Lawyers from the National Council of School Attorneys seem to have talked the School Boards Association into fighting the First Amendment. These lawyers have a tendency to badmouth students and employees who sue schools that caused harm to them, but it's the school lawyers that are the premier practitioners of lawsuit abuse.
School boards are trying to reverse a federal court ruling banning administrators from controlling the free-speech rights of teachers and other school employees.
According to a brief filed yesterday in 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) and the California School Boards Association (CSBA) argue that public K to 12 schools need discretion to regulate their employees’ expressions in the workplace.
“Public-school officials need authority over what teachers say and do in the classroom,” said NSBA Executive Director Anne L. Bryant in a press release. “Nearly every teacher posts artwork and other materials on their walls, and schools have a responsibility to ensure those materials are appropriate for students.”
The case stems from an incident in Poway Unified School District. According to published reports, Principal Dawn Kastner of Westview High School asked teacher Bradley Johnson to remove banners he posted around his classroom with the phrases: "In God we trust," "One nation under God," "God bless America," "God shed his grace on thee" and "All men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator."
Johnson claims the school violated his First Amendment free-speech rights and contradicted an internal policy that allowed teachers to display messages and items in their classrooms “that reflect the individual teacher’s personality, opinions and values, as well as messages relating to matters of political, social and religious concerns, so long as these displays do not materially disrupt school work or cause substantial disorder or interference in the classroom.”
In February, a federal judge agreed with Johnson, saying the district had practiced viewpoint discrimination...
What is Generic Education The concept of generic education was proposed by Win Straube in his book, "QGE=A, Quality Generic Education is the Answer". Generic Education means the identification and practice of objective, unarguable values. Generic Education can be taught and learned anywhere because it is free from cultural or political baggage, yet it is understood on all sides as a shared, generally accepted version. Generic Education is universally measurable, which means that learners’ proficiency in the studied subjects can be tested. It also means that the tests used are either identical or at least comparable in different locations and as administered at different times. In other words: The level of proficiency to pass a specific test needs to be as close to identical to every other such test as possible.
Generic Education means "proficiency in" a certain science, art, or other subject which is agreed on by all or almost all...
Those who have been prosecuted for ideas that challenged the social order have included some of the greatest minds in human history. Socrates was forced to drink poison for his words, Galileo was put under arrest for his words, James Joyce and Lenny Bruce were convicted of obscenity. And its not just artists and scientists; Jesus was brutally murdered for his words and ideas.
Freedom of speech is not just part of the right to enjoy yourself. It is the freedom to move society forward... --Arvin Vohra
American Indian education: counternarratives in racism, struggle Matthew L. M. Fletcher - 2008 - Education - 223 pages... Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the Michigan Land Use Institute to, inter alia, improve access to the cemetery on South Fox Island). ...
Who were the evangelicals? conservative and liberal identity in the Unitarian Controversy in Boston ...Universalists...UU... University of Minnesota
Arvid Fredborg, 80, a journalist and one of the first to report the scope and goals of the Nazi Holocaust, died of an apparent heart attack Thursday at his home outside Stockholm, Sweden.
His 1943 book "Behind the Steel Wall" detailed the systematic genocide at Nazi death camps and estimated that 2 million Jews had been killed. The book came out two years after the death camps were started, but before the killing reached its peak. The book caused a stir in Sweden and was published in English in 1944.
His biggest contribution was to publicize the extent of Nazi genocide and the goals of the Holocaust, rather than to expose it for the first time, Swedish historian Henrik Brackner said. Many governments, including Sweden's, knew about the death camps but kept silent.
I am more concerned than ever about the motivations of local ACLU head counsel David Blair-Loy. He seems deeply concerned with his own career, as evidenced by the effort he must have put in to get busy lawyers to participate in the Daily Transcript's yearly opportunity for lawyers to promote themselves.
The Daily Transcript does not evaluate the lawyers it chooses as "Top Lawyers" of the year; there is no panel of experts making the choice. Nor do all the lawyers in town participate in the vote.
