The treatment of former University of Virginia medical student Kieran Ravi Bhattacharya raises serious concerns about the use of “professionalism” to punish those who hold dissident views or dare to challenge authority. The university suspended and dismissed Bhattacharya after he raised concerns about a presentation from a faculty member about “microaggressions”.
Supreme Court to Decide Important Student (K-12) Social Media Case
The Supreme Court will clarify how far the arm of school authority extends—if at all—to student social media expression created off-campus. The case, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., involves a message posted on Snapchat by student "B.L." on a Saturday afternoon off-campus after she learned she failed to advance from the junior varsity to the varsity cheerleading squad.
Sixth Circuit Rejects Garcetti in Context of University Professor’s Classroom Speech
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling creating a categorical bar on the free-speech rights of public employees who speak pursuant to their official job duties does not apply in the university classroom, a federal appeals court has ruled.
Are Defamation Lawsuits Being Used to Rein in Disinformation Spread by News Outlets?
Using defamation suits to combat misinformation has some free speech advocates uneasy, as the First Amendment provides broad protections for news organizations.
Student Sues University of Tennessee for Violating Her Free Speech Rights
On February 3rd, a University of Tennessee student sued the school for violating her First Amendment right to free speech. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee Western Division, Kimberly Diei says that she was nearly expelled from the university’s graduate pharmacy program for her social media posts.
The Hartford Courant has a qualified First Amendment right of access to the criminal proceedings of juveniles who are transferred to adult criminal court, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. In July 2019, Connecticut passed a law that increased confidentiality for those cases transferred from juvenile courts to adult courts.
Dominion Files $1.3 Billion Defamation Suit Against Rudy Guiliani
On January 25th, Dominion Voting System sued Donald Trump’s former attorney and former mayor of New York City Rudy Guiliani for defamation. The 107-page complaint filed in the United District Court for the District of Columbia accuses Guiliani of carrying out a “viral disinformation campaign” against the voting systems company, and having “deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election.”
Do Twitter and Other Social Media Platform Bans on Trump Violate the First Amendment?
Twitter, Facebook, and a host of other privately-held companies have imposed bans on President Donald J. Trump, believing that his incendiary comments on January 6, 2021, helped fan the flames of outrage that resulted in an assault on the Capitol. Trump and others have decried the social media blackout as a direct assault on conservative points of view, and as a draconian targeting of only certain types of speech.