Tag Archive for: free speech

At the University of Chicago, Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee

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The pro-Hamas brownshirts at the University of Chicago noisily insist that they are only exercising its “right to free speech” when they demonstrators chant “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free,” which, rightly understood, is a call for the destruction of Israel and its replacement by a 23rd Arab state. They are exercising their “right to free speech” when they harass Jewish students who are walking across the campus, or when they try to disrupt classes taught by “Zionist” professors. They call the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil by the government a violation of this Hamas collaborator’s “right to free speech.” But they are not about to accord the same “right to free speech” to pro-Israel groups on campus such as Maroons For Israel. More on this double standard can be found here: “Palestinian Supporters at My School Don’t Want Free Speech; They Want to Silence Jews,” by Joachim Sciamma, Algemeiner, March 26, 2025:

On March 11, 2025, University of Chicago students took to the quad, just as final exams were beginning, to oppose the arrest of Columbia University encampment organizer Mahmoud Khalil.

Khalil is accused of distributing pro-Hamas propaganda, including material labeled from the “Hamas Media Office.”  The University of Chicago student demonstrators invoked our school’s principles in defense of freedom of expression — labeling the arrest a violation of Khalil’s right to free speech.

Unfortunately, these protestors only agree with free speech when it is content they agree with….

Consider the following example: In February 2025, Israel confirmed that civilian hostages, Ariel, Kfir, and their mother, Shiri Bibas, had been murdered in Hamas captivity. Ariel was 4 years old, and his little brother was 9 months old when they were kidnapped….

Although the Bibas family’s true cause of death has been proven by forensic evidence, some of my peers at the University of Chicago still believe the terrorist propaganda that they perished at the hands of Israel.

In response to the murders, Maroons for Israel — the pro-Israel student organization on campus, of which I am the President– placed a University-approved installation on the Swift quadrangles in memory of Kfir Bibas on Monday, March 3.

By Friday, March 7, it was defaced; as far as we can tell, it was vandalized in broad daylight….

And that’s not the first time their hypocrisy has been on display. Last November, our approved banner explaining the danger of “globalize the intifada” rhetoric was dismantled and left in a dumpster.

Also, during an encampment on campus last spring, our approved installations were destroyed every evening, like clockwork, and every morning we had to rebuild them….

These students are also disrupting speaker events, and attempting to shut down opinions they disagree with. They called for the boycott of what they labelled “Zionist classes.” They invoke the principle of free speech when it suits them, but show open disdain for it otherwise….

Those anti-Israel “free speech” advocates tore down pro-Israel installations put up on the University of Chicago campus, not once, but every night. They defaced and tore pieces from posters with photographs of 4-year-old Ariel and 9-month-old Kfir Bibas, both of them murdered — strangled — by Hamas operatives. They pulled down the banner of a pro-Israel group explaining what the sinister slogan “globalize the Intifada” means, and left it in a dumpster. They want students to boycott “Zionist” classes. They want “free speech” for themselves, but wish to silence every possible expression of pro-Israel sympathies. The motto of these anti-Israel and antisemitic campus groups is the same everywhere, from Columbia to Berkeley: “Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee.”

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

ICE Asks Pro-Palestine Foreign Student To Surrender Himself After He Sues Trump

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The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asked a Cornell University doctoral student and prominent pro-Palestinian protester to surrender himself for deportation proceedings after he preemptively sued the Trump administration, his lawyers said.

Momodou Taal’s lawyers said Friday that ICE ordered and pressured Taal to surrender after he sought a judge’s temporary restraining order to prevent the Trump administration from detaining and deporting him. He sought the restraining order after ICE sent agents to stake out his house, according to Taal’s representatives.

“ICE invites Mr. Taal and his counsel to appear in-person at the HSI [Homeland Security Investigations] Office in Syracuse at a mutually agreeable time for personal service of the NTA [Notice to Appear] and for Mr. Taal to surrender to ICE custody,” an email sent Friday by the Department of Justice prosecutors partly read, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.

An NTA is an initial step toward deportation, according to CNN.

The prosecutors said they “wanted to reach out to establish a line of communication, and relate some information concerning your client” while their application for admission to the federal court in New York was pending, according to the email.

“In the past 48 hours, this administration has taken unprecedented steps to bypass the courts, by pressuring our client, Mr. Momodou Taal, to surrender to ICE,” Maria Kari, one of Taal’s attorneys, wrote in part.

“The Trump administration responded to Momodou Taal’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the executive orders by sending agents to stake out his house,” wrote Eric Lee, Taal’s lead counsel. “When we asked the Court to enjoin the administration from detaining Mr. Taal as the case progresses, the administration responded by ordering him to surrender to ICE. This does not happen in a democracy.”

Taal’s lawyers and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed the lawsuit enjoining the Trump administration from using two executive orders to “authorize deportation or prosecution based on protected speech,” the ADC said March 16.

Taal and two other fellow plaintiffs — identified in the lawsuit as plant science doctoral student Sriram Parasurama and Professor of Literatures in English Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ — felt the “chilling effect” of the executive orders, which they argued “violate the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike by impermissibly restricting speech based on viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment,” according to the lawsuit.

Taal is a British-Gambian PhD candidate at Cornell’s Africana Studies and Research Center, the ADC noted. The Ivy League university suspended him twice in 2024 for disruptive on-campus political activities, according to the Cornell Daily Sun. The other two plaintiffs are U.S. citizens, according to the ADC.

All three plaintiffs “now fear government retaliation for engaging in constitutionally protected expression critical of U.S. foreign policy and supportive of Palestinian human rights,” the lawsuit partly read.

Kari said the case was “a litmus test for the state of free speech in America.” Lee said ICE‘s request for Taal to surrender should make every American outraged and keen to defend free speech.

Law enforcement agents appeared around Taal’s home and on the Cornell University campus — both in Ithaca, New York March 19, Taal posted on X. He claimed that the Trump administration was seeking to preventively detain him and reiterated his commitment to pro-Palestinian activism.

Taal posted Oct. 7, 2023 — the same day Hamas conducted a lightning terrorist attack on Israel — “Glory to the resistance!” The post drew criticism.

