FIRE

Watch the full interview: https://youtu.be/VhYN4T44hPw Musician Winston Marshall, former banjoist and lead guitarist of the British folk rock band Mumford & Sons, sat with FIRE's Angel Eduardo this summer to discuss free speech in the arts, the tweet that led him to leave his band, and the importance of civil discourse. #music #censorship #art #cancelculture #twitter #andyngo #mumfordandsons #winstonmarshall #tweet #igreel #truestory #bookig #kickedout #expression #musiccensorship #freespeech #shorts

Support FIRE today: https://www.theFIRE.org/donate Hey Nikki Haley: Hands off our anonymous online speech https://www.thefire.org/news/hey-nikki-haley-hands-our-anonymous-online-speech FIRE Lawyer Aaron Terr, Director of Public Advocacy reacts to recent comments by Nikki Haley, Governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, about her recent comments about anonymous speech and algorithmic transparency on social media sites. “Nikki Haley told Fox News that anonymous online speech is a “national security threat.” We must all be wary of compromising core freedoms by giving politicians a blank check to water them down any time they invoke “national security.” Anonymous speech — whether the Founders writing the Federalist Papers or any one of us writing under an anonymous Twitter account — is core protected expression. Democracy relies on free speech to function and the ability to speak anonymously gives all of us the breathing room to weigh in on sensitive topics. Prohibiting anonymous online speech poses a greater threat to participation in our democracy — and thus, national security — than Nikki Haley and other politicians who would join her call may realize.” - Aaron Terr

Musician Winston Marshall, former banjoist and lead guitarist of the British folk rock band Mumford & Sons, sat with FIRE's Angel Eduardo this summer to discuss free speech in the arts, the tweet that led him to leave his band, and the importance of civil discourse. #music #censorship #art #cancelculture #twitter #andyngo #mumfordandsons #winstonmarshall #tweet #igreel #truestory #bookig #kickedout #expression #musiccensorship #freespeech

Punishing a student for his innocent expression isn’t just ridiculous. It’s unconstitutional. FIRE is huddling in case San Diego Unified School District refuses to back down and clear his disciplinary record—and they won't like our next play.

Wait, what IS the difference between #freespeech and the #firstamendment? 🇺🇸🤔 #lawyer #lawyersofinstagram #lawyerig #themoreyouknow #lawyerup⚖️ #usa #interesting #eduinstagram #edu #legal #humanrights

Support FIRE today: https://www.theFIRE.org/donate “There is a difference, everyone, between free speech and hate speech.” -Chris Christie FIRE Senior Program Officer and First Amendment attorney Zach Greenberg reacts to recent remarks by Chris Christie. Christie claims that there is a difference between free speech and hate speech, however the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that there is no 'hate speech' exception to the First Amendment. Is hate speech legal? https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/hate-speech-legal The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly rejected government attempts to prohibit or punish “hate speech.” Instead, the Court has come to identify within the First Amendment a broad guarantee of “freedom for the thought that we hate,” as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes described the concept in a 1929 dissent. In a 2011 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts described our national commitment to protecting “hate speech” in order to preserve a robust democratic dialogue: Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here—inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.

Fight back against censorship! ✊🎤🇺🇸 #lawyerup #lawyers #freespeech #freespeechforall #censorship #firstamendment #civilrights #humanrights

Support FIRE today: https://www.theFIRE.org/donate Erika López Prater, an art history professor at Hamline University, lost her teaching position after showing images of the Prophet Muhammad in class. While some faculty members and students called for Hamline to fire López Prater, professor of religion Mark Berkson defended the besieged professor in an essay published in The Oracle, Hamline’s student newspaper. For Berkson’s brave defense of academic freedom, FIRE presented him with the first-ever "Berkson Courageous Colleague Award" at this year's FIRE Faculty Network Conference.

Questioning everything is good for society! 👏 🔥 #freespeech #firstamendment #philosophy #postmodern

Available October 17th https://amzn.to/3RFCJ86 The Canceling of the American Mind Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution By Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott About the book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Canceling-of-the-American-Mind/Greg-Lukianoff/9781668019146 Greg Lukianoff: I really wanted to write with Rikki because we I could tell that we were going to make a really great team writing. And what we originally were planning to do, or at least what I was thinking about proposing, was that, "The Coddling of the American Mind," my book with the wonderful Jonathan Haidt that came out in 2018, talks a lot about mental health problems created by social media and parenting and all sorts of other issues that overwhelmingly affects Gen Z women. But meanwhile, both me and Haidt are Generation X, so having a young woman who actually can attest to this and give some of her own experiences like, oh great, we're going to write a following up to “The Coddling of the American Mind” that's going to go deeper into the themes that we had in there. But we decided to make it specifically about cancel culture because as we were working together, I realized that there were still people out there who are trying to claim that cancel culture doesn't even exist. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I've been working on campuses for 22 years. I have never seen it as bad as it's been since the beginning of cancel culture, which we say is about 2014. It got much worse, particularly for professors in 2017 and 2020, and 2021 were some of the worst years for academic freedom in history. So I felt like we had to basically prove once and for all that this is happening, that this is historic, and it doesn't have to be this way.

