We defend and promote free speech for all Americans in our courtrooms, on our campuses, and in our culture.
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2/ Comstock first lobbied to create the “Comstock Act,” nicknamed for its father and enforcer, in 1873. Created to stop the spread of vice, the Comstock Act allowed the moral crusader to silence freethinkers, “pornographers,” and pretty much anyone he disagreed with. 
2/ The SCOPE Act also restricts minors’ access to online content that Texas claims is “harmful material” because it “promotes, glorifies, or facilitates” behaviors such as suicide, drug abuse, bullying, harassment, or sexual exploitation.
2/ As Hank Reichman, former chair of the American Association of University Professors’ Committee A once argued, “the whole idea of boycotting academic institutions in order to defend academic freedom is utterly wrongheaded.”
2/ Although Wilson was hardly a stout defender of the First Amendment in his first term, it wasn’t until the USA entered WORLD WAR I in 1917 that his censorship program began.
2/ By 384 BC when Demosthenes was born, the Greek city-state of Athens was no longer in its prime. The Athenians lacked confidence after crushing military defeats first by the Persians and then by the Spartans. The city’s distinctive democracy had even disappeared for a time.
2/ This morning, the Court rejected the idea that the government can force social media companies to host certain speech on their platforms, even if they don’t want to.
2/ “The coercive tactics used by New York officials were a naked attempt to evade the Constitution,” said Robert Corn-Revere, FIRE’s chief counsel.“The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision sends a clear message that the government cannot use its bully pulpit to censor speech it doesn’t like without violating the First Amendment. Today’s decision is a major victory for free expression and the rule of law.”
2/ As the full report from the faculty-led “Institutional Voice” working group says, “The purpose of the university is to pursue truth. In that pursuit, the university as an institution can never be neutral, because we believe in the value of seeking truth through open inquiry, debate, and weighing the evidence, as opposed to mere assertion or unjustified belief. . . .
2/ UTSA appeared on FIRE’s radar after reports indicated an administrator directed pro-Palestinian protestors to avoid using terms officials deemed “antisemitic hate speech,” apparently in an attempt to abide by Gov. Greg Abbott’s March 27 Executive Order.
2/ “[A]rresting journalists engaged in legitimate newsgathering sets a dangerous precedent, harms the public’s right to know, and defies Dartmouth’s commitments to students’ expressive and press rights,” FIRE’s coalition letter said.
2/ A physics department lecture by @ubarilan Professor Asaf Peer at @unlv quickly turned into a shouting match when protestors entered the venue and began yelling about Peer’s ties to Israel, accusing him of supporting genocide.
2/ Staying true to the principles that Benjamin Franklin founded the institution on in 1749, Penn’s “new future” recommits itself to academic freedom and free speech according to both 1A precedent and its limited exceptions. 
2/ As FIRE has said, speech codes depend on the exercise of double standards. Though today’s speech restrictions may intend to protect Jewish students, there is no telling how university admins will apply them in the future.
2/ The charge? "Disturbing the peace by electronic communication": A Vermont statute that bans using the internet to “annoy” or “harass” in ways that are “indecent,” or “disturb” or "intimidate" another–with NO regard to the speaker's intent.