AUTHOR

John Oyewale

Contriubutor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Party Of Censorship Suddenly Cares About Free Speech

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The party of censorship suddenly cares about free speech.

The reverse is true of Republicans who want to censor or else deport left-wingers who are anti-American but who are nevertheless protected by the First Amendment to voice those noxious opinions. But let’s focus on Democrats for now.

Democrats have long pushed to censor conservatives, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when, in the highest reaches of the Biden administration, government officials worked to nuke conservatives off social media platforms for their dissenting views on, among other things, the virus’s origin. House and Senate Democrats, of course, cheered on the White House’s gross overreach while long using the guise of “misinformation” and “disinformation” to quash politically inconvenient facts or narratives.

But now, in the wake of pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest at the hands of the Trump administration, numerous high-profile Democrats have become staunch defenders of free speech, despite their long history of advocating for censorship. It’s politics, after all.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer emphasized that he despises Khalil’s views on Palestine and Israel while also invoking the First Amendment.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a similar statement, saying that absent a crime committed by Khalil, the Trump administration’s actions are “wildly inconsistent with the United States Constitution.”

Meanwhile, several ‘squad’ members and left-wing lawmakers didn’t dance around the issue of Khalil’s innocence as much as Schumer and Jeffries, but also came out strongly — suddenly — as fierce First Amendment advocates.

“We must be extremely clear: this is an attempt to criminalize political protest and is a direct assault on the freedom of speech of everyone in this country,” 14 House Democrats said in a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

There is also an irony in all the left-wingers who claim speech is equivalent to violence, then those same activists go on to vandalize property on college campuses across the country and claim their violence is actually free speech.

It’s all a bit maddening, but par for the course in national politics, where every elected representative is a reflexive cheerleader, adopting principles or else abandoning them when it’s convenient to score points against the other side.

AUTHOR

John Loftus

Editor at large. Sign up for John Loftus’s weekly newsletter here! Follow John Loftus on X: @JohnCFLoftus1

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Lack of Moral Clarity,’ ‘Weakness of Political Will’ Explain the Left’s Issue with Free Speech: Expert

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After Vice President J.D. Vance made his commitment to free speech clear during an address in Munich, CBS News’s Margaret Brennan did not take to it well.

During an interview with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Brennan compared Vance to Nazis. “[H]e was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide,” she said. “He met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that.” Rubio promptly disagreed with the news anchor, emphasizing how “free speech was not used to conduct a genocide.”

He was also quick to explain that, “there was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none.” The tussle with free speech at CBS did not end with Brennan.

In a “60 Minutes” episode, a production of CBS, a German lawyer argued that “free speech needs boundaries.” In another episode, three German prosecutors touted similar claims. “They say, ‘No, that’s my free speech,’” remarked Dr. Matthäus Fink. “And we say, ‘No, you have free speech as well, but it also has its limits.’” The episode also featured a police raid on an individual for something they posted online. With the full support of CBS, they characterized the fact that it’s a criminal offense to insult someone in Germany as an effort “to bring some civility to the world wide web” through “policing speech online.”

On Tuesday’s “Washington Watch,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins addressed this issue head on. “So,” he asked, “why does the Left have such a significant issue with free speech?” Mary Hasson, the Kate O’Beirne senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, replied that part of the Left’s problem with free speech is that “they’ve lost their sense of moral clarity.” Ultimately, “if you don’t have a sense of what’s good … right … [and] true,” then “you don’t understand speech as being part of that search for the truth.”

As Hasson explained, speech that stops seeking after truth is “all about power. And that’s what we see here. … [W]hen you lose your moral clarity, when you no longer appreciate the truth, or even the sense that there is a truth, then it’s all about maintaining your power. And that’s where censorship comes in.”

Perkins agreed, stating that this kind of perspective makes it so that “up is down, down is up. Good is evil, evil is good.” The fact that Brennan asserted “that Nazi Germany was the product of free speech” is a clear example, he said, especially when Adolf Hitler’s Germany “suppressed any type of voice that was counter” to the regime.

In addition to the “lack of moral clarity,” Hasson suggested another factor is “a weakness of political will.” For instance, she pointed out that Germany has had “a terrible problem with criminal migrants,” which has caused their crime to spike. “[A]nd yet,” she added, “here they are spending all this energy trying to police what people are saying [online as] they’re doing a very poor job of policing criminality and actually protecting their own people.” As she put it, Germany is “no longer willing to call some things wrong and some things right.” And this, Perkins emphasized, is largely because, like with many leftist ideologies, “their ideas are indefensible.” “[T]hey don’t want to be challenged by free speech.”

Perkins noted that Hasson has experienced this “firsthand.” Hasson has been at the center of what it looks like to be called “hateful” just for disagreeing with someone. “For example, I was recently speaking at ASU and there was a segment of people among the faculty and students who protested my mere presence, even though I wasn’t there to talk about gender ideology per se. … [B]ecause I disagreed with them,” Hasson said, they felt “they were in danger and … not safe because of my ideas.” It all points to this “sense of trying to protect themselves from hurt feelings or from having their ideas challenged,” which is “not how you arrive at the truth.”

“That’s not how we have a free society,” she continued. A society “where we know what’s good and what’s true.” In fact, “we want to have this open conversation to be able to persuade others. But when you’re simply trying to avoid feeling bad, you don’t want to hear what other people have to say,” so conversation gets shut down. As Perkins stressed, “the freedom of speech, which is a part of our First Amendment freedoms, is critical.” It’s like “a pressure valve [that] allows people to vent … [and] express themselves. And when that is short circuited or suppressed, that’s when we have real problems.”

“I completely agree with you,” Hasson emphasized. “And in fact, if you look back at the … political regimes that have suppressed free speech, they don’t … stop people from thinking or seeking the truth or trying to share that truth with others. It all goes underground.” Instead of controlling society, the more authorities try to suppress these pursuits of free speech, the more likely “you’re going to have a rebellion, a revolt.”

Perkins said, “[W]e need more speech, not less, in my view. So, … how can those of us who cherish this First Amendment freedom work together, growing America’s respect for this freedom?” Especially when considering “some of the younger generation … don’t [seem to] have a healthy understanding of the importance of the First Amendment.”