Support FIRE today: https://www.theFIRE.org/donate Read FIRE’s letter to the Laguna Beach City Council: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-letter-city-laguna-beach-august-14-2023 FIRE to Laguna Beach City Council: Let street performers perform! Mike Bolger is an award-winning professional musician and street performer from Los Angeles with a diverse resume. If you’ve listened to Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jewel, or Jimmy Cliff — or watched SpongeBob SquarePants — you might have heard him playing trumpet or accordion. But thanks to Laguna Beach’s unconstitutional restrictions on street performances, one place you won’t hear him making music is the Forest Avenue Promenade, a vibrant pedestrian mall in the heart of the city’s downtown. Founded as a bohemian art colony in the early 20th century, Laguna Beach is perhaps the last place you’d expect to find “Footloose”-esque crackdowns on public artistic expression. But like a college with a campus “free speech zone,” the city prohibits street performances on the promenade outside of a small “performance deck” — known as the Stage on Forest — and even that area is accessible only to performers who meet the city’s approval and obtain a permit. The city enforced the policy against Bolger earlier this year, stopping him from playing outside the performance deck. In a letter sent to the Laguna Beach City Council in August, FIRE explained that the city has no authority to so drastically limit expression in a traditional public forum like the Forest Avenue Promenade.

Available October 17th https://amzn.to/3RFCJ86 The Canceling of the American Mind Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All—But There Is a Solution By Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott About the book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Canceling-of-the-American-Mind/Greg-Lukianoff/9781668019146 Greg Lukianoff: Is cancel culture really happening? Everyone knows it's happening. It's one of these things that is so well established, basically everybody watched it happen. And there are still people who are so ideological they're like, "This never happened. This is a hoax." It's just nonsense. I've been on campus watching this for 22 years. Oneof the things that we try to show in the book is not only is ithappening, it's happening on a historic scale. Take, for example,early in my career, 9/11. That was right when I started, peoplegetting in trouble for saying things about 9/11. It was really bad and people were losing their jobs for saying insensitive things about 9/11. Almost half a dozen professors were fired. What we talk about inthe book are 1,000 attempts to get professor fired [or punished] with about two-thirds of them succeeding in getting them punished in some way.Almost 200 of them getting fired. That is twice as many people aswere fired during the Red Scare. This is nine and a half years ofcancel culture. That's 11 years of the Red Scare and we're almosttwice the number. And people are still trying to say this isn'thappening at all. That's nonsense. Basically, what we have to understand is, there is no comparableperiod in the history of academic freedom since the law wasestablished, between 1957 and 1973, where you see this scale ofprofessors losing their jobs or otherwise getting punished. Andpeople are still saying that this didn't even happen – are beingwillfully blind. Rikki Schlott: Yeah. I would also add that Gen Z is obviously a younger andmore progressive generation and yet we've grown up with cancelculture and we have overwhelmingly the most negative view of itof anyone. I think that's just because it's taken for granted in my generationthat it's happening. We all grew up seeing it happen, especially when you're a teenager, too. Everyone does and says way less calculated and way more stupid things very frequently. So, cancel culture happens right and left. And young people know it, no matter what their politicalorientation. I think that's just further proof that indeed it's happening and there's a whole generation of people who have only known a world in which it does happen.

