

     

     

    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 nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.

    CONTACT:

    Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

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  • Federal Appeals Court Lifts Bar on DEI Executive Orders

    Federal Appeals Court Lifts Bar on DEI Executive Orders

    by CUPA-HR | March 17, 2025

    On March 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit issued a decision allowing the Trump administration to enforce Executive Orders 14151 and 14173, both of which target “illegal … DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities” in the public and private sectors and in federal contracts. The 4th Circuit’s decision effectively overrules a February 21 preliminary injunction issued in a U.S. District Court in Maryland that had blocked the administration from enforcing some provisions in the orders.

    As a reminder, orders 14151 and 14173 revoke prior executive orders, including Executive Order 11246, which required federal contractors to maintain affirmative action plans. Among other things, orders 14151 and 14173 also mandate that:

    • federal agencies include provisions in federal contracts requiring that contractors agree to comply with nondiscrimination laws and certify they do not operate any DEI programs that violate discrimination laws;
    • the Office of Management and Budget terminate all “‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ ‘equitable decision-making,’ ‘equitable deployment of financial and technical assistance,’ ‘advancing equity,’ and like mandates, requirements, programs, or activities, as appropriate;” and
    • each agency “identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars.”

    CUPA-HR will continue to share further developments regarding the lawsuits challenging orders 14151 and 14173.

     



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  • UPDATE: Another federal appeals court backs academic free speech for public employees

    UPDATE: Another federal appeals court backs academic free speech for public employees

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit just sided with free speech, joining five of its sister circuits in holding the First Amendment protects academic research, writing, and teaching at public colleges and universities. This carves out an important exception to the Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos holding that public employees’ speech pursuant to their official duties is not protected.

    This is a big deal. Just ask Jason Kilborn, a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago suspended in late 2021 for using a redacted racial slur “n___” on a final exam question about employment discrimination. He also used the redacted term “b___” in the same question.

    UIC suspended Kilborn and launched an investigation into his (non-)use of the terms. That’s when FIRE stepped in — defending Kilborn, writing to UIC administrators, and securing him a lawyer through our Faculty Legal Defense Fund. With help from that lawyer, UIC briefly reached a resolution with Kilborn but it later reneged on that agreement and forced him to write reflection papers and participate in months-long training sessions before he could return to teaching.

    Kilborn sued, alleging administrators violated his constitutional right to academic freedom — and while the district court had dismissed the case, on Wednesday, the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit agreed the First Amendment protected Kilborn’s speech. That court rejected UIC’s “invitation to extend Garcetti to speech involving university teaching and scholarship when the Supreme Court was unwilling to do so,” and sent the case back to the district court. 

    With the rejection of that application of Garcetti, the district court will analyze this case using the balancing test from Pickering v. Board of Education, which directs courts to weigh “the interests of the [employee] in commenting upon matters of public concern” against “the interest of the state, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” 

    This is now the sixth federal appeals court to establish this exception to Garcetti, extending academic freedom protections to public university faculty throughout Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. FIRE is currently awaiting a decision from the Atlanta-based Eleventh Circuit, where we’ve asked that court to do the same with respect to the Garcetti exception. Stay tuned for more as we continue to press and follow this issue closely. 

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  • Higher education postcard: the university court

    Higher education postcard: the university court

    We’re in Aberystwyth again this week, but not for an in-depth look at the university – we’ve done that before.

    Instead, we’re going to look into an aspect of old university governance, with an Aberystwyth artefact. This is a draft report to the University Court of Governors.

     

    The older, chartered universities in the UK (which means, broadly, those founded between 1800 and 1992) tended to have three bodies involved in governance:

    • A senate, which was the academic decision-making body of the university, comprising all or some of the university’s academic staff
    • A council, which was the governing body of the university, but which couldn’t take a decision on an academic matter without first consulting the senate
    • A court, made up of stakeholders (ie graduates, local bigwigs, learned society representatives), which had very few if any powers, but to which council must account for itself and its activities.

    Typically speaking, a court would meet once a year. Its powers might include appointing the chancellor of the university, but that is a ceremonial role, so is a very limited practical power (although one over which universities occasionally trip up). And at the annual meeting, there would be reports from the vice chancellor, and questions, and then that would be it for another year.

