Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech May 6, 2025 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. Congress The Hill: A real free speech solution for college campuses By Matthew Lobel .....Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) recently introduced the Students’ Bill of Rights Act, which does just that. The bill would require universities to adopt viewpoint neutral policies, publicize them on campus, and impose new financial penalties when they fail to live up to those obligations. The Students’ Bill of Rights Act would guarantee equal treatment for student groups regardless of political viewpoints by forbidding universities from using higher security fees to discriminate against disfavored speakers. This provision is important because violence and vandalism by speech opponents can be used as an excuse to charge exorbitant fees against “controversial” speakers, essentially penalizing the speakers and student groups who invite them for the unlawful behavior of their opponents. The act would also ensure student groups are not denied recognition because of their affiliation with a national organization or due to their inability to find a faculty sponsor, a major issue for conservative groups due to the well-documented dearth of right-leaning faculty. And it ensures funding and university recognition protocols for student groups — and the appeals that might ensue — are made publicly available using objective and viewpoint-neutral standards. The Courts Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Judge Easterbrook: Public Universities Should Have Free Hand in Restricting Professors' Teaching By Eugene Volokh .....From Seventh Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook's opinion concerning the denial of rehearing en banc in Kilborn v. Amiridis (see this post for the panel decision, which took a contrary view): Trump Administration The Atlantic: Universities Deserve Special Standing By Lee C. Bollinger .....But the roots of American higher education, and the essential role of our colleges and universities in the nation’s rise to global leadership, run deep. Indeed, in the case of Harvard University and several peer institutions—such as the one I used to lead, Columbia University—those roots predate the founding of our republic. These institutions have contributed enormously to the country’s development for centuries. It is especially ironic that, just as we began the countdown to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, with commemorations at Lexington and Concord, this contemporary battle over the future of universities took a dangerous new turn in nearby Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the Trump administration sent a shocking list of demands for ideological and political control over core matters of Harvard’s academic governance and freedom. That earlier battle to establish the United States as a free, self-governing republic was itself a product of the 18th-century Enlightenment, in which the search for truth according to norms of reason, objectivity, and scientific experiment was asserted as aprimary end of life and society. Many have noted the Enlightenment’s influence on our Founders, represented most significantly in the First Amendment, with its deceptively simple words: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” This was a revolutionary moment in human history. New York Times: I Was Detained for My Beliefs. Who Will Be Next? By Mohsen Mahdawi .....On April 14, 2025, I was detained during what should have been my citizenship naturalization interview. After more than two weeks of unjust imprisonment, a federal judge ruled in favor of releasing me. In a major victory for democracy, I may be the first of the many student activists who have been detained by the Trump administration to be freed from detention. The Department of Homeland Security had effectively orchestrated a trap. It dangled the prospect of becoming an American citizen, only for masked agents to apprehend me after I finished the interview and signed a document saying I was willing to take an oath of allegiance. Government agents separated me from my lawyer, who had gone to the appointment with me. They planned to whisk me from my home state, Vermont, to a detention facility in Louisiana. The trap was not a complete surprise to me. It came after other arrests of students for exercising their right to free speech in opposing Israel’s relentless killing and destruction in Gaza. National Review: Congress Should Decide Harvard’s Tax Exemption By The Editors .....Once again, Trump is extending powers once used and cheered by his opponents. Once again, there is some policy merit to his position, as well as a key legal precedent on his side. Once again, he is going about this in ham-fisted fashion that could undermine his legal case. And once again, what should happen is to permanently restrict the vast discretion wielded by the executive branch and reclaim policymaking authority that by rights belongs to Congress. We continue to worry that Trump is expanding the unilateral powers of the executive in ways that are likely to be abused by future presidents — especially against conservatives. That remains true even if there is a policy case for what he is doing and