“[A]gain,” Hasson stated, “part of it goes back to this idea that they’ve come to believe that they are too fragile to hear ideas that they disagree with, or that make them uncomfortable.” As such, “we need to be bold and … speak the truth, and to encourage our children to be resilient, to understand that they can and should engage with ideas that they disagree with.” If anything, she concluded, the skill of “self-censorship” often comes into play when talking to “people who are very different from [us.]”

In any conversation, Hasson concluded, we need “to listen, to engage, but then … be confident in speaking the truth.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

National Guardsman Challenges ‘No Christian in Command’ Policy

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A former Idaho National Guardsman is suing the Gem State after he was removed from command for expressing his biblical views on human sexuality.

Major David Worley of the Idaho Army National Guard and attorneys with Liberty Counsel filed a lawsuit last week, alleging that Worley was “unlawfully, unconstitutionally, and unconscionably subjected to investigation, discrimination, retaliation, and punishment for the simple exercise of his First Amendment rights … to exercise his sincerely held religious beliefs without fear of discriminatory reprisal from his chain of command.” According to the lawsuit, the discrimination against Worley is rooted in comments he made when campaigning for mayor of Pocatello and, later, for Idaho State Senate.

While campaigning, Worley expressed his opposition to drag queen story hours, pornographic material in public school libraries, and gender transition procedures for minors. Liberty Counsel noted in a press release, “All of Worley’s protected speech occurred off-duty in his private capacity and before he took command of the Idaho Army National Guard’s Recruiting and Retention unit.” In 2023, a fellow National Guardsman who identifies as homosexual filed a complaint against Worley, alleging that the major’s religious beliefs constituted discrimination.

The Idaho Army National Guard subsequently suspended Worley from command and “illegally pressured him to resign without benefit of any counsel or notice.” He was told that if he did not resign he would “face significant and life-altering disciplinary proceedings.” When Worley rescinded his resignation on the advice of counsel, the Idaho Army National Guard launched a formal investigation into the complaints against him.

Although the investigation found that the complaints against Worley were “unsubstantiated” and that there was “no evidence Worley did anything wrong in the workplace,” the National Guard branch recommended a new policy requiring candidates for command be investigated — with examination of private social media posts being a key factor in such an investigation — to ensure that they do not adhere to any “toxic” or “concerning ideologies,” a supposed effort to “ferret out” any “extremism.” Liberty Counsel dubbed the directive the “No Christians in Command” policy.

Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver said in a statement, “The Constitution simply does not allow the military to punish those with sincerely held religious beliefs or to specifically target religion for disparate and discriminatory treatment.” He called on Idaho’s Republican governor to rectify the wrong. “Governor Brad Little must ensure that the Idaho Army National Guard upholds federal and state law and protects the free speech of its service members. This discrimination against Major Worley must stop and his record must be cleared and his career restored,” Staver declared.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, said, “The Idaho Army National Guard made an absolutely shameful decision when they removed an officer for his speech informed by his biblical worldview outside of his military role.” She continued, “We can hope that with the new Trump administration, we will see these violations of religious freedom in the military come to an abrupt halt. This highlights the importance for President Trump to set the tone as commander and chief and make it clear that the religious freedom of every servicemember and chaplain will be protected.”

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives — including LGBT activism — in the federal government. The order comes amid numerous moves by the Trump administration to exterminate identity-driven ideology from all areas of the federal government. For example, LGBT and Black Lives Matter (BLM) flags and signage have already been prohibited from government buildings and DEI-supporting military leaders have been fired. Trump, along with Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, have also announced a plan to halt and block military investigations related to alleged “extremism.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Media Censorship Money Trail Leads Back to U.S. State Department, House Committee Finds

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How far will the Biden administration go to block speech it doesn’t like? The outer limit may never be reached, but it does go international, according to an interim report by the House Committee on Small Business (HCSB) published earlier this week.

“The Global Engagement Center (GEC), an interagency body housed within the U.S. Department of State … circumvented its strict international mandate by funding, developing, then promoting tech start-ups and other small businesses in the disinformation detection space to private sector entities with domestic censorship capabilities,” stated the report. Additionally, “The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a private non-profit funded almost entirely by Congressional appropriations, violated its international restrictions by collaborating with fact-checking entities in assessing domestic press businesses’ admission to a credibility organization.”

The GEC’s proclivity toward domestic censorship was already exposed by a House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government report in November 2023, which exposed its collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and big-tech companies to censor disfavored political viewpoints during the 2020 election. This collaboration was separate from the DHS’s short-lived Orwellian innovation in the spring of 2022, the justly stillborn Disinformation Governance Board.

Where the HCSB broke new ground was in identifying ways that government funding was inappropriately subsidizing a burgeoning censorship industry — specifically by using foreign-only funds to subsidize domestic censorship projects. It focused on the GEC because it “is the only Federal entity known to this Committee: (1) whose purpose is countering foreign disinformation that threatens the United States, … [and] (3) that administers taxpayer dollars to small private entities that interfere with the ability of American businesses to compete online because of their lawful speech.”

The HCSB report identified multiple instances where GEC awards were subcontracted to other groups. This practice decreases the transparency of these awards, since the State Department has refused to inform the committee of all subaward recipients, and in some cases professes not to know who received a subaward. However, the committee did uncover enough information to raise further concerns about “GEC’s compliance with its international mandate.”

For instance, “one such award was to the Institute of War & Peace Reporting (IWPR), which administered a subaward

to the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, Inc. (Poynter),” detailed the committee. “This subaward was used to convince international news outlets to join Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network’s (IFCN) Code of Principles. … To join the Code of Principles, organizations must apply and be accepted by the IFCN’s assessors.”

“It appears that[,] in implementing this award, GEC staff was added to a Google Group email in which IFCN assessors (including representatives from the NED and fact-checking organizations Snopes, Full Fact, and Poynter/IFCN) critiqued applicants, including domestic businesses such as The Daily Caller and its fact-checking organization,” continued the HCSB report. At the very least, this means that GEC staff were aware that, despite their strict international mandate, this award affected domestic, American media.

