Latest comic: Using the First Amendment to end the First Amendment
#fascism #authoritarianism #media #journalism #tech #socialmedia #firstamendment
firstamendment
I've been drawing strips for years about attacks on students' right to protest, yet strangely I've never been invited to give a TED Talk, speak at an "ideas festival," or pen a column for the Atlantic.
This is from 2016.
Well done.
#Fulbright Board Resigns After Accusing #Trump Aides of #PoliticalInterference
The board of the prestigious program told the #State Department it had no right to cancel #scholarships for nearly 200 American #professors & #researchers.
#law #FirstAmendment #AcademicFreedom #SeparationOfPowers #AbuseOfPower #authoritarianism #tyranny #AmericanAutocracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/politics/fulbright-board-resign-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
NEW ESSAY!!
The Government Speech Doctrine Ate My Class: First Amendment Capture and Curriculum Bans
The govt speech doctrine makes it almost impossible for teachers to challenge academic gag rules & may preclude student challenges.
It should not.
Please check out this almost finished paper!
Link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4876740
#Law #LawFedi #lawProf #CriticalRaceTheory #LGBTQ #speech #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #Education #GovernmentSpeech
A new #Louisiana law goes into effect Thursday that will make it a misdemeanor for anyone, including #journalists, to be within 25 feet of a #police officer if the officer orders them back.
#News #Crime #CriminalJustice #CivilRights #Protests #Journalism #PressFreedom #Government #FirstAmendment
https://www.propublica.org/article/louisiana-police-buffer-law
"Several large American #publishers sued #Florida…over a state law that prohibits sexual content in school #libraries. They argue that the law has ignited a wave of book removals in violation of the #FirstAmendment."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/29/us/florida-book-ban-lawsuit.html
PS: This is one of the rare occasions when I side with publishers in a lawsuit. (FYI, see the next post in this thread for the last time this happened.) This is a case in which the interests of publishers, authors, and readers align.
A dist. ct in Texas holds Title IX Rule Violates 1st Amendment rights of teachers who want to misgender their students https://buff.ly/4iaFgB0
This is wrong and I have written an entire paper about why: https://buff.ly/3UVrAhd
To start, the teachers' speech is govt speech unprotected by the free speech clause
It’s the inhumanity and the cruelty that’s the hallmark of these hateful ghouls. Always.
The NCMEC & and the @ACLU should be suing the shit out of Trump for this. Just because you get federal funding doesn’t take away an organization’s #firstamendment rights
https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/ncmec-doj-lgbtqia-executive-order
Dozens of Northside High School students were suspended after participating in a protest against the immigration policies of President Donald Trump.
#CivilRights #Education #EducationNews #HISD #Houston #Immigration #Local #News #Protests #FirstAmendment #HISDProtest #HoustonISD #HoustonISDProtest #NorthsideHighSchool #TrumpImmigrationPolicy
#AP Says #Trump Blocked Access Because It Didn’t Rename #GulfOfMexico As #GulfOfAmerica
The #AssociatedPress said it was blocked from covering Trump‘s #ExecutiveOrder signing today because it declined to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in its editorial style standards.
#law #FirstAmendment #FreePress #journalism #whitewashing #WhiteSupremacy #WhiteNationalism
https://deadline.com/2025/02/ap-trump-white-house-gulf-of-mexico-1236285984/
Madness #AmericanAutocracy
‘Vaguely Threatening’: #Trump Federal Prosecutor #EdMartin Queries Leading #Medical Journal
The New England Journal of Medicine [#NEJM] received a letter suggesting that it was biased & compromised by external pressure. Other journals have also received the letter.
#law #censorship #FirstAmendment #Constitution #democracy #AbuseOfPower #authoritarianism #tyranny #dictatorship #AntiIntellectualism #science #medicine
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/health/nejm-prosecutor-letter.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=68CE025A-703F-4C94-87AA-8D0D7D06D23B
#Trump admin orders enhanced vetting of all #Harvard linked #visa applicants
The US #State Dept ordered all its consular missions overseas to begin additional vetting of visa applicants looking to travel to #HarvardUniversity for any purpose, acc/to an internal cable seen by Reuters on Friday, in a move that significantly expands Trump's persecution of the academic institution.
#law #immigration #RevengePolitics #Constitution #FirstAmendment #AcademicFreedom
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-orders-extra-vetting-all-visa-applicants-linked-harvard-2025-05-30/
2 #professors from #Rutgers University in #NJ went out on a limb to write a “mutual defense compact” for #BigTen schools.
The professors—1 teaches chemistry in Camden, the other psychology in Newark—said they were frustrated by #Trump’s abrupt cuts to #research #funding & its efforts to dictate #policy on some campuses.
They were also troubled by the lack of a unified response by #university leaders.
#law #Constitution #FirstAmendment #AcademicFreedom #HigherEducation
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/nyregion/rutgers-mdc-big-10.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=538E3356-8E4C-43C0-A26D-93CCA3B0137D
Senior #State Department official sought internal communications with #journalists, #European officials, & Trump #critics
#Trump appointee Darren Beattie requested records regarding a large list of high-profile names, organizations, & #RightWing buzzwords for a “#TwitterFiles” style document dump about alleged conservative censorship.
