Tag Archives: free speech

Rogue Judge

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A couple of teachers had the impudence to demur from compulsory “antiracism training” imposed by their Springfield Public Schools district managers.

In response, US District Judge Douglas Harpool, of the Western District of Missouri, not only ruled against the teachers, he ordered them to pay $313,000 in legal costs for bothering the district, and he did this cavalierly disregarding their arguments and issuing his ruling via summary judgment—which means the court—Harpool—never really took the case up, or took it seriously. He wrote in pertinent part, as summarized by Just the News:

They have not provided evidence they were compelled to “speak favorably” about the district’s message or “somehow affiliate or associate” with that message, as evidenced by Lumley’s allegation that “her own coworkers berated her during training” for disagreeing, Harpool wrote.” about the district’s message or “somehow affiliate or associate” with that message, as evidenced by Lumley’s allegation that “her own coworkers berated her during training” for disagreeing, Harpool wrote.

Never mind that the very parts that Harpool cited demonstrates the compulsory nature of the requirement not to speak unfavorably about the district’s “message” and not to remain unaffiliated or unassociated with the district’s “message.” That pressure to not be unaligned or to not speak unfavorably is exactly the compulsion to speak favorably and to align. The fact that the beratement went unchallenged by the program’s instructors or the district’s managers further emphasizes the compulsory nature of the district’s “message.”

This is a Federal judge who needs to be removed from the bench forthwith. He has shown himself not just incapable of, but openly refusing to, adjudicating a case objectively and on the basis of the facts and statute(s) presented. Instead, Harpool reigns over his court on the basis of his personal agenda.

Harpool’s ruling can be read here.

Data Protections

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A couple of Letter writers in The Wall Street Journal‘s Letters section had concerns about a potential ban of People’s Republic of China-domiciled ByteDance’s TikTok.

I disagree with their concerns.

A TikTok ban isn’t the solution. It won’t protect our data privacy, it won’t protect children from the dangers of the internet, and it is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights.

No one is masquerading banning TikTok as the solution; that’s a strawman argument. Much more needs to be done to protect our data privacy and our children—and our intellectual and technology property—but banning TikTok is a useful step. Nor is banning it a violation of anyone’s 1st Amendment rights. No one’s speech would be barred, only a tool of the PRC would be barred.

TikTok can be an effective tool for fighting corruption within the government itself.

Not when it’s controlled by the PRC government.

…a communication tool that millions of Americans use….

Congratulations to this writer: he has successfully identified the breadth of the threat, just as TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, (accidentally) did when he pointed out the 150 million American users of TikTok.

Juice and Squeeze

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In Wednesday’s WSJ Letters Tirien Steinbach, Stanford Law School’s Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, sought to defend her own behavior in the disruption that prevented an invited guest from speaking at all.

She insisted on asking a key question:

We have to…ask ourselves: Is the juice worth the squeeze?

Steinbach blew up her own case with that question, which she also put to the invited guest speaker as she participated in her school’s censorship and cancelation of his speaking.

Free speech juice always and everywhere is worth the squeeze. We have sufficient laws, already, to deal with actual incitement to riot, actual creation of panic in stressful situations, slander, and so on.

The correct and only legitimate answer to speech to which someone or some group objects is speech by that someone or group, or a perhaps more articulate supporter, to contradict or refute the prior.

That Steinbach is oblivious to this demonstrates her unfitness for her role on Stanford’s management team, even her unfitness to retain such licenses to practice law as she might have.

Not Too Circular….

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During last Wednesday’s House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing regarding the Federal government’s collusion with social media, social media powdered wigs were asked whether they had used disappearing message apps to talk with government officials.

Twitter’s ex-Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gaddee’s response:

Not to the best of my records.

Which, of course, her records would not indicate, her messages with government officials (like another “witness” in front of the committee, then-FBI General Counsel James Baker) having disappeared via those apps.

Incidentally, Baker, in front of the Committee in his role as ex-Twitter Deputy General Counsel, claimed I don’t recall whether he had used disappearing message apps.

Go figure.

In Which I Disagree with the Congresswoman

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Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R, SC) has come out in opposition of the move to bar Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D, MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

I think we have to be very careful about what we are as a constitutional republic. I am not a fan of Ilhan Omar. She’s an anti-Semite. She’s a bigot. She’s a racist. She’s a socialist. But that doesn’t mean that we cancel people in this country. Republicans don’t stand for cancel culture. And that’s essentially what this is.

And

I think it sets a very dangerous precedent. And you know, there’s so much anti-Semitism in this country. We should be condemning it right and left as we always have, but there’s also the First Amendment right to do that[.]

Mace is correct that we’re a constitutional republic with a First Amendment right for all Americans to speak their piece, whatever that piece might be.

However.

Omar wouldn’t be barred from all House committees, any more than Congressmen Adam Schiff (D, CA) and Eric Swalwell (D, CA) are barred from all House committees. They’re barred only from the House Intelligence Committee; they’re free to serve on other House committees.

Omar would be barred only from the Foreign Affairs Committee and remain free to serve on other House committees. Omar’s rank bigotry makes her presence on Foreign Affairs counterproductive; her presence would give the lie to our nation’s international efforts to counter bigotry.

Our First Amendment free speech rights are limited in certain narrow circumstances. Military members cannot speak counter to military policy while in uniform or in other situations where they can be understood to be speaking for the military or for their branch or for their particular unit. They can be subject to discipline if they do. They can speak as freely as they wish on whatever subject they wish when they’re speaking as private citizens.

When Omar espoused her bigotry, she too often spoke as a Congresswoman, not as a private citizen. It would be entirely correct to bar her from Foreign Affairs; it would be cancel culture only were she barred from all House committees.