Instead, the voters select themselves. To win, a lawyer has to get his pals to send in ballots. (There is even a section for insurance lawyers.) The Daily Transcript seems to be promoting itself by exploiting lawyers who feel the need to promote themselves. The most highly regarded lawyers do not seem to participate in this contest.
David Blair-Loy, legal counsel for the San Diego ACLU, gets along too well with school attorneys. He even got an award from the bar association for "high civility" in dealing with them, and with other attorneys.
But the situation at Southwestern has gone on long enough. It's time to stop writing letters to Jonathan Pearl and Raj Chopra, and to take some action.
We must guard against our country becoming more like Russia. Here in the land of the free we have problems with "corruption and selectivity in enforcement of the law" and "continuing media restrictions" that "result in an erosion of the accountability of government leaders to the population."...
..."It's not by chance that I came here," [Russian President Dmitry] Medvedev admitted to an audience at Stanford University. "I wanted to see with my own eyes the origin of success." And it's no wonder: Can you think of a significant Russian technological invention of recent times?
The problem isn't the Russian people. Thousands of them are at work across Silicon Valley creating the very products and services Medvedev came to emulate.
No, the problem is the Russian government, still a brutal, capricious bureaucracy guilty of "contract-style killings," the State Department says, "continuing centralization of power in the executive branch, along with corruption and selectivity in enforcement of the law" and "continuing media restrictions" that "result in an erosion of the accountability of government leaders to the population."...
North Africa isn't the only place where free speech is under fire. San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith Hayes was asked by Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm to arrest me for mentioning the name of their law firm on this blog. She refused. Why? She has been very partial to Ray Artiano in this case, brazenly violating the constitution by creating a permanent order that I may not mention the name of the law firm. (I'm violating that order right now.) But she's not a dummy. It appears she was hoping that I'd be so frightened of the possibility of being arrested for contempt of court that I would voluntarily give up my constitutional rights and erase my website. But since that didn't work, she didn't want to keep pushing her luck. The mainstream media might pick up the story if I were jailed. In this country, the media hasn't been silenced, but it does censor itself to some degree, which is why we need bloggers in America.
North African bloggers get creative to evade censorship May 16,2010 by By Sarra Grira When confronted with free speech as an act of self-expression, authoritarian powers throughout history have tried to assert their legitimacy and remove threats to their rule through censorship. To achieve this, the censor has had to be quicker than the pen.
This task was relatively easy in the days of the printed word. However, today’s Internet revolution – especially blogs and other online social media – has turned the job of censorship into a censor’s nightmare.
Gone are the days when newspaper dailies were seized before they hit the stalls and books were branded with the seal of interdiction in the printing shop. Due to email and blogs, words today are less expensive and, more importantly, circulate more easily and quickly to readers around the globe.
The blog is arguably a privileged means of expression: simple, accessible and personal, it serves as a notepad on which anyone can jot down their ideas for everyone to see. Bloggers’ concerns range from the color of their summer holiday bikinis to local social issues and the fate of the latest political opponent arrested in one’s country. It is here where censorship meets its match.
For example, in Tunisia in November 2009 the arrest of Fatma Al Rihani, who has a blog “Arabica”, stunned the blogosphere and unleashed a wave of solidarity amongst Tunisian Internet users. And in January in Morocco, following a series of arrests of bloggers that had been writing about student demonstrations, Moroccan bloggers expressed their disapproval with a ”week of mourning” for the loss of freedom of speech in Morocco.
But censoring blogs does not always suppress information. Censorship may work in the short term, but the result is the opposite in the long term – thanks in large part to the “magic” of the Internet. Despite the difficulties censorship creates, some blogs soar to untold heights of popularity and countless hits once they return online after having been censored...
One of America’s leading defenders of free speech has named Southwestern College one of the nation’s 10 worst violators of the First Amendment for 2010.
SWC Superintendent Dr. Raj K. Chopra and Vice President of Business and Financial Affairs Nicholas Alioto were singled out for criticism by the Virginia-based Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression “for promulgating and enforcing a policy limiting even peaceful and non-disruptive protests to a designated ‘free speech’ patio.” The Jefferson Center awarded its notorious “Jefferson Muzzle” to the college for events that arose from an October 22, 2009 student rally and a February 2010 effort by students to collect signatures for a petition to recall three SWC Governing Board members.