The committee also noted NED’s role in this domestic enterprise. “As set forth in its Articles of Incorporation and the National Endowment for Democracy Act, it is a violation of the NED’s mandate to operate domestically, and therefore to interfere with the operations of domestic press,” stated the report. It found evidence that NED staff weighed in, from their official email addresses, on the credibility of U.S.-based media organizations. On February 22, 2021, NED program officer Dean Jackson wrote:

“On the other hand, you really have to ask yourself if you want to be featured on a website with a history of [here he linked to a Snopes article claiming that ‘many’ Daily Caller writers had expressed white supremacist views, when in fact they exposed one who was immediately fired], next to headlines like [here he linked to a Daily Caller article titled, ‘Public Schools Are Becoming Cesspools Of Woke Liberal Activism. What Happened?’]. It’s something everyone has to answer for themselves. I personally wouldn’t lend them the credibility.”

Jackson worked for a federally-funded organization whose strictly international mandate prevented them from interfering with the operations of domestic press. Yet, using his work email, he publicly opined about the credibility of a domestic news organization based on how they covered domestic education topics.

Jackson no longer works for NED. In fact, he left NED in June 2021 for a position with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a left-wing group. During his two years there, he also worked as an analyst on the January 6 subcommittee. Jackson’s post-NED resume demonstrates not only his political leanings but also the left-wing ecosystem in which the National Endowment for Democracy exists.

The political bias on display with NED underscores why federally-funded non-governmental organizations should stay out of domestic media markets in the first place. In the last century, the U.S. government founded Voice of America (VOA) to counter propaganda coming from hostile foreign governments. But it restricted VOA’s reach on U.S. soil precisely to safeguard the freedom of the press. The committee report recognized that organizations like GEC have a role to play in countering propaganda from new hostile actors, ranging from pro-terrorist Imams to states like Iran, Russia, and China.

But there should still be guardrails to protect the freedom of domestic, American press from undue government interference. The HCSB report describes how the GEC and NED overrode those guardrails.

The HCSB identified another award “to a small domestic business” that was “not subject to international restrictions” and affected domestic news media. The GEC awarded contracts to Park Capital Investment Group, LLC (Park Advisors), which had a residential address on the GEC contract list and is now defunct. In 2020 and 2022, Park Advisors sub-awarded a total of $75,000 to a tech start-up, NewsGuard, which created new methodology for evaluating the trustworthiness or “health” of news organizations.

The HCSB did not have to search far to find bias in NewsGuard’s ratings. It found misleading headlines in mainstream media articles (regarding the Trump assassination attempt and a malicious misquotation to imply that Trump promised a “bloodbath” if he lost the election) and noted that these headlines did not affect NewsGuard’s scoring system.

In a few short years, NewsGuard has “partnered with three of the top five global advertising agencies and five of the top ten ad exchanges,” as well as Microsoft, YouTube, and other companies to discredit certain news organizations and “influence[] thousands of ad buys.” The report suggests, at least implicitly, that NewsGuard’s rapid rise was due in part to the patronage of the GEC.

The HCSB report is only an interim report because of aggressive stonewalling on the part of the State Department. To date, the committee has reviewed 40 hours of interviews and hearings, as well as 6,185 pages of documents, but largely from other sources. “The Committee sent an initial request for award records to the GEC on June 7, 2023,” the report summarized. “Subsequent requests for additional documentation were made over the course of one year, during which the Committee gave significant leeway in time and scope to State. Despite these accommodations, only two heavily redacted lists of awardees were produced, with none of the requested award application, risk assessment, or contract information.”

After 14 months of such delays, the small business committee issued a subpoena for the relevant documents. The State Department responded that it would take them 21 months — nearly a whole Congress — to fulfill it. This is an unacceptably long time, the report noted. Not only has the State Department already had months to collect the information, but the State Department should already have many of the documents compiled in response to requests from other committees. “The aforementioned failures are all indicative of a wider problem experienced by other committees — that the Biden-Harris Administration does not properly adhere to Congressional oversight,” they stated.

“The Federal government is a primary component of the CIC [censorship-industrial complex], and it is this nexus which concerns the Committee,” summarized the HCSB report. Due to the nature of the committee, their particular area of concern is the award of State Department grants to small businesses. “There are some awardees who tout ideological beliefs as fact, and work to diminish the reputation of American businesses if their speech negates those narratives,” it stated. “The Committee has received only a fraction of the documents it requested and subpoenaed from the GEC …. There is much more to learn[,] and transparency is in short supply.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Europe’s Free Speech Crackdown Could Be Coming For Americans Next, Advocates Warn

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The arrest of Telegram’s founder endangers the future of free expression and privacy rights, multiple civil liberties advocates told the Caller.

Durov’s arrest was spearheaded by France’s OFMIN, the agency tasked with protecting children from violence. Various governments — the U.S., U.K. and the European Union (E.U.) — have advanced legislation aimed at protecting children online. However, critics say these policies could be weaponized to chill freedom of speech and greenlight government censorship.

“[Kid’s] safety is a very useful pretext for censors,” the Foundation for Freedom Online (FFO) told the Caller in a statement, comparing the issue to a “trojan horse.”

“Unlike other common excuses, like ‘disinformation’ and ‘hate speech,’ it is a real issue that the public is strongly concerned about.”

OFMIN issued the arrest warrant for a preliminary investigation into allegations of drug trafficking, fraud, cyberbullying, “organised crime and promotion of terrorism,” France 24 reported. Durov was ultimately charged Wednesday with complicity in the spread of sexual images of children.

Civil liberties groups decried the arrest and expressed concerns about the shaky future of free expression.

“Communications platforms like Telegram are a vital part of internet architecture and fundamental drivers of free speech,” Joe Mullin, Senior Policy Analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said in a statement.

He noted that if Durov was arrested for Telegram’s moderation policies, it jeopardizes the privacy and free speech rights of users. Mullin commented on the lack of details about Durov’s arrest, noting how Telegram is used by “hundreds of millions” of individuals globally.

“Those users’ rights to free expression are at stake,” he concluded.

France’s Tribunal Judiciaire De Paris released a statement Monday listing out the 12 charges facing Durov.

