UK judge victim-blames assaulted Quran-burner, the 'Perfect Rhetorical Fortress' at the Harvard Law Review, & more!
Bringing you the latest free speech news (6/22/25)
Story of the week
In Quran burning conviction, UK judge uses violence against defendant as evidence of his guilt by Sarah McLaughlin
But there’s a particularly disturbing element to this case. Namely, the judge’s justification for the conviction. The “disorderly” nature of Coskun’s protest, the judge said, “is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by two different people.”
That’s right, a man’s violent attack on another was cited as evidence of the victim’s guilt.
This week in ERI
This week in FIRE’s blog
Federal court backs teachers fired over trans protest by Gabe Walters
Speak up, get expelled: the Eastman way by Jessie Appleby
WVU cracks down on dangerous idea: free books by Jessie Appleby
In December 2024, Itkowitz was handing out copies on campus of Alan Dershowitz’s book, "The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies: And How to Refute Them with Truth." But after he gave one to a Muslim dining hall employee, she reported him to campus police and the university’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. His crime? Giving her an “anti-Muslim book.” The employee also requested that Itkowitz be banned from the dining hall. (The employee’s request to ban Itkowitz was not granted, probably because handing out books is not misconduct.)
London Calling: Ronnie’s First Amendment Roundup
Another social media age verification law enjoined. Again. Preliminary injunction of Mississippi law entered anew on remand from the Fifth Circuit.
This week, a federal court in the Southern District of Mississippi held that, during their First Amendment challenge to it, the state cannot enforce against X, Meta, YouTube, and other NetChoice members its statutory mandate for social media platforms to make reasonable efforts to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent before granting minors access. The court had preliminarily enjoined the law in full on NetChoice’s facial challenge almost a year ago. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Miss., La., Tex.) vacated the PI and returned the case for further review after the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Moody v. NetChoice, which had remanded (likewise without reaching the merits) two PI decisions involving social media content moderation laws in Texas and Florida. With a second chance to preliminarily enjoin Mississippi’s age verification law, the S.D. Miss. judge once again held it is content-based and thus subject to strict scrutiny, noting it regulates social media and other interactive services but does not apply to those offering access to news, sports, commerce, online games, or content primarily generated or selected by a digital service provider. The court then held NetChoice would likely succeed on its challenge to the law as applied to its members, because the law, which in requiring age verification burdens adult’s access to social media as well, is not narrowly tailored to achieve the state’s goal of protecting children from harmful online content. That’s because parents and guardians already have the less speech-restrictive option of tools to monitor and control children's online access—including network-, device-, browser-, and app-level restrictions—and the state, the court noted, could publicize them, such that it failed to show those alternatives cannot serve its goals. The court also held the law is overinclusive in having the same application regardless of whether children are very young or are approaching the age of majority, and underinclusive insofar as it allows minors to access social media and experience any harm the state thinks will follow simply because one of their parents approves. The court did not, however, this time around, reach NetChoice’s facial challenge, holding it was unnecessary given its likely success on its as-applied claim.
This week also saw the release of Mahmoud Khalil and Mohammed H.
International free speech stories of the week
French Lawmaker Says He Was Denied Entry Into the United States (NYT) by Ségolène Le Stradic
Turkish authority granted power to censor Quran translations (DW) by Elmas Topcu
Nepal Police Search for Journalist Who Reported on Political Family’s Business (HRW) by Meenakshi Ganguly
Rant of the week
Below is my reaction to Aaron Sibarium’s concerning new piece of investigative journalism in the Washington Free Beacon, “Exclusive: Harvard Law Review Axes 85 Percent of Submissions Using Race-Conscious Rubric, Documents Show”
In The Canceling of the American Mind, Rikki Schlott and I talk about the “perfect rhetorical fortress,” layers upon layers of cheap rhetorical tricks and dodges that allow people to “win arguments” without actually engaging in good faith with their opponents’ substantive arguments. Although sympathetic people may see the Harvard Law Review's “race-conscious rubric” as just a way to increase racial diversity, its true function is to provide another excuse to favor ideological orthodoxy above all else. Sometimes, as in Sibarium’s article, that favoritism is extremely explicit. Even if it weren’t, the end result of allowing so many excuses to ignore quality scholarship simply because a critical mass of Harvard Law students dislike the scholarship’s ideological implications would likely amount to the same thing.
It’s similar to what goes on with diversity statements. They are claimed to be geared at increasing racial diversity, but if a Black or Hispanic student argues that they think the existing DEI paradigm is misguided, they are very likely to be rejected. On the other hand, a straight white applicant who knows all the magic words, cites only recent, “diverse” scholars, and throws in nuggets like quotes from Kendrick Lamar songs (an actual example from Sibarium’s piece) might breeze through. None of this will do anything to advance the cause of truth.
I am glad I read to the end, however, because I saw one thing that I did find quite concerning. The Trump administration is looking into whether or not the Harvard Law Review is functionally part of Harvard Law School and can therefore be subjected to government investigation into Title VI, VII, and IX violations. Unless the evidence is extraordinarily strong, (and as best I can tell, the law review seems independent), this process, though profoundly flawed, should not be treated functionally as part of behavior by the law school itself. That may get Harvard out of legal hot water, but none of that makes what the law review is doing here anything less than enforcing upper-class ideological norms on proof and scholarship in a way that does nothing to advance truth or trust.
That’s so dark.
I hope Britain can save itself.
Addressing the UK's assault on free speech is entering a quagmire with no escape. The instances of government control of speech are too numerous to count.