A federal judge has struck down a Florida law prohibiting the publication of a police officer’s name, phone number or address, calling the statute an unconstitutional restraint on speech.
The decision leaves Arizona, Colorado and Washington state with similar laws on the books. Florida authorities said Wednesday they were mulling whether to appeal.
...Robert Brayshaw, a 35-year-old apartment manager, brought the challenge to Florida’s law after he was briefly jail in 2008 for posting personally identifying information of a Tallahassee police officer on RateMyCop.com — a 2-year-old website that lets users rate and comment on the uniformed police officers in their community.
RateMyCop uses public records requests to gather the names and, in some cases, badge numbers of thousands of uniformed cops at police departments around the country, and allows users to post comments about police they’ve interacted with. The site’s launch in 2008 drew cries of outrage from police, who complained that they’d be put at risk if their names were on the internet.
Brayshaw used the site to post anonymous comments about Tallahassee Police Officer Annette Garrett, as well as her name and home address — information not normally cataloged by the site. He wrote that Garrett was rude to him when investigating a trespass call at an apartment complex he was managing.
“He had been investigated for a possible trespass charge, which he was never arrested for,” Brayshaw’s attorney, Anne Swerlick, said in a telephone interview. “He was unsatisfied by the way he was treated.”
The authorities subpoenaed RateMyCop and Brayshaw’s internet service provider to learn his identity, then booked him under the Florida law — a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in jail. The case was later dismissed against Brayshaw for procedural reasons, but he sued, claiming the statute chills his speech.
U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak in Tallahassee agreed, and awarded Brayshaw $25,000 in damages plus legal fees Friday.
The judge ruled the First Amendment does not protect “true threats, fighting words, incitements to imminent lawless action, and classes of lewd and obscene speech.” But publishing an officer’s phone number and address, he said, “is not in itself a threat or serious expression of an intent to commit an unlawful act of violence” (.pdf).
Smoak wrote that he appreciated the intent of the 38-year-old law, but noted that it went too far. “While the state interest of protecting police officers from harm or death may be compelling,” the judge said the law “was not narrowly tailored to serve this interest.”
Read More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/05/first-amendment-cops/#ixzz0nSY21lt9
This morning, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire handed down an important decision holding that a mortgage industry website, The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, is entitled to protection under the state's reporter's privilege.
The case is Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., which was argued before the New Hampshire Supreme Court last fall. The dispute centers on an article that Impode-O-Meter published in August 2008, which detailed administrative actions taken by the New Hampshire Banking Department against The Mortgage Specialists, a mortgage lender. The article included a link to a financial document that The Mortgage Specialists allegedly submitted to the state banking authorities, which Implode-O-Meter had obtained from an anonymous source. After the mortgage company discovered the disclosure, it sued the website, demanding that the document be removed from the Internet and that the anonymous source be identified. A Rockingham County Superior Court judge granted these requests.
In the part of the decision dealing with the reporter's privilege, the state high court ruled that New Hampshire's qualified reporter's privilege applied to Implode-O-Meter and could protect the identity of the source who provided the loan document. The court flatly rejected The Mortgage Specialists' argument that "the newsgathering privilege is inapplicable here because Implode is neither an established media entity nor engaged in investigative reporting." ...
May 6, 2010 – The New Hampshire Supreme Court today issued an important decision upholding the First Amendment rights of online publishers. Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic submitted an amicus curiae brief last June on behalf of the Citizen Media Law Project and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in the case, The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc. The reasoning of today’s ruling mirrored arguments in the amicus brief, as the Court concluded that a lower court’s injunction preventing a website from posting a leaked document was an unlawful prior restraint on speech.
