Monday, July 26, 2021
#FREESPEECH in the News July 26, 2021
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.) Federal appeals court says Madison school board violated free speech rights
A federal appeals court has ruled the Madison Schools violated a grandfather’s free speech rights during the debates over its gun policy and an attorney says the penalty could be “in the six figures.”
Madison schools grandfather Billy Ison, his family and a friend sued the schools in February 2019 in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati. They claimed the school board violated their right to free expression and made it virtually impossible for them to speak their views about the controversial concealed carry gun policy during school board meetings.
They asked District Court Judge Michael R. Barrett to issue a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop the district from requiring in-person registration and enforcing a policy section that says the presiding officer may “interrupt, warn or terminate a participant’s statement when the statement is too lengthy, personally directed, abusive, off-topic, antagonistic, obscene or irrelevant.”
2.) A giant inflatable rat called "Scabby" is constitutionally accepted free speech
A giant inflatable rat commonly used by unions at picket sites can continue to see the light of day, a labor regulator has decided.
For decades, the balloon rodent, affectionately known as "Scabby" by labor groups, has been a common fixture at worksites and at union protests, with its snarling fangs and scab-covered belly a reliable signal that a union has a dispute with a nearby company or worksite. The rat, and its lesser-known cousins, a "fat cat" and a "greedy pig," range in size from 6 feet to 25 feet high.
Judges have long held that this menagerie constitutes protected free speech and can be used in public as long as the balloons don't block entrances and exits to a job site.
But under the Trump administration, the National Labor Relations Board seemed poised to exterminate Scabby — or at least clip its inflated tail. Peter Robb, then the general counsel for the NLRB, opined that a union's use of inflatable animals at the site of a business that did not have a direct dispute with a union constituted "illegal picketing" and did not deserve free-speech protections.
3.) Tennessee educators oppose attacks on teachers’ free speech rights
The Tennessee Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee opposes the legislation (HB 0580/SB 0623) passed by Tennessee’s right-wing legislature aimed at intimidating teachers and attacking their free speech and academic freedom.
This legislation includes a prohibition against instruction that “promot[es] division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class, or class of people.”
Later, the bill nonsensically qualifies this prohibition with the claim that “this section does not prohibit” schools or instructors from making use of textbooks or instructional materials that discuss “the history of an ethnic group” or include “the impartial discussion of controversial aspects of history” or “the impartial instruction on the historical oppression of a particular group of people based on race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion, or geographic region.”