    Now, this report is from a college of the University of Wales, which was a federal university. This means I’m not clear whether the report was to the court of the University College of Wales Aberystwyth, or to the court of the federal University of Wales. But either way, it gives a fascinating snapshot of what accountability looked like in 1920. (And if you know about the governance of the University of Wales in 1920, please do say in the comments below!)

    The report would have been the first under the principalship of John Humphreys Davies, pictured here.

    Davies was an alumnus of Aberystwyth; he succeeded Thomas Francis Roberts, who had been principal from 1891 to 1919, and had died in August of that year whilst still principal. He had since 1905 been registrar of University College Aberystwyth, making him another rare example of progression from senior professional service roles to institutional leadership.

    The report starts with a brief statistical summary. It shows the impact of the first world war on numbers: there were 298 students in 1917–18; 410 in 1918–19, and 971 in 1919–20. About 30 per cent of the students were women; over 70 per cent came from south Wales; over 15 per cent from north Wales; over 10 per cent from England. And the remainder – nineteen students in total – came from Egypt, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, France, India, Java, Jamaica and an unexpectedly large contingent – ten students – from Serbia.

    There’s then a report on degree examinations, recording each student who had taken degree examinations, for bachelor of arts, master of arts, and certificates of education. I haven’t counted the names, but they stretch for fifteen pages of the report, so it looks like all of the students at the college. Jones is the most frequent name, with 60 in the faculty of arts, three in law, 31 in science, and two for the certificate in education. And we also get a report on alumni who had gained degrees from the University of London, or gained scholarships at Oxford.

    And then the fun starts. Written reports from every department, starting with Greek, ending with the Officer Training Corps Contingent. Here are a few extracts:

    Mr Jenkins, Greek: ‘Special: only two students took the course. Of these, Mr Neil Evans more than maintained his promise of the preceding session and attained a high standard in the examinations. As he intends to take Latin Honours in 1921, it may not be possible for him next session to devote to Greek as much time as he would wish, but if he can defer Greek honours till 1922, there is every prospect of his attaining a high class. The other candidate, Miss Young Evans, also did quite well, and showed improvement on the work of 1919.’

    We have become much more squeamish about naming individuals in formal papers, even when praising them, or damning them with faint praise. Poor Miss Young Evans.

    Professor Atkins, English: ‘The work this session has on the whole been satisfactory, though difficulties have not been wanting, owing to the large increase in the number of students and the varying ability of the ex-service students to settle down to serious study…’

    Demobilisation was clearly not without its downsides.

    We also get a fascinating insight into examination success rates. Here’s the data for undergraduate exams in English:

    By my reckoning, this is a pass rate about 72 per cent for intermediate, 58 per cent for ordinary and 64 per cent for special levels. What would we make of these rates today?

    We learn that the library received gifts including 600 volumes from the library of the late Principal Thomas Francis Roberts; the review of the Aberdeen Angus Cattle Society; the proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin; and the report of the Association of Headmistresses in London. And, excitingly, that Miss Cummings of the Bodleian Library in Oxford has been appointed cataloguer to classify and catalogue the library’s holdings “in accordance with the rules of the Library of Congress.”

    We have the first report from Professor Zimmern, the founding chair of international politics at Aberystwyth, a subject in which the college was to gain much renown.

    And let’s end this set of extracts with this, about the Normal College’s music students. (You’ll remember that the Normal College, in Bangor, focused on teacher training.)

    Apathy, irregularity and a lack of preparation. A sad and sorry state of affairs. I wonder if it was ever thus?

    Overall I’m struck by the level of detail and the minutiae in the report. There’s a flavour of what life must have been like at Aberystwyth, and an openness to accountability which is interesting. Maybe it’s a genuine transparency, maybe it’s a desire to hide big issues behind the day-to-day. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it.

    I’ve got two jigsaws for you today. First the postcard at the top; and then a double page spread from the report, just for the sheer fun of it.

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  • This week in 5 numbers: Court temporarily blocks NIH funding cuts

    This week in 5 numbers: Court temporarily blocks NIH funding cuts

    The number of states that sued to block the National Institutes of Health from implementing cuts to funding for indirect research costs. Earlier this week, U.S. District Court Judge Angel Kelley issued restraining orders against the cuts in the attorneys general-led case, along with a similar one filed by the Association of American Medical Colleges and other groups.