In 2008, the mortgage industry website, The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter, published an article detailing administrative actions taken by the New Hampshire Banking Department against mortgage lender The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. The article included a link to a financial document that The Mortgage Specialists allegedly submitted to the state banking authorities, which the Implode-O-Meter website had obtained from an anonymous source. Mortgage Specialists sued the website, demanding that the document be removed from the internet and that the anonymous source be identified. A Rockingham County Superior Court judge granted these requests.
The Supreme Court reversed the injunction preventing publication of the leaked document...
Pendleton Marine back on Facebook ACLU defends rights of those in uniform to criticize government in public
By Jeanette Steele, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER April 14, 2010
CAMP PENDLETON — Marine Sgt. Gary Stein is back on Facebook with an Armed Forces Tea Party page Wednesday.
A day earlier, his story had sparked widespread debate over the rights of uniform wearers to criticize the government in public forums such as social media sites.
The San Diego office of the American Civil Liberties Union fired off a letter Wednesday afternoon to Camp Pendleton, where Stein is stationed, advising commanders that the sergeant’s speech had been “chilled” Tuesday when he was recalled to base just before he was scheduled to conduct a television interview about his three-week-old Tea Party site...
Marine spokeswoman Maj. Gabrielle Chapin said Wednesday that Stein can administer the Facebook site as a private individual, as long as he follows the Pentagon directives, which include a provision that blogs must be written on one’s own time and computer.
But the ACLU has concerns about the legality of the Pentagon’s entire list of rules, which say that military personnel can’t speak before political groups or advocate a political cause to the media or other group discussions.
“We have serious First Amendment problems with that,” said David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU’s San Diego office.
“We think service members ought to be entitled to virtually the same free speech rights as civilians with very limited exceptions for the necessity of combat,” Blair-Loy said in an interview Wednesday.
“Is the average civilian going to assume that the Marine Corps endorses what (Stein) says, just because he says he’s a Marine? I don’t think anybody would believe that.”
Judith Hayes believes in free speech for some people, as shown by this ruling from Judge Hayes in the Digital Cornerstone v. Kevin Carmony case:
"...the Defendant had a bona fide noncommercial use for the website, the Court finds the general purpose of the website to be a free speech forum wherein Defendant criticized the management of Plaintiff. ..the Defendant at no time harbored a bad faith intent to profit from a registered mark and that his use of the website undertaken to inform consumers and criticize Plaintiff's management constituted a lawful use of the site."
But Judge Hayes came to a very different conclusion about free speech in a case where there was no attempt to fool people about who owned the website, and no profit was made.
The possible explanations for her behavior in my case are considerably narrowed by her recent ruling in Digital Cornerstone v. Kevin Carmony.
One difference between my case and the Kevin Carmony case is that I'm a school teacher, not a CEO, and I'm representing myself. Judge Hayes apparently sees me as someone whose rights can be easily violated, and no one will notice. Clearly, she sees Stutz Artiano Shinoff & Holtz law firm as a group of people whom no schoolteacher should ever criticize, no matter how much money they charge the public or how many documents that refuse to produce. The firm walked out of its deposition, and the lawyer most involved in my case refused to show up for his deposition. This was fine with Judge Hayes. I wonder if Digital Cornerstone also walked out of its deposition? I'm sure Carmony's lawyer Gil Cabrera wouldn't let the plaintiff and Judge Hayes get away with such shenanigans. I'm trusting that in my case, the Court of Appeal will put a stop to the shenanigans of Stutz law firm and Judge Hayes.
The odd thing is that my case is much clearer and simpler than the Carmony case. My website is a purely public interest website. I never allowed advertisements on it, much less advertisements from competitors of the people I criticized. I never paid a premium ($6000) to get a domain name that was likely to fool people into thinking my site was owned by the very people I was criticizing, as Carmony did. My site has my own name: mauralarkins.com. Judge Hayes and her research attorney Monica Barry should have had no trouble seeing that my case was completely different from Del Junco v. Hufnagel, particularly since they found a difference between Freespire.com and the website in the Del Junco case.
