Corporations as people, cont’d is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Sen. Lindsey Graham would propose censoring Americans’ “snail” mail if he thought it would help protect national security, the South Carolina Republican said Tuesday. But for now, he says he doesn’t think it’s necessary.

“For now.” Nice. And Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) wants to prosecute reporters who publish leaked material. Meanwhile, say what you will about Glenn Greenwald, he’s willing to call out by name some “principle-free, hackish, and opportunistic” media lefties whose views on surveillance and civil liberties have proved malleable.

P.S., a reminder: Rep. Peter King made his name as an apologist for unspeakable IRA terrorism [Riggs]

Republicans for muzzling speech is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

I’ve got an article on the controversy due to appear in a forthcoming issue of Commentary. Earlier here, here, and here.

More: Rob Jenkins in Chronicle of Higher Education on “Purging My Syllabus.”

After furor, feds walk back campus speech/discipline code a bit is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

On a happier note, with regard to countering objectionable speech, the BBC reports that when members of the nativist English Defence League organized a gathering outside a mosque in the city of York, worshipers brought out tea and cookies and invited them inside for a chat.

Data point 2 about free speech in Britain: 11 lawyers have signed a letter in the Guardian “threatening supermarkets with immediate legal action” unless they remove from sale “lad’s mags,” men’s magazines that are anathema to feminist campaigners. “Displaying these publications in workplaces, and/or requiring staff to handle them in the course of their jobs, may amount to sex discrimination and sexual harassment contrary to the Equality Act 2010,” it says. “Similarly, exposing customers to these publications in the process of displaying them is capable of giving rise to breaches of the Equality Act.” [Guardian; Toby Young, Telegraph; ITV] Young points out that reported incidents of domestic violence have fallen quite sharply since lad’s mags became popular in the 1990s, making nonsense of claims that the publications somehow promote male aggression. For the campaigners, writes Toby Young, “this is simply about preventing men – predominantly working-class men – from buying magazines that they consider vulgar and in poor taste.”

More in comments from Bill Poser: “Here’s another: police in Wales ordered a shop-keeper to remove T-shirts saying ‘Obey our laws, respect our beliefs, or go back to your own country.’”

And from the “It Can’t Happen Here” department: “Justice Department to Hold Seminar Warning Against the Legal ‘Consequences’ of Anti-Muslim Speech.” Let’s hope there’s some reporting error here.

Free speech in the U.K.: two data points is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

When the Education Department was created in 1980 (Jimmy Carter’s payment to the National Education Association, the largest teachers union, for its first presidential endorsement), conservatives warned that it would be used for ideological aggression to break state and local schools to the federal saddle. … Most of academia’s leadership is too invertebrate and too soggy with political correctness to fight the OCR-DOJ mischief. But someone will. And it is so patently unconstitutional that it will be swiftly swatted down by the courts.

Hans Bader in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

In a guide to help colleges comply with Title IX, the Education Department has stated that “conduct of a sexual nature” includes many kinds of speech, such as “circulating or showing e-mails or Web sites of a sexual nature,” “displaying or distributing sexually explicit drawings, pictures, or written materials,” and “telling sexual or dirty jokes.” …

The government says the narrower definition of harassment laid down by the courts [i.e., liability only for failing to act against conduct that is "severe" and objectively offensive] applies only in sexual-harassment lawsuits, not in its Title IX investigations or the standard colleges must apply to their students or faculty. Colleges must declare “any unwelcome conduct” to be a reportable offense.

William Creeley, FIRE:

Unlike the 2001 Guidance [from OCR], the “blueprint” requires the broad definition to be adopted verbatim as university policy. …

Here’s why mandating this new distinction [between "hostile environment" and sexual harassment more generally] is important — and why it harms student and faculty rights. By separating “sexual harassment” from “hostile environment” harassment, OCR has also separated “sexual harassment” from the set of evaluative factors it uses to determine whether a hostile environment has been created. These factors include whether the conduct affected a student’s education, whether the conduct was part of a pattern of behavior, the identity of and relationship between the individuals involved, the context of the conduct, and more. By reviewing these and other factors to determine whether conduct created a hostile environment—and was thus sexual harassment—schools were able to separate truly harassing conduct from merely offensive or unwanted speech.

Earlier here and here.

Furor continues over federal campus speech code is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

…in the absence of a clear narrative, the talking points gravitated toward the least politically problematic story, blaming the anti-Muslim video and the Cairo demonstrations.

Why was it deemed “the least politically problematic” course to spread an untruth, already widely known to be such by many senior officials, that sought to focus public and world anger on private speech, and by implication on our First Amendment protection of free speech about religion?

One should note carefully Ken White’s powerful argument at Popehat that the arrest of filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula wasn’t in fact legally irregular because Nakoula had clearly violated the terms of his supervised release and revocation of his release was par for the course under the circumstances.

Even so, the questions remain. The Administration sent Susan Rice out to five talk shows on the weekend of the attacks, where she pressed the line that outrage about the video fueled the attack. Brooks makes the case that interagency rivalries and secrecy got in the way of telling a fuller story. Maybe so. But why should American free speech be left as the “least politically problematic” thing to blame after a terrorist attack?

Matt Welch on Benghazi and speech is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

P.S. Self-recommending: forthcoming Michael McConnell in YLJ on Citizens United.

Constitutional amendments to overturn Citizens United is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free speech roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

P.S. In case you wondered, the U.N. is in favor.

Congress set to expand Violence Against Women Act is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system