First Amendment News

As agricultural states ban the use of words for plant-based products like cauliflower rice and veggie bacon, the industry is striking back with lawsuits claiming the laws violate their First Amendment rights. Agricultural interests claim the use of these words distorts the reality that meat is from animals and rice is a grain and misleads consumers. (CBS News, July 29, 2019, by Sarah Min) A plant-based leader, Tofurky Co., filed a lawsuit against an Arkansas law that

A veteran religion reporter tweeted last week that Fox News had stolen one of his finest stories without doing any reporting of its own and fully acknowledging his work on the story. Bobby Ross Jr. was counting on the story to attract readers to his website and give a boost to his small operation. The story concerned a doctor who was saved from Ebola with an experimental drug in 2014 and was about to go

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill making “revenge porn” a crime in his state. Publishing nonconsensual intimate photos is now punishable by up to one year in jail. Forty-six state have laws governing revenge porn. The New York law states that sharing of images must be done “with the intent to cause harm to the emotional, financial, or physical welfare of another person and when the image was taken with a reasonable expectation

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill making “revenge porn” a crime in his state. Publishing nonconsensual intimate photos is now punishable by up to one year in jail. Forty-six state have laws governing revenge porn. The New York law states that sharing of images must be done “with the intent to cause harm to the emotional, financial, or physical welfare of another person and when the image was taken with a reasonable expectation

A University of California San Diego satirical student newspaper won a key ruling from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals who ruled that their lawsuit over funding should not have been dismissed. The Koala sued when the student government eliminated funding for all student print media enterprises after an article satirizing “safe places” and “trigger warnings” on campus. The article upset many in the community for its racial curses and stereotypes. (Courthouse News Service, July