Judge Hayes made the above ruling in the Carmony case just over a month after this ruling slapping me with $3000 in contempt sanctions for not erasing every mention of Stutz law firm from my website. (Hayes' ruling in my case is so brazenly unconstitutional that Michael Robertson look like a free speech advocate compared to this incarnation of Judge Hayes.) Clearly, Hayes knows how to act like a good judge when she knows she's being watched. She can be quite the stickler for the appearance of integrity. For example, it was rather extreme for her to recuse herself just because her bailiff's daughter was on a high school girls sports team. But she refused to recuse herself in my case.
I keep asking myself why Judge Hayes would act as she has in my case, regardless of whether she thought she could get away with it. What was her motivation? Perhaps District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis has a theory about this. She forced Judge Hayes out of the criminal courts even though both Dumanis and Hayes share a conservative philosophy. Dumanis seems to consider Judge Hayes' behavior on the bench to be unpredictable.
Freespire.com apparently exists to criticize Michael Robertson. From the home page of the website: "Freespire.com is dedicated to shedding light on the REAL Michael Robertson. Robertson tried unsuccessfully to shut down this site, as he clearly doesn't want the truth about him known. We've seen Robertson go to great lengths to create a skewed public persona, quite different from the one you will hear about from those who know him..."
I could say these same words about Stutz, Artiano Shinoff & Holtz, the lawyers who are suing me on their own behalf.
But my site isn't limited to criticizing one person or even one group of people. It covers a broad range of education issues.
Here's what Wikipedia says about Michael Robertson: "Michael Robertson (born 1967) is the founder and former CEO of MP3.com, which quickly became one of the most popular Internet music sites. In the years following his departure from MP3.com, Robertson launched several small start-up companies, including Linspire, SIPphone, MP3tunes, and Ajax 13..."
In an interview today with Linux-Watch, controversial Linux leader Kevin Carmony confirmed rumors that he had resigned as CEO of desktop Linux vendor Linspire on July 31. Carmony said he plans to work on several of his own business projects, and on Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.
Carmony said that, after six years at Linspire, it was time to move on. Projects he plans to work on include continuing as Chairman of the Board of Sadie's, a nationwide children's photography studio chain, and serving as CEO of Dating DNA, an online dating service based on social networks. In addition, Carmony will be working more on Mitt Romney's campaign to become the Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 2008.
While he may be leaving Linspire, Carmony said, "I will always be a big supporter of Linspire and desktop Linux." And, "I will always be a desktop Linux user."
Carmony also said that Linspire is stronger than ever. "I can't speak for Linspire now, but I believe the upcoming release of Freespire 2.0 and open CNR (Click N' Run) will be great for Linspire and desktop Linux."
"With the new Freespire coming along, the continued push of Linspire to our OEMs [original equipment manufacturers], and CNR making it easy for other Linux desktop distribution users to install software, Linspire is doing great, and it was time for someone else to take it forward from here," Carmony added.
Carmony also said his resignation, contrary to some rumors, had nothing to do with any disagreement with Linspire's primary owner Michael Robertson, or with fallout from either of Linspire's recent deals with Microsoft, which covered technology licensing and patent indemnification.
Carmony joined Linspire, then known as "Lindows," in June of 2001 to become its president. Later, he became the company's CEO...
A December 11, 2009 injunction prepared by Stutz law firm and signed by Judge Judith Hayes of San Diego Superior Court says I am permanently banned from mentioning the names of Stutz law firm or its lawyers. This injunction is clearly unconstitutional. But Judge Hayes knows that, right? She's read the following cases, I trust. Or is it possible that she simply doesn't understand constitutional law?
Yesterday, a California appellate court struck down a brazenly unconstitutional preliminary injunction prohibiting two defendants from making "false and defamatory statements" about, or publishing the "confidential personal information" of, Thomas Evans, a deputy sheriff in San Diego. The case, Evans v. Evans, 2008 WL 2009669 (Cal. Ct. App. May 12, 2008), involves a nasty post-divorce dispute between Thomas Evans and his former wife, Linda Evans, and her mother, Shirley Preddy. Linda and Preddy allegedly posted false statements about Thomas on various websites, filed complaints about him with his employer, and published confidential information from his medical and financial records on the Internet. The lower court granted Thomas a broad preliminary injunction against their alleged misconduct, without specifying any particular forbidden statements or defining what "confidential personal information" means.
