Monday, March 04, 2019
#FREESPEECH IN THE NEWS: MARCH 4, 2019
As the Citadel of Free Speech here in Cleveland, we work to protect and promote the basis of our democracy by sharing related stories, commentary, and opinions on free speech in the 21st century. Here's what's making the news – and what you should know about – in the past week.
1.) Trump says executive order coming to protect free speech on campuses
President Trump says he’s going to push back against limits of free speech at colleges. Trump, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend, said, “Today, I am proud to announce that I will be very soon signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research funds.”
Trump and other conservatives have increasingly taken issue with what they see as campus crackdowns on opinions that aren’t considered politically correct. Conservative speakers have faced protests and even some rioting from left-wing protesters, and many universities have codes that limit some speech deemed offensive but is legally protected in the non-college world.
The federal government currently provides colleges and universities with a total of $30 billion in research funding — money the president and the Department of Education could route away from schools they see as behaving badly.
The White House did not release any further details about the order.
2.) Protesters who blocked Seattle traffic argue free speech in court
Protesters who blocked downtown streets and got arrested last year, faced a judge Friday, hoping to get charges dismissed.
Sixteen protesters went before a Seattle Municipal Court judge. Before the hearing, they made their case with a demonstration. They were asking the judge to dismiss charges against protesters who were arrested for blocking traffic in downtown while protesting against Chase Bank last year. During the protest, demonstrators blocked 2nd Avenue with giant tents.
In court Friday afternoon, attorneys for the protesters argued that they are legally protected by the First Amendment, so they shouldn’t have been charged. They also argued the city’s rules aren’t clear, but city prosecutors said since police told them to stop blocking traffic several times, they broke the law.
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments in a First Amendment case that experts have said could have ramifications for how the nation's largest social media companies are permitted to moderate the content on their platforms. The justices' questions during oral argument revealed a reluctance to enter into that fraught arena. This suggests the future ruling on the matter will hew narrowly to questions specific to the facts of the case, which involved not social media but public-access television channels in New York.
In particular, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Stephen Breyer, who sit on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, expressed unease with the notion that the First Amendment could apply to private companies operating private property, such as Twitter and YouTube.
And the other justices, led by Chief Justice John Roberts, largely homed in on extremely narrow questions of fact that suggested the court was not gearing up for a large revision of its existing precedent.
