First Amendment News

A Cal State Fresno professor sent a tweet, calling the late Barbara Bush “an amazing racist,” that ignited a furor and calls for her firing. Professor Randa Jarrar who teaches creative writing said she was tenured and protected by the First Amendment. Her tweet concerned a political issue, was made as a private citizen since she was on leave and had no disruptive effect on her workplace. Some legal experts believe her free speech rights

A former FBI is facing up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of leaking secret information to The Intercept leading to a series of reports entitled “The FBI’s Secret Rules.” The series showed how the FBI expanded its powers since 9/11. (Reuters, April 17, 2018, by David Alexander and Mark Hosenball) The former agent Terry J. Albury said in his plea that he acted in protest to the racism in the

After a state appeals court ruled that a Texas law criminalizing revenge porn violated the First Amendment, the state attorney general asked the court to reconsider. The law made it a crime to post intimate images online from a relationship without consent, punishable with up to a year and jail and a $4000 fine. The chief justice wrote for the three-judge panel that the law was too broad and would criminalize acts by third parties

A North Carolina court of appeals ruled unanimously that University of North Carolina Chapel Hill must release the names of students and employees found to have committed rape and sexual assault by the schools honor court. The Daily Tar Heel had asked for the records in 2016 but were turned down by the university that cited the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act that protects educational records. (The News Observer, April 17, 2018, by

Twitter is backing the Honest Ads Act introduced in the U.S. Congress last year to make social media platforms more transparent on political ads.  The act requires providers to maintain a public file of election ads purchased. The file would contain a copy of the ad, the target audience, the number of views and the contact information of the advertiser. (TechCrunch, April 10, 2018, by Taylor Hatmaker) In interfering with the 2016 presidential election, the