The appellate court held that the preliminary injunction was an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech, and that it was unconstitutionally vague because it failed to alert Linda and Preddy as to what conduct would violate the court's order. The case itself is relatively prosaic; it is interesting largely because it demonstrates yet again just how unfamiliar many lower court judges are with basic First Amendment principles. Beyond that, it tells us two important things about California law relating to prior restraints:
1. The venerable principle that courts cannot enjoin alleged defamation before trial still holds despite the Calfornia Supreme Court's decision in Balboa Island Village Inn, Inc. v. Lemen, 40 Cal.4th 1141 (2007). Not a huge surprise. According to Evans, Balboa means only that a court may order a defendant not to make certain specific statements found at trial to be false and defamatory.
2. A court has more leeway to prohibit the publication of private personal information than to prohibit publication of allegedly false statements... the lower court would be "fully justified" in prohibiting the disclosure of Thomas's telephone number, address, and Social Security number on the Internet, especially because he is a police officer...
BALBOA ISLAND ALLOWS COURTS TO ISSUE PRIOR RESTRAINTS ONLY FOR SPECIFIC STATEMENTS THAT HAVE BEEN FOUND TO BE DEFAMATORY
The California Supreme Court ruled last week that it is constitutional for courts to issue limited injunctions prohibiting defendants from repeating statements that were determined at trial to be defamatory.
The ruling arose from a case where the defendant, Anne Lemen, vocally criticized and protested the noise and activities occurring at a bar, the Balboa Island Village Inn, close to her home.
According to the court's majority opinion, Lemen told the neighbors that there was child pornography, drug dealing, and prostitution going on in the Village Inn. She also videotaped customers and made derogatory comments to employees.
In October 2001, the Village Inn sued Lemen for nuisance, defamation and interference with business, and sought a court order against Lemen.
The trial court agreed with the Village Inn and granted a permanent injunction prohibiting Lemen from contacting the inn's employees; from repeating certain defamatory statements, including that the bar "acts as a whorehouse" and "encourages lesbian activities"; and from filming within 25 feet of the Village Inn. The order applied not just to Lemen but also "her agents" and "all persons acting on her behalf."
The appeals court overturned most of the injunction...
Kathryn Stockett never intended to write a best-selling novel. In fact, when she started writing her debut novel, The Help, she didn't think anyone would ever read it. But since coming out in February, her story about the complicated relationships between African-American domestic servants and the white women who employed them in pre-civil rights Mississippi has spent over 30 weeks on the New York Times' best-seller list. Stockett talked to TIME about growing up in Mississippi and what it's like being a white woman from the South writing from the perspective of African-American maids...
It seems to me that we have too many federal judges who are more loyal to business interests than to the constitution of the United States. Recently the Supreme Court said businesses can spend as much as they want on political ads; now a federal court says owners of cable networks can actually give privileges in exchange for money (or political favors?) as to what information is provided to the public via the Internet.
People use computers at an internet cafe in Wuhan Reuters – People use computers at an internet cafe in Wuhan, Hubei province, January 23, 2010. REUTERS/Stringer Related Quotes Symbol Price Change CMCSA 18.76 -0.06 GOOG 568.22 -2.79 T 26.31 0.00 VZ 31.20 -0.26 By JOELLE TESSLER, AP Technology Writer Joelle Tessler, Ap Technology Writer – 3 hrs 1 min ago
WASHINGTON – A federal court threw the future of Internet regulations into doubt Tuesday with a far-reaching decision that went against the Federal Communications Commission and could even hamper the government's plans to expand broadband access in the United States.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC's authority to impose such "network neutrality" obligations on broadband providers.
Supporters of network neutrality, including the FCC chairman, have argued that the policy is necessary to prevent broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain Web sites and online services, such as Internet phone programs or software that runs in a Web browser. Advocates contend there is precedent: Nondiscrimination rules have traditionally applied to so-called "common carrier" networks that serve the public, from roads and highways to electrical grids and telephone lines...