even if it may be arguably within powers the law now allows him. Nonprofits New York Post: Lefty groups behind ‘grassroots’ May Day protests in US propped up by billionaires and dark-money network: ‘Hypocrisy … is glaring’ By Ryan King and Josh Christenson .....Dozens of lefty groups behind the country’s supposedly “grassroots” May Day protests have been largely bankrolled by two billionaires and a dark-money network of progressive nonprofits. More than $500 million from Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss’ organizations, hedge-fund tycoon George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the dark-money Arabella network flowed to the progressive groups between fiscal years 2016 and 2023, according to an analysis shared with The Post… US organizers framed the demonstrations as a fight against “Trump and his billionaire profiteers” — despite records showing that prominent plutocrats were funding many of the participating activist groups. Many of the protests were also directed at tech baron Elon Musk, who is poised to dramatically reduce his cost-cutting role in the Trump administration by the month’s end. The States National Review: Maine’s Shocking Assault on Democracy and Free Speech By Dan McLaughlin .....A series of controversies in recent years have tested the line between two fundamental American values: the right of the people to elect their own representatives, and the power and duty of legislative bodies to police the conduct of their own members. In none of those controversies, however, was a legislator disciplined solely for speech — until now. The Democratic majority in the Maine House of Representatives, on a party-line vote, has stripped Representative Laurel Libby not only of her right to speak on the floor, but of her right to vote in the chamber, leaving her constituents effectively unrepresented. It did this solely to punish Libby, a Republican, for dissenting from the Democratic Party line on transgender athletes in women’s and girls’ sports. This is an outrage, and it should be treated as an outrage by the people who were screaming from the rafters at far less egregious steps taken in 2023 by the Republican majorities in Tennessee and Montana. Washington Examiner: Utah law restricting pride flags brings free speech debate into focus By Emily Hallas .....The law will take effect on May 7, following Republican state Rep. Trevor Lee’s push to pass HB 77, which bans the display of most flags by public school teachers and government entities. Under the Flag Display Amendments bill, flags celebrating the LGBT community are among those prohibited from public display on government property, or by public school personnel and other state employees acting within their duties. Lee argues that the law seeks to restore political neutrality in public spaces. LGBT rights advocates say that the LGBT identity is not political. They view the ability of government agents to sprinkle “queer” symbolism freely throughout public spaces, including federally funded entities, as protected free speech rights guaranteed under the First Amendment. “First of all, the notion that an LGBTQ identity is political is something that we take issue with. We don’t think that who people are is a political stance. We don’t think the way that somebody identifies or the way somebody was born is a question of politics,” Utah Pride Center Executive Director Chad Call told the Washington Examiner. North Dakota Monitor: Effort to improve North Dakota campaign finance reporting fails By Mary Steurer .....A stripped-down campaign finance bill failed in the Senate early Saturday morning after a prolonged disagreement between chambers. House Bill 1377 was the last bill on the House and Senate floor for the 2025 legislative session. Some lawmakers hoped it would be a vehicle for ambitious changes in campaign spending transparency, as well as for streamlining financial disclosure regulations for candidates. It would have taken effect at the same time as the launch of the North Dakota Secretary of State’s Office’s new campaign finance system. Politico: Eric Adams finally appeals public matching funds denial By Jeff Coltin .....Mayor Eric Adams’ reelection campaign is pressing regulators to release millions of dollars in public matching funds that he was denied over ethics concerns. Adams’ campaign sent a letter to the New York City Campaign Finance Board on April 25 formally petitioning the board to reconsider its decision first made four months earlier, in December. His attorney Vito Pitta complained in the letter that the board was not specific enough in explaining its reasoning and was wrong to rely on any “unsubstantiated allegation” when basing its decision on a now-dismissed federal indictment and other ethics probes swirling around City Hall. “This arbitrary and capricious and overbroad determination, that is based only on a vague and conclusory statement that it has reason to believe violations have occurred, cannot stand,” Pitta wrote in a four-page letter. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update." The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the political rights to free speech, press, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. 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