Read the press release: https://www.thefire.org/news/new-fire-defends-idaho-conservation-officer-sued-criticizing-wealthy-ranch-owners-airstrip Gary Gadwa is a former conservation officer and first responder with 38 years of experience in search-and-rescue operations in the federally protected Sawtooth National Recreation Area. In 2022, Michael Boren, a wealthy landowner in the Sawtooth region, applied for a county permit to designate part of his Stanley, Idaho ranch as an airstrip. When Boren claimed it could be used for search-and-rescue operations, Gary felt the need to speak up and speak out. Boren was ultimately granted the permit over Gary’s and many others’ objections. But instead of taking his permit and going home, Boren turned around and sued Gary and over twenty other critics for defamation. Idaho’s 7th District Court correctly dismissed the lawsuit against Gary in 2022, but Boren appealed that decision. Now, FIRE is representing Gary, and we're asking the Idaho Supreme Court to affirm the trial court’s dismissal and uphold the right to engage in First Amendment-protected speech without being sued into silence. #shorts

Read the press release: https://www.thefire.org/news/new-fire-defends-idaho-conservation-officer-sued-criticizing-wealthy-ranch-owners-airstrip Gary Gadwa is a former conservation officer and first responder with 38 years of experience in search-and-rescue operations in the federally protected Sawtooth National Recreation Area. In 2022, Michael Boren, a wealthy landowner in the Sawtooth region, applied for a county permit to designate part of his Stanley, Idaho ranch as an airstrip. When Boren claimed it could be used for search-and-rescue operations, Gary felt the need to speak up and speak out. Boren was ultimately granted the permit over Gary’s and many others’ objections. But instead of taking his permit and going home, Boren turned around and sued Gary and over twenty other critics for defamation. Idaho’s 7th District Court correctly dismissed the lawsuit against Gary in 2022, but Boren appealed that decision. Now, FIRE is representing Gary, and we're asking the Idaho Supreme Court to affirm the trial court’s dismissal and uphold the right to engage in First Amendment-protected speech without being sued into silence.

On the @lexfridman podcast, FIRE president Greg Lukianoff explains how @TheFIREorg is not just a First Amendment organization, but also a free speech organization. "The biggest sin in terms of censorship is called "viewpoint discrimination, that essentially you allow freedom of speech except for that opinion."

Support FIRE today: https://www.theFIRE.org/donate Press Release: https://www.thefire.org/news/animal-rights-advocates-sue-after-facing-ongoing-censorship-and-arrest-peaceful-advocacy Courtesy Photos for the Media: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/courtesy-photos-faraz-harsini-and-daraius-dubash Today, the Law & Religion Clinic at the University of Texas and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a lawsuit against the City of Houston, several Houston police officers, and Discovery Green Conservancy after police officers arrested an animal rights advocate for refusing to give up his First Amendment right to free speech in Discovery Green, a public park described as the “crown jewel of public spaces in downtown Houston.” The management of Houston’s public Discovery Green Park was concerned that passers-by might be “offended” by the advocates’ message. The officers’ actions were a clear violation of the advocates’ First Amendment right to speak freely in a public park —a park where peaceful protests happen regularly. “It’s highly hypocritical and discriminatory to allow certain groups to exercise free speech but not us,” said Daraius Dubash, the animal rights advocate who was arrested. “We’re seeking a ruling affirming that no one — whether the police or park management — can ban people from peaceful expression in a public park like Discovery Green.” Dubash and his fellow advocate Dr. Faraz Harsini are both immigrants who are passionate about animal rights. Harsini escaped to the United States from Iran after protesting against the Iranian government and was granted a green card for his research on cancer and infectious diseases. Dubash, who is from India, is a former marketing manager who now devotes most of his time to animal rights advocacy. “Daraius and Faraz each fled countries where they couldn’t speak like they do here,” said Law & Religion Clinic attorney John Greil. “They cherish their rights, and we’re proud to fight for them.” Several times during summer 2022, Dubash and Harsini went to Discovery Green to host a series of educational events. They held a television screen playing excerpts from a documentary about the mistreatment of animals, and they only spoke to people who engaged with them. However, almost every time they demonstrated, park management and security asked them to leave, claiming that passers-by could be “offended” by their message. And so they complied. But the last time, Daraius stood his ground, calmly explaining to park management and security, “You still have to abide by the First Amendment because [the park] is publicly owned.” The park management’s response? “Right. But we also choose, [and] we don’t feel the content is appropriate.” When two Houston police officers arrived, Daraius again calmly explained his First Amendment rights. Yet the officers still arrested Daraius and handcuffed him to a chair in the park security office for more than two hours until he was taken to the county jail and charged with criminal trespass. The district attorney dismissed the charge. “No one should be handcuffed and detained for exercising his First Amendment rights,” said FIRE attorney JT Morris. “We’re suing because public parks belong to all Americans and their expressive rights, not the personal views of a few.” The lawsuit seeks to vindicate Harsini and Dubash’s constitutional right to share their beliefs freely in a public space. It asks the court to prohibit the city and Discovery Green Conservancy from interfering with Harsini and Dubash’s peaceful advocacy at the park, and it seeks damages for First Amendment and Fourth Amendment violations. “Nothing is more powerful than being honest and open with people, and we’re standing up for our First Amendment rights that give us that voice,” said Harsini. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them. Part of The Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, the Law & Religion Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law advocates for clients who face challenges to their religious liberty and who are otherwise unlikely to find representation. Its clients include individuals and organizations across the nation and ideological spectrum. Religious liberty seeks to ensure that people of diverse religious beliefs and nonbeliefs can thrive alongside one another peacefully. In that spirit, students and faculty in the Law and Religion Clinic work to protect their clients from discrimination on the basis of their religious commitments, from unlawful burdens on religious exercise, and from unlawful coercion of religious exercise.