Judge: Lesbian student's rights violated By Chris Joyner, USA TODAY March 23, 2010 ABERDEEN, Miss. — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Itawamba County, Miss., school board violated the rights of a lesbian student by canceling the prom when the student challenged a ban on same-sex dates, but the judge stopped short of ordering the district to reinstate the April 2 prom.
U.S. District Court Judge Glen Davidson said he denied the injunction request because a private prom parents are planning will serve the same purpose as the school prom and because "requiring defendants to step back into a sponsorship role at this late date would only confuse and confound the community on the issue."
NIXED PROM: Lesbian gets day in court
Constance McMillen, 18, and the American Civil Liberties Union sued the Itawamba County school district when she was denied her request to bring her girlfriend, a sophomore, to the dance and to wear a tuxedo.
McMillen said she was saddened that the judge did not reinstate the school-sponsored prom, but she understood his reasoning since the private prom is scheduled for the same day in Tupelo.
"It would be hard for him to move it," she said. "A lot of people would be inconvenienced."
Davidson ruled the school board violated McMillen's rights. "The Court finds this expression and communication of her viewpoint is the type of speech that falls squarely within the purview of the First Amendment," Davidson wrote in his opinion...
Google Inc., following through on a pledge to stop censoring search results in China, began serving mainland Chinese users via its unfiltered Hong Kong site, a move that could prompt the government to block the service...
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc moved its China Internet search service to Hong Kong in a bid to resolve its dispute with Beijing over censored search results while keeping a foot in the world's largest Internet market.
But comments on Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, suggested that Google's attempt to strike a balance may not go over well with Beijing. Xinhua quoted a government official as saying Google has "violated its written promise" and is "totally wrong" by stopping censorship of its Chinese language search results.
Google said on Monday it intends to continue research and development work in China, as well as maintain a sales staff, even as it effectively stopped serving search results from its mainland Chinese site Google.cn and redirected traffic to an unfiltered search site in Hong Kong.
Judge Hayes says that I don't understand Constitutional law (click on image above to read her decision). She's right that I don't understand that the Constitution allows Judge Hayes to impose broad prior restraints on a citizen journalist in order to protect law firms that appear before her. Well, not ALL the law firms who appear before her, but one of them, a group that was founded by two members of what some school-watchers think of as the Poway Pow-wow, lawyers who live in the suburb beloved by Judge Hayes.
What is this constitutional subtlety that Judge Hayes accuses me of not understanding? It seems to be the Hayes Doctrine, devised to fill a gaping hole in the legal system of the United States--a hole that allows citizens to become informed about actions of public entities that their lawyers don't want the public to know about.
In my benighted state, I believe that the law that Hayes is supposed to follow is Balboa Island Village Inn v. Lemen, 156 P.3d 339 (Cal. 2007), a decision striking down an overly broad injunction on speech. (Judge Hayes' injunction says I must remove every mention of Stutz law firm from my websites, and never mention their name again. Balboa Island says that court may only apply prior restraints to specific statements found to be defamatory.
Although the University continues to be under censure by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) for academic freedom violations and continues to ban certain speakers from campus, CUA has made a general statement of policy that the academic freedom of its faculty and students will be respected.[18] It considers academic freedom a "fundamental condition for research and dissemination of information."[18] The policy sets forth its respect for the right and responsibility of its faculty and students to (i) conduct research, (ii) publish their findings, and (iii) discuss ideas according to the principles, sources and methods of their academic disciplines.[18] The University further "sanctions" the investigation of "unexplored phenomena, advancement of knowledge, and critical examination of ideas, old and new" and "accepts the responsibility of protecting both teacher and student from being forced to deny truth that has been discovered or to assert claims that have not been established in the discipline."[18]
However, the University specifically provides that "theologians" in the University are "expected to give assent to the teachings of the magisterium in keeping with the various degrees of assent that are called for by authoritative teaching."[18]
Judge Judith Hayes made a mistake of law on February 18, 2010. I learned this from this article, which notes, "California law prohibits the recording–without consent of all parties–of a “confidential communication.” (CA Penal Code Sec. 632(a)(emphasis supplied)).
