Monday, June 14, 2021
#FREESPEECH in the News June 14, 2020
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.
A retired Wilmington engineer filed a formal complaint with the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Southern Division claiming his first amendment rights were violated.
The Institute for Justice held a news conference Thursday after the lawsuit was filed, with its client Wayne Nutt, who felt the North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors got in the way of his freedom of speech in terms of speaking from his "expertise and experience."
Joe Gay, Institute for Justice attorney, said at the news conference the board violated Nutt's free speech rights and they said it would be a crime for him to talk about engineering -- and that's "unconstitutional."
Message on MSU rock prompts free speech discussion
When does free speech cross the line into hate speech? Michigan State University’s “Black Student Alliance” says it happened on the rock this past week. Someone painted “Boycott your DEI training” -- meaning the school’s mandatory diversity training.
The Black Student Alliance painted over the anti-diversity-training message, replacing it with one that read “You can’t erase us, hate has no home here.”
The group says hate speech happens too often on the rock and is concerned it makes MSU students feel unwelcome.
The Black Student Alliance is demanding the university hold whoever painted “Boycott your DEI training” accountable. It’s a reference to MSU’s mandatory diversity and inclusion e-learning. The group says this is the fifth time the rock has been defaced by some form of hate speech.
U.S. Supreme Court rejects white supremacists' challenge to anti-riot law
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a free speech challenge to a federal anti-riot law brought by two members of a militant white supremacist group who pleaded guilty to crimes related to a deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The justices declined to hear appeals by the two California men, Michael Miselis and Benjamin Daley, of a lower court ruling that upheld their convictions under the 1968 Anti-Riot Act but also deemed some parts of the law a violation of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech.
The law, enacted against a backdrop of the 1960s U.S. civil rights demonstrations and anti-war protests, makes it a crime to travel "in interstate or foreign commerce" with the intention to incite, encourage, organize, promote or participate in a riot.