The French government investigated Telegram because of the site’s moderation policies and lack of cooperation with authorities, arguing Telegram was “complicit” in certain illegal activities, according to the French outlet TF1 Info.

“I think Pavel’s arrest is concerning,” Toby Young, Founder and General Secretary of the U.K.-based Free Speech Union (FSU) told the Caller. “Would you arrest the head of the telephone company if someone made a threatening phone call? Pavel cannot be held responsible for everything that’s said on Telegram.”

He added that although some individuals will abuse Telegram’s lack of censorship, the platform provides people with the freedom to criticize authoritarian regimes.

Durov was born in Russia and is also a citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates. He fled Russia in 2014 after he refused to hand over encrypted data from the Russian social network VKontakte (VK) — which Durov founded — to authorities. He also denied a request by Russian authorities to ban opposition parties from the platform. 

“The specific nature of the charges against Durov are unclear at this time,” Aaron Terr, Director of Public Advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told the Caller in a statement. “But to the extent Durov was arrested simply for failing to moderate Telegram more aggressively, that raises concerns about government control over online speech.”

Telegram released a statement claiming it adheres to E.U. regulations like the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The objective of the DSA is to “prevent illegal and harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation,” according to the European Commission.

“Arresting platform executives because of their alleged failures to sufficiently moderate content, even content as disturbing and harmful as content that harms children, starts us down a dangerous road that threatens free expression and gives too much power to the government to suppress speech,” Kate Ruane, the Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s (CDT) Free Expression Project, said in a statement to the Caller.

She explained how his arrest paves the way for governments to escalate censorship, threatening the privacy and freedom of expression of users.

“The dangers are all the more acute in the context of end-to-end encrypted services, where platforms do not even have access to the content of messages,” Ruane added.

The arrest of Durov is not the first time governments have taken action to address harmful online content, specifically for children.

A 2023 E.U. document obtained by WIRED detailed a proposal to force tech companies to scan users’ private messages for illegal content, potentially jeopardizing end-to-end encryption and digital privacy.

In the US, the Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) — a bill aimed at protecting children from harmful content online — in July. Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wrote a letter to his colleagues warning of the possible dangers of KOSA. He claimed it would stifle the First Amendment. Paul pointed to the bill’s vague text, also calling it a “trojan horse.”

“Protecting children from serious harm is crucial, but governments too often try to achieve that goal through overly broad and vague regulations that open the door to unchecked censorship,” FIRE’s Aaron Terr told the Caller.

Critics attacked KOSA as overly broad legislation that posed threats to online anonymity. KOSA would be overseen by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), thus subject to the whims of whichever administration is in power. (RELATED: Jonathan Turley Slams ‘Global Censors,’ Says Americans Should Be Afraid After Telegram Arrest)

“Consult the text of KOSA and similar bills in other countries, and you’ll find vaguely defined prohibitions against online ‘bullying’ and ‘harassment’ – both tried-and-true fig leaves for suppressing political speech,” FFO stated.

Similarly, the U.K. instituted the Online Safety Act in 2023 to implement protections for adults and children online. The bill was criticized for potentially enabling government censorship of the internet.

After riots swept across the U.K. this summer, the government is considering enhancing the Online Safety Act to tackle “incitements to violence or hate speech,” Reuters reported.

The FSU’s Toby Young said there are methods for platforms to protect people online, including age verification for children and adjustable safety settings for adults.

“People are the best judges of what’s ‘safe’ for them to see, not governments,” Young told the Caller.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

General assignment reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

J.K. Rowling: ‘If calling me ‘transphobe’ and ‘fascist’ was going to scare me, it would have happened years ago’

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J.K. Rowling has referred to rabid trans activists as the “gender Taliban.”

Rowling is a rarity in a society where far too many are sheep-like, going along to get along no matter what the cost.

Most people retreat at the thought of being called a “transphobe”, “Islamophobe” and any other bully label conjured up by the Left to shut down free speech and debate, which are critical elements to protect free societies from subversion by the worst fascists. The extreme hatred spewed at Rowling on Twitter over her stance on the aggressive trans agenda shows how desperate and lunatic these folks are in the face of mere disagreement. Yet, she remains courageously unfazed.

Last week Rowling criticized the UK’s new women and equalities minister over previous remarks she made on gender.

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Now Videos of Biden’s Senility Are ‘Misinformation,’ Too

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Get ready for ‘Misinformation’ round 3.

When Democrats, their activists and their media declared that disagreement was not a dangerous contagion known as “misinformation”, a ruthless Big Tech/Censorship alliance took off in 2017.

Round one of the Misinformation Wars was about censoring any materials about Hillary Clinton’s scandals while claiming that the only reason Trump won was because of Russian ‘misinformation’.

Round two was based around censoring Biden scandals and any claims that the election had been rigged.

Since history repeats itself as farce, round three is about videos of Biden acting out of it which have been dubbed “cheapfakes” because they supposedly lack context or have been edited and now are being dubbed as “misinformation”.

Whether or not Biden is out of it in a particular scene, is a matter of perception, not fact. And yet here come the fact checkers trying to establish something that only a team of medical professionals with access to the patient could hope to establish.

NBC News: Misleading GOP videos of Biden are going viral. The fact-checks have trouble keeping up.

Misleading is not true or false. And while some videos may be misleading, others are hard to argue with.

After years of claiming that Hillary and Hunter Biden’s scandals were Russian misinformation, we’re on the verge of claiming that videos of Biden looking ‘out of it’ are an assault on democracy and have to be censored to protect the Democrats from democracy.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

SCOTUS Hands NRA First Amendment Win

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In a victory for First Amendment rights, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided to reinstate a lawsuit brought by the National Rifle Association (NRA) alleging that New York state officials had violated the Second Amendment advocacy group’s First Amendment rights.

Following a 2018 school shooting, then-superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) Maria Vullo pressured financial institutions “to punish or suppress” the NRA, due to the organization’s gun rights advocacy. The NRA argued that Vullo violated the First Amendment and overstepped her official bounds, going beyond advising financial institutions and actually coercing them into targeting the NRA. But the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that Vullo’s actions “constituted permissible government speech and legitimate law enforcement.”

In an opinion penned by typically-left-leaning Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the NRA put forth a strong enough case that its lawsuit should be reinstated. “Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity’s ‘threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion’ against a third party ‘to achieve the suppression’ of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment,” Sotomayor wrote. “Today, the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors. Petitioner National Rifle Association (NRA) plausibly alleges that respondent Maria Vullo did just that.”

According to Sotomayor’s summary of the case, Vullo began investigating several NRA-associated insurance programs, finding several minor regulatory infractions. After the February 14, 2018 shooting at a school in Parkland, Florida, numerous companies and financial institutions spoke out against the NRA and some even severed ties with the group. Among those which refused to do business with the NRA were Lockton Companies, Chubb Corporation, and Lloyd’s of London, who respectively administered and underwrote insurance plans for NRA members.

Sotomayor wrote that, after the shooting, Vullo met with executives at Lockton, Chubb, and Lloyd’s and expressed a “desire to leverage [her office’s] powers to combat the availability of firearms, including specifically by weakening the NRA.” She also told executives — specifically Lloyd’s executives — that she had found numerous “technical regulatory infractions plaguing the affinity insurance marketplace,” but indicated “that DFS was less interested in pursuing the[se] infractions” unrelated to any NRA business “so long as Lloyd’s ceased providing insurance to gun groups, especially the NRA.”

Sotomayor summarized, “Vullo and Lloyd’s struck a deal: Lloyd’s ‘would instruct its syndicates to cease underwriting firearm-related policies and would scale back its NRA-related business,’ and ‘in exchange, DFS would focus its forthcoming affinity-insurance enforcement action solely on those syndicates which served the NRA, and ignore other syndicates writing similar policies.’”

Shortly afterwards, Vullo issued “guidance” letters to New York financial institutions, urging them to fulfill “their social responsibility” by ceasing to do business with the NRA. She and then-Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) hosted a joint press conference reiterating those points. Chubb agreed to stop underwriting NRA insurance policies and Vullo called on others to do likewise. Chubb and Lloyd’s entered into agreements with Vullo and DFS in early May.

“As DFS superintendent, Vullo had direct regulatory and enforcement authority over all insurance companies and financial service institutions doing business in New York,” Sotomayor explained. “So, whether analyzed as a threat or as an inducement, the conclusion is the same: Vullo allegedly coerced Lloyd’s by saying she would ignore unrelated infractions and focus her enforcement efforts on NRA-related business alone, if Lloyd’s ceased underwriting NRA policies and disassociated from gun-promotion groups.”

“One can reasonably infer from the complaint that Vullo coerced DFS-regulated entities to cut their ties with the NRA in order to stifle the NRA’s gun-promotion advocacy and advance her views on gun control,” Sotomayor continued. She further explained:

“To state a claim that the government violated the First Amendment through coercion of a third party, a plaintiff must plausibly allege conduct that, viewed in context, could be reasonably understood to convey a threat of adverse government action in order to punish or suppress the plaintiff ’s speech. Accepting the well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint as true, the NRA plausibly alleged that Vullo violated the First Amendment by coercing DFS-regulated entities into disassociating with the NRA in order to punish or suppress the NRA’s gun-promotion advocacy.”

“The NRA’s allegations, if true, highlight the constitutional concerns with the kind of intermediary strategy that Vullo purportedly adopted to target the NRA’s advocacy,” Sotomayor explained. “Such a strategy allows government officials to expand their regulatory jurisdiction to suppress the speech of organizations that they have no direct control over.” She concluded, “Ultimately, the critical takeaway is that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from wielding their power selectively to punish or suppress speech, directly or (as alleged here) through private intermediaries.”

The court’s decision was unanimous. Justices Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, and Biden-appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote concurring opinions. This comes as the Supreme Court deliberates over a case regarding the federal government and its agencies pressuring or coercing social media entities into censoring American political speech online.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

High Schooler’s Diploma Withheld for Telling Classmates to ‘Find Jesus’ in Graduation Speech

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Five days after he graduated from Campbell County High School in Kentucky, Micah Price finally received his diploma from school officials Wednesday after it was withheld because he went off script in his commencement speech and encouraged his classmates to seek Christ.

Price’s defiance of school rules has been the subject of a feverish debate online since a video of his speech went viral, with many Christian supporters praising him with words such as “brave.”

Superintendent Shelli Wilson told WKRC that Price was selected by his principal to deliver an approved speech that allowed him to thank his “Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” but not proselytize. However, Price urged his classmates to find Christ, telling them “He is the light. He is the way, the truth and the life,” a paraphrase of John 14:6.

“I was told beforehand [that] I wasn’t allowed to bring up Christ, that He is the way, the truth, and the life in my speech,” Price said on TikTok after the event.

“I did anyways, and after the speech was over, one of the principals came and tapped me on the shoulder very politely and professionally and told me I was going to have to go in front of the board and explain what I did because I went off script,” he added.

As he waited in the days following his speech to meet with school officials, Price said people offered to stand with him before the board. He urged them not to support him but the message of Jesus. He also insisted that the school officials did nothing wrong and were just simply doing their job in reprimanding him for going off script.

He eventually learned that he would not have to meet with the entire school board for his speech, only the principals.

Shortly after meeting on Wednesday, he was beaming with his diploma in an interview with Chelsea Sick of WKRC.

“It was a very quick and painless process. Went into this very short meeting with two principals. They were very professional in everything they did very kind … an answered prayer. We got the diploma,” he declared.

When asked about the social media firestorm over the delay in getting his diploma, Price said he knew his witness was against the rules but felt compelled to share more about the goodness of God in his life.

“I did go against the rules. I should have been punished which I do agree with,” he said. “I simply cannot go anywhere without mentioning what my Lord and Savior has done for me and just what he’s brought to me and my life. I did deserve to be punished but through Christ we prevail.”

Price, who will be joining the Air Force in July, told Fox 19 that delivering a graduation speech that honors God has been a goal of his since the fifth grade.

“I always wanted to give it,” Price said. “I prayed about it a lot.”

His conviction grew stronger when he became a devoted Baptist in the eighth grade, and last Friday, he said he was prepared to pay the price for the message he delivered.