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  • VICTORY: District court blocks Texas social media law after FIRE lawsuit

    VICTORY: District court blocks Texas social media law after FIRE lawsuit

    AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 7, 2025 — After a lawsuit from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and Davis Wright Tremaine, a district court today stopped enforcement of a Texas law that would have blocked access to broad categories of protected speech for minors and forced websites to collect adults’ IDs or biometric data before they can access social media sites.

    Northern District of Texas Judge Robert Pitman granted FIRE’s motion for a preliminary injunction against provisions of the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act (SCOPE Act) requiring content monitoring and filtering, targeted advertising bans, and age-verification requirements, ruling that these measures were unconstitutionally overbroad, vague, and not narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

    “The court determined that Texas’s law was likely unconstitutional because its provisions restricted protected speech and were so vague that it made it hard to know what was prohibited,” said FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere. “States can’t block adults from engaging with legal speech in the name of protecting children, nor can they keep minors from ideas that the government deems unsuitable.”

    The SCOPE Act would have required social media platforms to register the age of every new user. Platforms would have been forced to track how much of their content is “harmful” to minors and, once a certain percentage is reached, force users to prove that they are 18 or older. In other words, the law would have burdened adults who wanted to view content that is fully legal for adults, serving as an effective ban for those who understandably don’t trust a third-party website with their driver’s license or fingerprints.

    The law also required websites to prevent minors from being exposed to “harmful material” that “promotes, glorifies, or facilitates” behaviors like drug use, suicide, or bullying. That definition was far too vague to pass constitutional muster: whether speech “promotes” or “glorifies” an activity is inherently subjective, and platforms had testified that they would be forced to react by censoring all discussions of those topics.

    Today’s ruling should serve as yet another warning to states tempted to jump on the unconstitutional bandwagon of social media age verification bills.

    “At what point… does alcohol use become ‘substance abuse?’” asked Judge Pitman in his ruling. “When does an extreme diet cross the line into an ‘eating disorder?’ What defines ‘grooming’ and ‘harassment?’ Under these indefinite meanings, it is easy to see how an attorney general could arbitrarily discriminate in his enforcement of the law.”

    FIRE sued on August 16 on behalf of three plaintiffs who use the Internet to communicate with young Texans and keep them informed on issues that affect them. A fourth plaintiff, M.F.,  is a 16-year-old rising high school junior from El Paso who is concerned that Texas is blocking his access to important content.

    Lead plaintiff Students Engaged in Advancing Texas represents a coalition of Texas students who seek to increase youth visibility and participation in policymaking.

    Nope to SCOPE: FIRE sues to block Texas’ unconstitutional internet age verification law

    Press Release

    Texans browsing your favorite websites, beware. If the state has its way, starting next month, the eyes of Texas may be upon you.


    Read More

    “Young people have free speech rights, too,” said SEAT Executive Director Cameron Samuels. “They’re also the future voters and leaders of Texas and America. The SCOPE Act would make youth less informed, less active, and less engaged on some of the most important issues facing the nation.”

    Earlier, Judge Pitman enjoined the content moderation requirements while ruling on a separate lawsuit from the Computer & Communications Industry Association and Netchoice. Judge Pitman ruled in August that Texas “cannot pick and choose which categories of protected speech it wishes to block teenagers from discussing online.”

    “This is a tremendous victory against government censorship, especially for our clients—ordinary citizens—who stood up to the State of Texas,” said Adam Sieff, partner at Davis Wright Tremaine. “The Court enjoined every substantive provision of the SCOPE Act we challenged, granting even broader relief than its first preliminary injunction. We hope this decision will give other states pause before broadly restricting free expression online.”

    Texas lawmakers perhaps could have predicted today’s ruling. Age verification laws have been enjoined by courts across the country in states like California, Arkansas, Mississippi, Ohio, and even initially in Texas, in another law currently before the Supreme Court for review.

    “Today’s ruling should serve as yet another warning to states tempted to jump on the unconstitutional bandwagon of social media age verification bills,” said Corn-Revere. “What these laws have in common is that they seek to impose simplistic one-size-fits-all solutions to address complicated problems.” 

    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 educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

    CONTACT:

    Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

     

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