The judge was concerned that I remembered what her clerk had said to me, and asked if I had recorded the conversation. I hadn't. But I did grab a scrap of paper and started taking notes when the clerk began to say repeatedly, "There is no injunction." I have received no apology from the clerk for misleading me, but I have received a $3000 contempt sanction for violating the injunction that supposedly didn't exist.
The judge expressed no concern about the clerk's misleading statements, although Judge Hayes acknowledged the accuracy of my quotes by saying that it seemed like I had recorded the conversation.
Then the judge made her mistake of law. She told me it would be illegal for me to record my conversation with her clerk when I called and asked for a hearing date. It seems Judge Hayes needs some law school refresher courses. There's nothing confidential about a request to a court for a hearing date.
On appeal, Mr. Adelstein represented a former substitute teacher who was peacefully picketing in front of a LAUSD middle school. His sign and leaflets stated that the school promoted racism, sexism, and low student performance, and he specifically named the assistant principal. The assistant principal was upset with this. First, he and LAUSD sued the former teacher on the theory that the teacher's picketing was promoting workplace violence, and sought an injunction under Code of Civil Procedure, section 527.8. The trial court noted that the teacher was not encouraging violence and in any case his picketing was protected by the First Amendment.
Undeterred, the assistant principal then sued under Code of Civil Procedure, section 527.6, arguing that the teacher's picketing was a form of harassment. The case was assigned to a different judge who concluded that the picketing was harassment, rejected the teacher's res judicata and collateral estoppel defenses, rejected the First Amendment defense, and entered the injunction.
The appeal had a convoluted history. Mr. Adelstein's brief argued that the injunction should be reversed under res judicata, collateral estoppel, and the First Amendment, among other things. He also requested attorney's fees under Code of Civil Procedure, section 527.6, subdivision (i). LAUSD represented the assistant principal and argued to the contrary.
The Court of Appeal initially issued a published opinion affirming most of the injunction but remanding for a relatively minor correction. Mr. Adelstein filed a petition for rehearing, arguing that this opinion had incorrectly analyzed both the collateral estoppel and First Amendment issues. The Court of Appeal then asked for two sets of supplemental letter briefs, granted rehearing, and issued a second opinion reversing the trial court's injunction in full. The Court of Appeal also awarded attorney's fees under Code of Civil Procedure, section 527.6, subdivision (i).
Case Comment
I need to commend the justices in this case for granting rehearing. Petitions for rehearing are rarely granted, especially if a case has been designated for publication. But the Court of Appeal's analysis in its initial opinion, especially of the First Amendment, was simply incorrect. Many justices would be tempted to simply deny the rehearing petition and be done with the case. But the court here not only granted rehearing, but spent a considerable amount of time ordering and considering two sets of supplemental letter briefs. The justices not only worked hard to get the right result, but changed their mind in the process, and this should not pass without note.
Court: California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Five (Los Angeles) Case No. B169593 Authors: Justice Richard Mosk; Presiding Justice Paul Turner Opinion Date: February 16, 2005; April 27, 2005 Trial Counsel: The client was in pro per.
China Threatens Google Beijing Raises Tension in Censorship Spat: 'You Are Unfriendly and Irresponsible' MARCH 13, 2010 By JASON DEAN, GEOFFREY A. FOWLER And AARON BACK
A top Chinese minister warned Google Inc. "will have to bear the consequences" if it stops filtering its search results in China, suggesting there is little room for compromise in the high-profile showdown over censorship.
Friday's remarks were the sharpest words yet in an unusual duel that could set a precedent for international business in the country and could escalate tensions between the U.S. and Chinese governments.
Google made an extraordinary public reproach of China on Jan. 12 by announcing it intended to stop following government requirements that it filter the results of its Chinese search engine, google.cn, and could leave the world's biggest market of Internet users. The U.S. company cited China's tightening limits on free expression as well as a series of sophisticated cyber attacks that Google said originated from China...
