It pretty much says it all.
H/t Ralf Longwalker
And this:
This
Reply
Tag Archives: rights
Government Funding of Speech
PBS has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the latter’s moves to defund the service.
The system is centering its beef on two things: free speech and the potential to upend public television.
Last thing first. The risk of upending public television is wholly irrelevant. What’s relevant here is what our Constitution and the statutes cited in their suit say. What our Constitution says about PBS‘ business model or about any public business model is…nothing. There is no Constitutional right to a particular business model, and disruptions to models occur all the time, ranging from competitors to changing consumers to governments’ decisions to donate money or not.
PBS‘ crying about its business model is just cynical fear mongering.
PBS‘ free speech argument might have some force, but that one is centered on President Donald Trump’s (R) commentary regarding how little he likes PBS‘ own commentary and editorial decisions. However, Trump’s comments are irrelevant, also; what is relevant here, too, is what our Constitution and the cited statutes and Trump’s defunding EO say.
What our Constitution says about funding PBS is…nothing. There is no Constitutional obligation for our government to donate any money to it or to any public enterprise. The cited statutes create no such obligation. What Trump’s Executive Order says is this:
Government funding of news media in this environment [today’s, vs mid-last century when Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created] is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.
…
No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize. The CPB’s governing statute reflects principles of impartiality: the CPB may not “contribute to or otherwise support any political party.”
And this [emphasis added]:
The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS. Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.
In the end, whatever Government, or Trump, say about others’ speech, neither Government in general, nor the Trump administration in particular, are obligated to fund it; the only obligation is to not block it except under a few tightly circumscribed situations: lying under oath, false advertising, making threats or otherwise inciting violence, and the like. This is supported by PBS‘ own words:
After careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations[.]
What better way to safeguard public television’s independence and protect the autonomy of PBS member stations than to stop receiving corrosive government money, a point Trump made in the opening of his EO?
Cynicism…
…is alive and well in California. This is illustrated by the California Interscholastic Federation’s decision to increase the number of girls eligible to participate in State high school athletic tournaments while continuing to allow biological males—boys—to participate in those same girls’ tournaments.
[A]ny biological female student-athlete who would have earned the next qualifying mark for one of their Section’s automatic qualifying entries in the CIF State meet, and did not achieve the CIF State at-large mark in the finals at their Section meet, was extended an opportunity to participate in the 2025 CIF State Track and Field Championships[.]
Tl;dr translation: any girl who lost to a boy in an earlier stage of the competition will be granted the opportunity to compete and lose again to the same boy in the next stage.
The cynicism is made explicit by this remark by California’s Progressive-Democrat Gavin Newsom’s spokesperson Izzy Gardon:
CIF’s proposed pilot is a reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness—a model worth pursuing.
No. There’s nothing respectful, reasonable, or fair in allowing boys to participate in girls’ sports.
An Irrelevant Argument
Or it should be.
Recall that the Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has canceled Harvard University’s authorization to enroll foreign students over that school’s decision to not bother in any serious way to protect the safety and free speech rights of Jewish students and to keep enrolling “students” who then engage in anti-American and pro-terrorist riots, building seizures, and vandalism, along with its refusal to expel and bring charges against those “students” already enrolled who’ve engaged in those behaviors. These school administration decisions could rise to the level of civil rights law violations, similar as they are, to Columbia University’s decisions which has resuled in that school being charged by HHS with civil rights law violations.
Harvard’s situation:
Harvard enrolls about 7,000 international students—more than 25% of the student body—and like many US universities it relies on their tuition payments, which are often full-fee.
As Noem noted,
It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments[.]
This echoes SecState Marco Rubio’s acknowledgment that even getting a visa (student or otherwise) in the first place is a privilege and not a right. Both acknowledgments also carry the flip side that our government has no obligation to grant visas and no obligation to authorize colleges or universities to enroll foreign students.
Still, Harvard has filed an appeal to Noem’s decision and is seeking an injunction, trying to get a judge to once again dictate from the awesome heights of a district court knoll top what a coequal branch of our government can do regarding foreign policy. In his letter “to the community,” Harvard President Alan Garber wrote that the cancelation,
imperils the future of thousands of students and scholars across Harvard and serves as a warning to countless others at colleges and universities throughout the country who have come to America to pursue their education and fulfill their dreams[.]
This is both cynically specious and wholly irrelevant. That Harvard has designed its business model to be so dependent on foreign student enrollment in no way obligates our government to allow such enrollment. Further, in no way do future “thousands of students” or “scholars” have any intrinsic right to a student visa, or any other form of visa.
The DHS decision here certainly should serve as a warning to others at colleges and universities, and at any other institution or enterprise, that coming into our nation for any purpose is a privilege and not a right, and that granting such a privilege incurs an obligation on the grantee to obey all of our laws, including the free speech rights of others and the sanctity of property, whether privately held or government held.
There is no part of Harvard’s argument that is relevant to the case. What matters—all that matters—is what does the law say? Is this cutoff permissible under existing law?
If the cutoff is permissible, then a non-activist judge who obeys our Constitution and his oath of office, must deny the injunction request. Harvard should have two basic choices: shape up and stop coddling rioters and vandals, or work to change the law.
Unfortunately, the case went before just such an activist judge. Federal District Judge Allison Burroughs has issued Harvard’s requested injunction staying the DHS cancelation.
A Quick Summary
The Institute for Justice each week summarizes several appellate court cases and publishes the summaries in its newsletter. (Subscribe to the newsletter here.) This one in particular caught my eye.
At George Floyd protest in Grand Rapids, MI, protester who approached police line is met with burst of pepper spray. As he turns away, another officer fires a special munition that’s meant for crowd control at long distance, striking him in the shoulder. Excessive force? Sixth Circuit: No QI for the special munition. It’s deadly force at that range. Dissent: There’s no case on point.
My dissent dissent: Now there is.
Appellate courts most assuredly are allowed to set precedents/issue precedential rulings. In the present case, too, the officer firing his special munition at what amounted to point blank range had constructive knowledge of the gross dangers of his action. It’s part of his crowd control special munition training.