“My Lord and Savior is your answer,” Price said in his speech. “He will give you the truth, the way, and the light. I must give the honor, the praise, and the glory to Jesus Christ.”

This article originally appeared in The Christian Post.

AUTHOR

Leonardo Blair

Leonardo Blair is a senior reporter with The Christian Post.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

ICC Says Criticism of the ICC Could be a Criminal Offense

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Authoritarian leftist foes of free inquiry control the international organizations.

ICC prosecutor threatens U.S. senators

by Elliott Abrams, JNS, May 29, 2024 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Many critics thought the International Criminal Court had gone too far when its prosecutor asked for arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

But as the saying goes, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

Now, the prosecutor’s office has threatened to prosecute criticism of…himself. Those who seek to defend Israel and stop the malicious, deeply antisemitic action against its leaders and against the Jewish state are now being told that their words and actions may also be a crime.

This may sound like something out of “Alice in Wonderland,” but it is an effort not only to limit freedom of speech, but to limit the constitutional powers of the U.S. Congress.

After the prosecutor called for the arrest warrants for top Israeli officials, 12 U.S. senators wrote to the ICC. The full text of the letter is below. The final paragraphs read:

“If you issue a warrant for the arrest of the Israeli leadership, we will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States.

“The United States will not tolerate politicized attacks by the ICC on our allies. Target Israel and we will target you. If you move forward with the measures indicated in the report, we will move to end all American support for the ICC, sanction your employees and associates, and bar you and your families from the United States. You have been warned.”

The reaction of the prosecutor’s office came in a tweet, the key language of which is this:

“When individuals threaten to retaliate against the Court or Court personnel…such threats, even when not acted upon, may also constitute an offence against the administration of justice under Art. 70 of the Rome Statute.”

Wow.

The 12 senators are already criminals, according to the ICC prosecutor, for writing their letter—even if absolutely nothing else happens. Note that the prosecutor writes of “individuals” who may threaten the ICC, whereas the senators write as U.S. government officials about possible official U.S. government actions. In plain language, the prosecutor is arguing that he and the ICC are above criticism. Forget freedom of speech or national sovereignty. To say that the United States, which is not a party to the Rome Statute, might react to punish the ICC for illegal and immoral actions it and its employees may take is not permitted….

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

U.K. Rejects WHO Pandemic Treaty as Critics Sound Alarm over ‘New World Order’

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The British government is preparing to reject a global health treaty that critics warn gives power to “a new world order.” According to The Telegraph, the U.K. is opposed to signing the World Health Organization (WHO) global pandemic treaty, insisting the accord would undermine the U.K.’s sovereignty.

The U.K. reportedly refuses to agree to any treaty which would not allow the nation to put its own interests first. In its present form, which is the ninth and final draft, the WHO treaty would require wealthier Western nations such as the U.S. and the U.K. to surrender 20% of their “pandemic-related health products” — including medicines, vaccines, and protective equipment — to be given to nations the WHO deems less developed. The terms of the treaty would grant the WHO 10% of those products for free and the other 10% “at affordable prices.” A spokesperson for Britain’s Department of Health and Social Care stated, “We will only support the adoption of the accord and accept it on behalf of the UK, if it is firmly in the UK national interest and respects national sovereignty.”

The pandemic treaty was introduced in May 2021 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, purportedly as a means of ensuring a united international global response to future pandemics. However, critics across the globe, including in the U.S., are urging nations to reject the accord, warning that it effectively grants the bureaucratic WHO unprecedented control over sovereign nations and their health care systems.

Appearing on “Washington Watch” on Thursday night, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) cautioned against the “dangers of global governance” and “a new world order.” He explained that the WHO “engineered” the global response to COVID-19 but ultimately “gave cover” to China, where the virus originated. “I think it probably was manmade, probably from a lab in Wuhan,” Johnson said. “But again, there’s corruption. The Chinese exert way too much influence on the World Health Organization. Why would we want China’s influence dictating American actions or other nations’ actions as well?”

Johnson and his fellow Senate Republicans issued a letter last week to President Joe Biden, demanding he withdraw the U.S. from WHO pandemic treaty negotiations. Declaring the terms of the treaty “unacceptable,” the letter states, “Some of the over 300 proposals for amendments made by member states would substantially increase the WHO’s health emergency powers and constitute intolerable infringements upon U.S. sovereignty.” The letter also called on the U.S. to hold the WHO accountable for its “total” and “predictable” “failure” to respond adequately to COVID-19, a failure which the letter argues “did lasting harm to our country.”

The letter concludes noting that any treaty must be approved by the Senate and that Biden is expected to “submit any pandemic related agreement to the Senate for its advice and consent.” On “Washington Watch,” Johnson explained, “The presidents are abusing their authority in terms of entering these agreements, calling them executive agreements when they clearly fall into the guidelines of what treaties should be.” He added that Americans should “understand what our president is getting America involved in.”

Johnson and his Senate compatriots aren’t the only ones calling on Biden to withdraw from negotiations. Last week, 22 state attorneys general also sent a letter to the president, warning that the pandemic treaty would give the WHO “unprecedented and unconstitutional powers over the United States and her people” and cautioning against “relinquish[ing] more power to unelected and unaccountable institutions.” Referring to the pandemic treaty as “highly problematic,” the attorneys general wrote:

“To varying degrees, these measures would threaten national sovereignty, undermine states’ authority, and imperil constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Ultimately, the goal of these instruments isn’t to protect public health. It’s to cede authority to the WHO — specifically its Director-General — to restrict our citizens’ rights to freedom of speech, privacy, movement (especially travel across borders) and informed consent.”

They further noted that the negotiations Biden has involved the U.S. in “would transform the WHO from an advisory, charitable organization into the world’s governor of public health” and “inappropriately cede American sovereignty to the WHO.” Additionally, they pointed out that the federal government does not have the constitutional authority to “delegate public health decisions to an international body,” observing that “responsibility for public health policy” is vested in the states, not in the federal government.

Finally, the attorneys general warned that the WHO’s proposals “would lay the groundwork for a global surveillance infrastructure, ostensibly in the interest of public health, but with the inherent opportunity for control (as with Communist China’s ‘social credit system’).” They added, “The current draft instructs signatories to ‘cooperate, in accordance with national law, in preventing misinformation and disinformation.’ This is particularly dangerous given that your administration pressured and encouraged social-media companies to suppress free speech during COVID-19.”