STOP 👏🏼 CENSORING 👏🏼 PAST 👏🏼 WORKS 👏🏼 OF 👏🏼 ART 👏🏼#censorship #movies #tv #books #pixar #disneyplus #roalddahl #freeexpression

Bob Corn-Revere is a prominent writer, thinker, and advocate on free expression issues and FIRE's Chief Counsel. In 2021, Cambridge University Press published his book, “The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder: The First Amendment and the Censor’s Dilemma,” which explores how free expression became a part of America’s identity. In this CSPAN clip, recorded at FreedomFest in Memphis, TN, Bob talks about the job and role of the First Amendment attorney.

Support FIRE today: https://www.theFIRE.org/donate After controversial Quran burnings, Denmark and its neighbor Sweden are considering opening the door to censorship.

"I was lucky to have the wisdom of my fellow canceled comics." "They couldn't cancel my sense of humor." -Jocelyn Chia, Comedian Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/bY61ZDAQyJc?si=1sS0OpocrDEu-mdn

Bob Corn-Revere is a prominent writer, thinker, and advocate on free expression issues and FIRE's Chief Counsel. In 2021, Cambridge University Press published his book, “The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder: The First Amendment and the Censor’s Dilemma,” which explores how free expression became a part of America’s identity. In this CSPAN clip, recorded at FreedomFest in Memphis, TN, Bob talks about the Founding Fathers intentions when drafting the First Amendment.

It’s that time of year, friends of free speech! For the fourth annual College Free Speech Rankings, FIRE and College Pulse surveyed 55,102 college undergraduates at 248 schools about their perceptions and experiences regarding free speech on their campuses—and the results might shock you. Go to https://rankings.thefire.org to see if your school measures up. And to join the fight to defend free speech on campus, visit us at https://TheFIRE.org. Key findings from the report: *Harvard is by far the worst school in the country for free speech. It is the only school with an “Abysmal” rating. *Deplatforming attempts that occurred at schools ranked in the bottom five had an alarming 81% success rate. *Up to 72% of students opposed allowing a conservative speaker on campus, depending on the topic, while up to 43% of students opposed allowing a liberal speaker on campus. *73% of students said that using violence to stop a campus speech is never acceptable, down from 80% last year. At Oberlin College, only 53% of students said that violence is never acceptable. *At a time of national dialogue about abortion policy, 49% of students have difficulty discussing abortion on campus. The most difficult topics to discuss on campus are abortion, gun control, racial inequality, and transgender rights. *Of the 248 schools ranked, 73 have “below average,” “poor,” “very poor,” or “abysmal” speech climates. Just 47 have at least “slightly above average” speech climates. Last year, when 203 schools were ranked, these totals were 64 and 39, respectively.

Hate speech does not have a legal definition. #freespeech #hatespeech #learnonyoutube #law

Read FIRE's Letter to Alexandria-Monroe High School, July 11, 2023 here: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-letter-alexandria-monroe-high-school-july-11-2023 Support FIRE today: https://www.theFIRE.org/donate On March 22, Jace Lower arrived late to school. He was walking through a hallway to his first period class when Alexandria began to broadcast the “Pledge of Allegiance” over the school’s PA system. Jace was told to stop walking, to which he responded that he was not required to stop for the pledge and was going to be late for class. He was then cited for insubordination and assigned one day of in-school detention. But students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak and engage in expressive conduct, but the right to refrain from doing so. That includes the right to participate—or to refuse to participate—in patriotic ceremonies.

"Comedians make themselves, particularly right now, in the 2020s, very vulnerable to cancelation because we are the last hope for free speech." -Chriss Mayr, Comedian Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/bY61ZDAQyJc?si=1sS0OpocrDEu-mdn @ChrissieMayr @JocelynChiaComedy