There’s no ‘disinformation’ exception to the First Amendment | The Hill

  Misinformation and disinformation retain the basic characteristics of speech. Unless they fall into one of very few exceptions, they are protected from censorship under the First Amendment. Consistent with those very limited exceptions, any effort by the government to prevent the dissemination of ideas or opinions, even if they are based on untruths, is unconstitutional.…

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Jack Smith’s requested gag order, like judicial orders restricting Trump’s speech, seeks to balance constitutional rights | The Conversation

In each of former President Donald Trump’s four indictments, he has been allowed to stay out of jail before his trial so long as he abides by certain conditions commonly applied to most people accused of crimes in the U.S. In the federal case in Washington, D.C., that concerns Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the…

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Jack Smith’s Trump indictment goes where free speech ends and criminal conspiracy begins | The Hill

Before Monday’s additional state indictment in Georgia, former President Trump stood accused in federal court of criminal conspiracy to subvert the 2020 presidential election results. Conspiracy charges, by their very nature, include communication. But on the second page of the federal indictment, in the third enumerated paragraph, the prosecution attempts to make clear that Trump is not being…

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Indoctrination, Orthodoxy and The First Amendment | Medium

Whether it comes from the right or the left, viewpoint discrimination is poison to democracy. And these days, it is coming from both sides. It is positively Orwellian — each side hopes it can exorcize words and phrases from the lexicon and thereby purge unwanted perspectives from our collective thoughts. Each seeks to cancel the…

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There is no First Amendment right to violence | New York Daily News

  In his farewell address to Congress, Rep. Adam Kinzinger chastised his Republican colleagues for justifying the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as “legitimate political discourse.” As the Jan. 6 Committee report made clear, while the message of Trump supporters might be protected political speech, the medium used by the insurrectionists — violent attacks on…

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Commentary: Here’s what diversity is about, Justice Thomas | Albany Times Union

Dear Justice Thomas, I am a professor at Syracuse University. I teach argumentation, advocacy, and First Amendment theory. During oral arguments in the affirmative action cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions against the University of North Carolina and Harvard University you are quoted saying, “I’ve heard the word ‘diversity’ quite a few times, but…

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A Battle for the Soul of Our Schools | Medium

The current debates about appropriate curriculum and constitutional boundaries inside the classroom are nothing less than a fight for the soul of the educational system in the United States. As Anya Kamenetz, explained in her New York Times essay, the public school system as we know it today was designed as a public good, an inclusive and diverse…

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The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Attempt to Criminalize Abortion Speech | Ms. Magazine

Censorship is a dirty word in America, and so it should be. It imposes silence upon speech, creating an empty void which instead should be filled with debate and discussion. As anti-abortion lawmakers continue to draft legislation to limit abortion access, opponents of new bans are horrified by the sweeping prohibitions lurking within—such as proposals that…

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