#law #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #FreePress #privacy #InfoSec #democracy #RevengePolitics
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/01/1115988/senior-state-department-official-sought-internal-communications-with-journalists-european-officials-and-trump-critics/
100% ILLEGAL
WHAT COUNTRY IS THIS?!?!?
#Trump administration asks #IRS to revoke #Harvard’s #TaxExempt status
The directive to the IRS is a significant escalation of Trump’s feud with #HarvardUniversity & other Ivy League institutions & other #nonprofit groups his admin views as “woke.”
#law #AcademicFreedom #Constitution #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #AbuseOfPower #ExecutivePower #Autocracy #Tyranny #AntiIntellectualism #censorship #Dictatorship
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/16/trump-harvard-tax-exempt-irs/
Edited 81d ago
Several #ColumbiaUniversity student #journalists are #suspended after covering #protests (while wearing #press ID) in the main library.
Their access to campus is blocked, & they can't take final exams.
Columbia's acting president is a fmr ABC journo.
#law #Trump #Universities #Constitution #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #FreePress #censorship #Dictatorship #tyranny #AmericanAutocracy
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2025/05/09/barnard-suspends-wkcr-and-spectator-reporters-who-covered-butler-library-protest/
#MahmoudKhalil permitted to hold newborn son for the first time despite objections from the #Trump admin
Detained #Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was allowed to hold his one-month-old son for the first time Thursday after a federal judge blocked the Trump admin’s efforts to keep the father & infant separated by a plexiglass barrier.
#law #immigration #Constitution #DueProcess #FirstAmendment #dissent #authoritarianism #AmericanAutocracy
https://apnews.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-louisiana-immigration-406c341b8edf1f92dc44695cefcd8f8c
Edited 46d ago
How is this even slightly legal?
(Hint, it’s not)
#Trump Admin Halts #Harvard’s Ability to Enroll #InternationalStudents
The move was a major escalation in the admin’s efforts to pressure the #college to fall in line with Trump’s demands.
#law #Constitution #FirstAmendment #AcademicFreedom #immigration #BrainDrain #AntiIntellectualism #authoritarianism #dictatorship #tyranny #AmericanAutocracy
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/us/politics/trump-harvard-international-students.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=FEF8C80B-EF9E-4A25-B3B7-9273FF569BA5
Edited 46d ago
In an attempt to circumvent the courts, #Trump Wednesday moved to block nearly all #InternationalStudents from entering the country to attend #HarvardUniversity, in his latest attack on the #school.
In an #ExecutiveOrder Trump declared that it would jeopardize *#NationalSecurity* [his ego] to allow #Harvard to continue hosting foreign students on its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
#dictatorship #law #immigration #FirstAmendment #AcademicFreedom #education #judiciary
https://apnews.com/article/trump-harvard-students-ban-foreign-immigrations-a8ab4c05ce284c2625e7f883f8e7e07a
#HarvardUniversity sued the #Trump admin on Friday, <24hrs after #DHS said it would block #international #students from attending the nation’s oldest #university & one of its most prestigious.
#InternationalStudents #law #immigration #FirstAmendment #AcademicFreedom #ExecutiveOverreach #AbuseOfPower
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/us/harvard-sues-trump-international-students-garber.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=D207A8FB-3511-4C58-8C06-FB1E6D0F75FE
#NPR & #PublicRadio stations sue #Trump over funding ban
NPR & 3 #Colorado public radio stations filed suit Tues in federal court against the admin over the #ExecutiveOrder purportedly barring the use of Congressionally appropriated funds for #NPR & #PBS.
"It is not always obvious when the government has acted with a retaliatory purpose in violation of the #FirstAmendment. 'But this wolf comes as a wolf,'" states the #legal brief….
#law #Congress #SeparationOfPowers
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/27/nx-s1-5413094/npr-public-radio-lawsuit-trump-funding-ban
A #Venezuelan musician released a song critical of #Trump, then he was arrested by #ICE.
The Criminalization of Venezuelan Street Culture
#law #immigration #Constitution #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #FreedomOfExpression #AlienEnemiesAct #pretense #FigLeaf #Bullshit #authoritarianism #tyranny #WhiteSupremacy #dissent #AmericanAutocracy
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-lede/the-criminalization-of-venezuelan-street-culture
#UnitedStates Sen. #AlexPadilla (D-#California) briefly interrupted #DHS Secretary #KristiNoem’s “news” [#propaganda] conference in the #LosAngeles #FBI headquarters, saying he had questions for her. Security pushed him out, telling him to put his hands up.
#Trump #PoliceState #Tyranny #authoritarianism #AmericanAutocracy #law #Constitution #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #immigration #Gestapo
The story behind the arrest of 87-year-old #veteran #JohnSpitzberg at the Capitol
John Spitzberg joined a #veterans march at the National Mall on March 14 in Washington, DC. The 87-year-old veteran was #arrested June 13 at the US Capitol while protesting #Trump’s birthday parade spectacle.
#AmericanAutocracy #law #democracy #Constitution #FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #RightToProtest #dissent
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/20/nx-s1-5438406/john-spitzberg-veteran-arrest-trump-parade