First Amendment News

Portland is on the hook for a $55,000 payout to two journalists who claim they suffered injuries at the hands of police during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Both reporters were contributors to Village Portland and KBOO Community Radio and were arrested while live-streaming a protest. One of the reporters, Cory Elia, said the police tactics violated the First Amendment and mounted “an attack on the public’s right to be informed of the injustices

The Biden administration’s proposed update of Title IX makes it easier for those subjected to sexual harassment to report the incidents and dropped in-person hearings and cross-examinations. Conservatives are concerned that the new procedures would damage due process and limit free speech rights. (Inside Higher Ed, June 24, 2022, by Meghan Brink) Cherise Trump in The American Conservative, July 5, 2022, says that the proposals would result in enabling universities to restrict and compel student

In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson, states have not only passed laws establishing criminal penalties for abortion seekers but are also proposing laws to make sharing information about abortion a crime. These laws can chill the speech of doctors and patients and also put journalists covering abortion-rights movement in jeopardy. (Daily Beast, July 17, 2022, by Summer Lopez And Nadine Farid Johnson) It’s also expected that states will try

The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a federal law criminalizing encouragement of undocumented immigrants to enter or remain in the U.S. was an unconstitutional violation of free speech. (Reuters, July 13, 2022, by Daniel Wiessner) The case involved prosecution of two men who planned to employ noncitizens in construction. Federal appeals courts are split over the issue, the 4th Circuit upheld the law in 2011 and the 9th Circuit struck it down

An animal rights group failed in a move to use California’s anti-SLAPP statute to quash a lawsuit against them by Golden Gate Fields who claimed they invaded the track in March of 2021 to block the horses from running. A California appeals court ruled that anti-SLAPP did not apply in this case in that the Golden Gate Fields lawsuit addressed the trespass and its economic harm and not the petitioning. (Reason, July 13, 2022, by