Nations are expected to either accept or reject the terms of the pandemic treaty at the WHO’s World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

North Carolina Student Sues School after Being Suspended for Saying ‘Illegal Aliens’

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In early April, 16-year-old high school student Christian McGhee faced severe backlash at Central Davidson High School in Lexington, North Carolina for using the term “illegal aliens” in his English class. His comment resulted in a three-day suspension and was met with threats and bullying upon his return. On Tuesday, the Liberty Justice Center (LJC) filed a lawsuit against the Davidson County Board of Education.

McGhee’s mention of “illegal aliens” came in the form of a question. After his teacher assigned “alien” as a vocabulary word, the sophomore asked whether she was alluding to “space aliens or illegal aliens who need green cards?” According to LJC, while “there was no substantial disruption to the class,” the administration decided his question was racially motivated.

“I didn’t make a statement directed towards anyone; I asked a question,” McGhee told The Carolina Journal. “I wasn’t speaking of Hispanics, because everyone from other countries needs green cards, and the term ‘illegal alien’ is an actual term that I hear on the news and can find in the dictionary.”

According to The Daily Caller, McGhee’s question allegedly offended one of his classmates who then wanted to fight him, but later admitted he was only joking. In an interview, McGhee’s mother, Leah McGhee, said that she believes the administration were the ones who “insinuated racism,” not the students.

“When lunch was over, the assistant principal came and removed the Hispanic kid from class, took him to his office, and said, ‘Are you sure you didn’t take this as offensive?’” she reported. “That led us to believe that he is the one that insinuated racism.”

Educational Freedom Attorney for LJC, Dean McGee, agreed with Leah’s perspective, blaming the administration that “pushed the narrative” instead of Central Davidson students.

“[We] think we’ve got a strong case under the First Amendment for free speech,” McGee told The Daily Caller. “We’ve got a strong case under the 14th Amendment for due process. They wouldn’t even let him [Christian] appeal this suspension, the branding of racism. So we think we have a strong case. We think the court should actually clear Christian’s record and we’re going to ask for damages.”

The fallout from the controversy led McGhee’s parents to withdraw him from the public school and finish out his year through a homeschool program.

“I have raised our son to reject racism in all its forms, but it is the school, not Christian, that injected race into this incident,” Leah told the LJC. “It appears that this administration would rather destroy its own reputation and the reputation of my son rather than admit they made a mistake.”

In an exclusive interview Tuesday morning with The Center Square, McGee talked about the broader implications of Christian’s situation.

“It impacts every student in the country and their right to speak without fear of aggressive retaliation from their administration,” he said. “In this case, our client, in the context of the conversation, asked a question that on its face was racially neutral. It was earnest in the class discussion.”

Christian’s question comes at a relevant time, as the country’s current border situation heightens. In February, Pew Research Center recently published a poll that looked at how Americans view the current border crisis. Although, “Young adults are far less engaged with news about the U.S.-Mexico border than are older people,” the poll found that 29% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 call the large number of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. a “crisis.”

AUTHOR

Abigail Olsson

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Poll: 69% of Americans Believe Free Speech Is ‘Heading in the Wrong Direction’

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Over the years, research centers have routinely polled American citizens on the topic of free speech. And with each passing year, the country seems more convinced that while freedom of speech is important, how one practices that right can be problematic.

For example, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the Polarization Research Lab (PRL) at Dartmouth College recently released a poll that revealed 69% of the 1,000 Americans they surveyed believe free speech is “heading in the wrong direction.” However, it’s noteworthy that their concerns stem from the growing inability for people “to freely express their views.” And “alarmingly,” the researchers wrote, roughly one-third of the Americans polled believe the First Amendment “goes too far in the rights it guarantees.”

The poll experimented with a variety of controversial statements, asking respondents to choose which ones they found most offensive. Out of the most surprising results, 52% felt their community “should not allow a public speech that espouses the belief they selected as the most offensive.” Additionally, “A supermajority, 69%, said their local college should not allow a professor who espoused that belief to teach classes.”

Reason magazine summarized, “These results indicate that though the average American is concerned about protecting free speech rights, a significant portion of the population seem poised to welcome increasing censorship.”

FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said the “results were disappointing, but not exactly surprising.” He continued, “Here at FIRE, we’ve long observed that many people who say they’re concerned about free speech waver when it comes to beliefs they personally find offensive.” But Stevens, as well as Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm, believe the best way to protect free speech is, in fact, to protect the right to be potentially offensive or controversial.

Backholm, who serves as a senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at FRC, commented to The Washington Stand, “It isn’t just that the First Amendment also protects offensive speech, it primarily exists to protect offensive speech.” He explained that there’s “no need to recognize the right to say, ‘I like tacos,’ because” most people wouldn’t see a reason to silence that. The entire reason for the constitutional guarantee to the freedom of speech,” he added, “is because the Founders understood the government’s instinct to stop people from saying things the government disliked.”

Especially with the rise of cancel culture, Backholm emphasized, “A lot of people today believe there is a constitutional right not to be offended.” Additionally, they also often “believe the right not to be offended is of greater importance than the freedom of speech,” which he noted is commonly the reason why “pronoun laws and campus safe spaces” are created. “Yes, there are limits to free speech, but those limits are not triggered by the emotional stress associated with discovering there are people in the world who disagree with you,” he said.

As for the Americans in the poll who are more worried about offensive beliefs being freely expressed, Backholm said, “The problem with restricting ‘offensive’ speech is that different things are offensive to different people. The pro-life position is offensive to some while the pro-abortion position is offensive to others.” Ultimately, it begs the question: Should all conversations about the issue be banned? To which he answered, “Obviously not.”

Stevens emphasized the importance of teaching this generation about the value and meaning of the First Amendment. “These findings should be a wake-up call for the nation to recommit to a vibrant free speech culture before it’s too late.” Because, as Backholm concluded, “If we want to be free, and most of us do, we must accept the fact that being exposed to ideas and behaviors we dislike is the cost of being able to do and say things other people don’t like.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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