First Amendment News

The U. S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that an elected public college official in Texas was not was not protected from censure through the First Amendment. The man’s colleagues on a community college board censured him for suing them, setting up robocalls against them and hiring an investigator to prove one didn’t live in the college district. Judge Neil Gorsuch wrote that a verbal censure was not a free speech violation, that in any case,

Republican-dominated state legislatures are introducing laws with criminal penalties for filming police.The lawmakers are ignoring the fact that in the last 25 years the first, third, fifth, seventh ninth and eleventh district federal appeals courts have upheld the right of citizens to film the police. (VICE, March 25, 2022, by Trone Dowd) An Arizona bill would prevent citizens from recording police within eight feet of an officer when the officer is engaging someone. (MSNBC, February

With news outlets and open government advocates sounding the alarm, California Assemblyman Marc Levine is introducing a law requiring state agencies to preserve records for two years. The Department of Insurance adopted a policy automatically deleting employees’ e-mails after 180 days, prompting a staff member to say that they needed the e-mails to retrieve old records of enforcement activities. (The Sacramento Bee, March 23, 2022, by Wes Venteicher) The department revoked the policy four weeks

Over 100 Yale Law School students staged a raucous protest that resulted in police escorting forum panelists from the building at the conclusion of the event. The forum featured representatives from the progressive American Humanist Association and the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom that advocates for religious liberty. (The Washington Free Beacon, March 16, 2022, by Aaron Sibarium) Megan McArdle of The Washington Post, March 19, 2022, writes “The Yale Law students who tried to exercise

This year’s Sunshine Week, March 13 to 19, established to promote open government, finds five Pennsylvania news outlets suing for access to judicial records. (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, March 21, 2022, by Gillian Vernick) The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government (FOG) reports that with the pandemic and government staffing shortages, their hotline is recording record numbers of citizen reports of ignored or denied record requests and government meetings held without required