Kimberly Diei wins big, executive orders of magnitude, & more!

Bringing you the latest free speech news (2/2/25)

Stories of the week

• Baseless SLAPP suits threaten the speech rights of all Americans (The Dispatch) by me

It’s difficult to imagine a more thorough and obvious violation of basic First Amendment principles than this lawsuit. Polling the electorate is election participation, not interference—and reporting your findings is protected speech whether your findings turn out to be right or wrong. Iowa’s laws on election “interference” are about conduct such as using a counterfeit ballot or changing someone else’s ballot. This does not and cannot include asking voters questions about their votes.

• Universities That Target Their Students’ Free Speech Should Have to Pay a Public Price for it by

  Jesse Singal

This week in FIRE’s blog

• Statement: Trump restores crucial due process rights for America’s college students

• Analysis: Early flurry of executive orders a mixed bag by Greg Gonzalez

A pledge by the executive branch to respect the free speech of all Americans is a good first step. But any executive order can be modified or reversed on the say-so of one person — the president. It will take actual legislation — such as FIRE’s model transparency bill — to create mechanisms that statutorily require disclosure and bring to light governmental efforts to strong-arm private social media companies into censoring protected speech.

• UConn’s DEI medical oath is not what the doctor ordered by Ross Marchand

• FIRE kicks off legislative season by opposing speech-restrictive AI bill by Sofia Lopez

Artificial intelligence, like earlier technologies such as the printing press, the camera, and the internet, has the power to revolutionize communication. The First Amendment protects the use of all these mediums for expression and forbids government interference under most circumstances. Importantly, the First Amendment protects not only the right to speak without fear of government retaliation but also the right not to speak. Government-mandated disclosures relating to speech, like those required under HB 1170, infringe on these protections and so are subject to heightened levels of First Amendment scrutiny.

• Politics determines whether Americans believe their free speech rights will be protected by Emily Nayyer

• POLL: Conservatives more optimistic, liberals more concerned about free speech in 2025

• FIRE statement on reports of forthcoming executive order on student visas and campus protests

• Her grad school tried to expel her for a tweet about Cardi B. Now they’ll pay a $250k lawsuit settlement

• Mercury in retrograde: How UT Dallas tried to roll back student press rights by William Harris

This week in ERI

• Institutional decay, Henry VIII’s big fat libido, and the eternally radical idea by me

FIRE in the press!

• Trump’s threat to deport anti-Israel protesters is an attack on free speech (MSNBC) by

  Sarah McLaughlin

If we open the door to expelling foreign students who peacefully express ideas out of step with the current administration about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we should expect it to swing wider to encompass other viewpoints too. Today it may be alleged “Hamas sympathizers” facing threats of deportation for their political expression. Who could it be in four years? In eight?

International free speech stories of the week

• Koran Burner Shot Dead in Sweden, Five Arrested (Barron’s) by Nioucha Zakavati

• Delhi court orders registration of FIR against journalist Rana Ayyub over allegations of ‘insult to Hindu deities’ (Indian Express)

Videos of the month

FIRE Director of Public Advocacy Aaron Terr discusses the concerning trend of bias response hotlines — which, once upon a time, you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere outside of a college campus — popping up in cities and states across the U.S.

And

Aaron Sibarium

, who wrote this fantastic and disturbing piece for the Free Beacon, showed us what it’s like when you call one of these hotlines in Oregon: