Nathan Cofnas, the academic who exposed plagiarism allegations against former Cambridge professor Jason Arday, has been suspended by a Belgian university over public statements about the scandal and placed under disciplinary investigation.
Ghent University announced Thursday that it had suspended a postdoctoral researcher as a “precautionary measure” while it investigates whether disciplinary action is warranted. Cofnas identified himself as the researcher and said he expects the university to fire him.
“I was just suspended by Ghent University. They will almost certainly fire me,” Cofnas wrote on <a href="https://x.com/nathancofnas/status/2090416033072861245">X</a> Thursday.
The university did not name Cofnas in its <a href="https://www.ugent.be/en/news-events/statement-respect-human-dignity-opposition-discrimination.htm">statement</a>, but said the investigation concerns “recent public statements” by a postdoctoral researcher about Arday, who was found dead in his London home last week after resigning from Cambridge amid an investigation into his academic record.
“Ghent University stands for respect for human dignity and opposes discrimination, hatred, and racism,” Rector Petra De Sutter and Vice-Rector Herwig Reynaert said. “We attach great importance to academic freedom and to open academic debate, even when views are controversial. However, that freedom is not unlimited.” 
The university said it imposed the suspension pending a preliminary disciplinary investigation to determine whether there are sufficient grounds to refer the matter to its disciplinary body.
Cofnas, however, argues that he is being punished for reporting facts that powerful academic institutions failed to confront. 
“I’m an easy scapegoat,” Cofnas wrote in a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/how-i-became-the-scapegoat-in-the-jason-arday-affair-dc134088?st=8ddArw&amp;reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink">Wall Street Journal op-ed</a> published Friday. “The lesson can’t be that it’s unacceptable to point out wrongdoing that implicates powerful public figures.”
Cofnas first published his allegations against Arday on July 21 in a Substack article titled “<a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-207415162">DEI Fraud and Cover-Up at Cambridge</a>.” Using plagiarism-detection software, Cofnas identified what he said were extensive similarities between portions of Arday’s doctoral thesis and an earlier thesis by another academic. Subsequent reporting raised additional questions about Arday’s academic credentials, employment history and extraordinary claims about his personal life.
Arday, who had been celebrated as Cambridge’s youngest black professor, denied plagiarism but acknowledged mistakes in his academic work. Cambridge initially defended him, describing criticism as a “vile campaign to undermine his credibility.”
That position changed after further reporting prompted the university to launch an investigation into Arday’s academic qualifications and honorary appointments. Arday resigned from his professorship the same day Cambridge announced the investigation.
“I no longer wish to feel as though I am living under a constant spotlight, where every aspect of my life is subject to public examination and judgement,” Arday wrote in his resignation statement.
Nine days later, Arday was found unresponsive at his home in south London and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/professor-recently-outed-for-fraudulent-biography-found-dead">pronounced dead</a>. Police said the death was unexpected but was not being treated as suspicious. 
Cofnas has acknowledged that his reporting contributed to the chain of events that followed, but rejects the suggestion that he bears moral responsibility for Arday’s death. 
“I set off a series of events that led to a death,” Cofnas wrote Friday. “If I say I have no regrets, it sounds like I don’t appreciate the horrific nature of the outcome. If I say I do regret it, it sounds like I’m accepting moral responsibility for what happened.”
“But the lesson can’t be that it’s unacceptable to point out wrongdoing that implicates powerful public figures,” he continued. “That’s what I did when I exposed fraud and institutional corruption at Cambridge.”
Cofnas has also pointed to the scale of the media coverage that followed his original article. He wrote that he published one article while British newspapers subsequently published 249 articles about Arday over a 22-day period. 
“Although no one has found so much as a mistaken comma in the article I wrote about Arday, I’m apparently not entitled to protection against attack for telling the truth,” Cofnas wrote.
The National Union of Journalists has criticized Cofnas following Arday’s death, describing his role as “deeply concerning” and noting that he has previously described himself as a “race realist.”
Cofnas is a controversial figure in academia. Cambridge investigated him in 2024 and concluded that his published views were offensive to many but did not breach university rules. He subsequently sued Emmanuel College alleging discrimination, but lost his case and is appealing the decision.
He later moved to Ghent University as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences. 
In its statement, Ghent University said it recognizes the importance of academic freedom but that such freedom “goes hand in hand with responsibility and may be restricted to protect the rights of others.” The university did not specify which of Cofnas’ statements it believes may constitute discrimination, citing the confidentiality of personnel and disciplinary proceedings.
Cofnas argues that the disciplinary investigation is itself evidence of the tension between academic freedom and ideological conformity that he has spent years criticizing. 
“The university has laid the groundwork to fire me,” Cofnas told the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/the-controversial-academic-who-ignited-the-jason-arday-furor-1071e7fc">Wall Street Journal</a>. “I’m the scapegoat for everyone.”

Memorial Held For Former Cambridge Professor Jason Arday In Trafalgar Square

Scholar Who Exposed Black Cambridge Prof’s Plagiarism Suspended As School Decries ‘Discrimination’

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Britain

Cambridge University

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Education

England

Free Speech

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of the Press

Great Britain

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Jason Arday

Plagiarism

Radical education

United Kingdom

Universities

After 11 years as a sports columnist at The Seattle Times, Matt Calkins has resigned from the paper, saying editors refused to publish a column arguing that opposing biological males competing in women’s sports does not make someone “transphobic.”
The columnist <a href="https://x.com/Matt_Calkins/status/2090483833057751064">announced</a> his resignation Thursday, saying the decision was entirely his own but came after the newspaper declined to run his piece on the debate over biological males competing in women’s sports.
“The impetus was the Times declining to run a column I wrote from the perspective of two female student athletes who were opposed to competing against biological males,” Calkins wrote. “It was one of several pieces of mine that had been spiked, and I no longer felt like I could properly do my job as a columnist.”
The decision came after Calkins interviewed 16-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson, a student-athlete who had lost to a biological male in a track race and attended a matchup between the Indiana Fever and the  Seattle Storm carrying a sign reading, “Thank You, Sophie For Speaking Up For Girls!” Wilson’s experience at that game became the catalyst for Calkins’ unpublished column.
During the game, Storm co-owner Celeste Keaton <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-co-owner-accused-of-cursing-out-teen-girls-over-xx-xy-shirts">confronted</a> Wilson and another teenage girl who were supporting Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, who has publicly opposed biological males competing in women’s sports. 
Keaton allegedly called the girls “f***ing insane” and told Wilson, “I hope Jesus can forgive you,” leaving the teenager in tears. The WNBA subsequently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-co-owners-tirade-at-sophie-cunningham-fans-ends-in-fallout">suspended</a> Keaton from attending five home games and fined her over the incident.
For Calkins, the episode raised a question he believed deserved to be addressed by a sports columnist: Why should a teenage girl who believes women’s sports should remain female-only automatically be treated as hateful or bigoted?
Wilson told Calkins that she did not hate transgender people and simply believed girls should have their own sports. Another Washington student-athlete, Frances Staudt, told him she had faced verbal abuse at school after refusing to play against a biological male.
Calkins ultimately published the rejected column on his Substack under the title, “<a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-211906384">Agreeing with Sophie Cunningham’s stance doesn’t make you transphobic.</a>”
“Some people saw bigotry. I saw bravery,” Calkins wrote of Wilson. “I saw a teenage girl speaking up on an issue that so many adults shy away from.”
The column argued that the separation of male and female sports exists precisely because of biological differences in physical performance, and that supporting that separation does not necessarily amount to hostility toward transgender people. But the Seattle Times declined to publish it.
Calkins <a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-212028578">said</a> he initially submitted the column to his editor on July 31 and was told that editors were reviewing it. Several days later, he said, he was informed that the piece would not run because he had failed to notify his editor in advance that he was working on it.
“I didn’t buy this reasoning,” Calkins wrote. “If that were the case, the piece would have been killed on the spot, not passed through the hands of multiple editors over several days.” 
He resigned immediately afterward.
The decision was not, according to Calkins, simply about one column. He said the Times had previously spiked columns questioning whether the U.S. women’s soccer team was actually the victim of discrimination in its equal-pay lawsuit, criticizing cancel culture in sports, and defending a black high school basketball coach who urged Americans not to stereotype police following George Floyd’s death.
Calkins said the common thread was that the pieces challenged narratives that he believed a columnist should be willing to question.
 “I’ve always thought that it was a columnist’s duty to generate discussion on the most hot-button issues,” he wrote. “To avoid such topics was to leave the reader shortchanged.”
“I guess in the end, I just didn’t feel like I could do my job properly anymore,” he wrote.
Calkins acknowledged that leaving a long-established newspaper job without another position lined up was frightening. He said he has no idea what his career will look like in the coming years and joked that he could even end up working as a dental assistant.
But he said the uncertainty was preferable to self-censorship.
“To be honest, I’m scared sh—tless right now,” Calkins wrote. “But that fear beats the indignity of being muzzled.”

Indiana Fever v Seattle Storm

Sports Columnist Breaks Up With Paper Over Biological Reality

Censorship

Indiana Fever

Media

Media Bias

Seattle

Seattle Storm

Sophie Cunningham

Transgender

Transgender Athletes

Women's Basketball

Women's sports

xx-xy athletics

A politician convicted of hate speech for sharing her Christian views on marriage said she was “blocked” from entering the United Kingdom to advocate for free speech. 
Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen said Tuesday that officials in the U.K. prevented her from traveling into Northern Ireland, where she was slated to speak at a conference on religious liberty. Räsänen said she was initially authorized to enter the country in June, but that approval was yanked in July. 
“It is shocking that the U.K. has blocked me, a democratically elected politician in an allied European state, from entering the country,” Räsänen said. “I was convicted of ‘hate speech’ in Finland for peacefully expressing my Christian views.”
Räsänen called on U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to reverse course and allow her to enter the country. She currently plans to address the conference remotely on Wednesday and Friday. 
The denial of entry comes just a few months after Finland&#8217;s top court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/a-politician-shared-traditional-christian-values-now-she-stands-convicted-of-hate-speech">found</a> Räsänen guilty of “hate speech” for sharing her Christian views on marriage in a 2004 church pamphlet. The court found her guilty of “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group.” The “text” she was charged over was a pamphlet explaining the Bible’s position on marriage and sexual ethics, published by Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola, who was convicted alongside her.
The Trump administration, which slammed Räsänen’s conviction, said the latest development showed the dangers of restricting free speech. 
“Paivi was prosecuted for quoting the Bible. A downstream effect of countries criminalizing speech is that systems designed to flag and filter ‘criminals’ trigger rippling second-order punishments [can] lead to debanking, visa denials, and more,” Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers said Tuesday. 
Throughout her legal battles, Räsänen has been represented by Alliance Defending Freedom International, which called for the U.K. to immediately approve her application. 
“This is not an isolated incident,” said ADF International lawyer Lorcan Price. “The UK has in the last year blocked a number of mainstream conservative individuals, politicians, and now even a member of the Finnish Parliament and a Lutheran bishop, from entering the country. This trend is yet another example of the severe and escalating censorship crisis in Great Britain.”
The U.K. itself has a troubled track record on free speech. In May, a pastor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pastor-convicted-for-preaching-on-john-316-outside-hospital">was fined</a> for preaching on John 3:16 inside a so-called “Safe Access Zone” outside a Northern Ireland hospital that performs abortions.

MixCollage-19-Aug-2026-11-05-AM-2826

Politician Punished For Christian Beliefs Targeted Again

Christianity

Finland

Ireland

Religious Freedom

Trump Administration

Senate Democrats unanimously opposed legislation Wednesday requiring pornography websites to verify users&#8217; ages before allowing access to explicit content, drawing criticism from conservatives who accused the party of siding with the pornography industry over protecting children online.
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee voted 15-13 along party lines to advance Sen. Mike Lee&#8217;s (R-UT) Shielding Children&#8217;s Retinas from Egregious Exposure on the Net (<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/737">SCREEN</a>) Act. But the bill failed to advance because the committee lacked the quorum required for official action. Four Republicans were not physically present for the vote and were “ayes” by proxy, but proxy votes don&#8217;t count toward quorum. Four Democrats were similarly absent and were “noes” by proxy.
The Democratic committee members include: Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), John Fetterman (D-PA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE).
The SCREEN Act would require commercial pornography websites to implement age verification technology designed to prevent minors from accessing sexually explicit material. The legislation would authorize the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the requirements and prohibit websites or third-party verification providers from retaining or selling personal information collected during the verification process.
Conservative organizations blasted the Democrats for unanimously opposing the bill.
&#8220;The porn industry is preying on America&#8217;s children for profit, and now it is doing it with the support of Democrat lawmakers,&#8221; American Principles Project President Terry Schilling told The Daily Wire. &#8220;The 13 Senate Democrats who voted against the SCREEN Act today made it perfectly clear: they would rather stand with Big Porn than American parents and children.&#8221;
&#8220;We will not back down until families across America are protected from the porn industry and the lawmakers who defend it,&#8221; Schilling continued. &#8220;The Democrats have a choice. They can join the effort to protect kids online, or they can face the political consequences of standing with the porn companies. Today, 13 of them chose poorly.&#8221;
The American Principles Project, joined by Heritage Action, Family Policy Alliance, American Compass, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and several other organizations, urged lawmakers to pass the legislation ahead of the vote.
The coalition argued that online pornography has become increasingly accessible to children, citing research showing that 54% of children age 13 and younger and 80% of teenagers between 12 and 17 have been exposed to sexually explicit content. The groups said the average age of first exposure is now just 12.
Supporters also pointed to growing public support for age-verification requirements. According to the coalition, <a href="https://action.freespeechcoalition.com/age-verification-resources/state-avs-laws/">27 states</a> have enacted age verification laws for pornography websites since 2022, many with bipartisan support, while the Supreme Court last year upheld Texas&#8217;s age verification law in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2024/23-1122">Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton</a>, finding that governments have broad authority to protect children from sexually explicit material.
The advocacy groups argued that a federal standard is now needed because state laws create a patchwork system that leaves children in states without such laws unprotected.
The SCREEN Act would allow websites to choose among multiple age-verification methods and would not specifically require government-issued identification. Websites could instead contract with third-party verification companies or develop their own systems, provided they meet the bill&#8217;s standards.
Opponents, however, have argued that mandatory age verification raises significant privacy and free speech concerns. The Electronic Frontier Foundation <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/07/screen-act-threatens-privacy-far-beyond-adult-websites">warned</a> that the legislation would require adults to surrender their anonymity before accessing lawful online speech and argued that digital age verification creates risks that do not exist when showing identification in person.
Critics have also argued that the bill&#8217;s definition of covered websites could extend beyond traditional pornography sites to include platforms that host any sexually explicit material, potentially affecting social media sites and streaming platforms.
The SCREEN Act was considered alongside several broader online child safety proposals, including the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which advanced out of committee Wednesday on a unanimous vote. Unlike the SCREEN Act, KOSA received bipartisan support in committee and could move to the Senate floor.

Video Streaming Platforms Stock Photos

The Dems Who Sided With ‘Big Porn’ Instead Of Parents

Children

Family Values

Internet

Internet safety

Online porn

Pornography

Senate

Senate Democrats

Senate GOP

Senate Republicans

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U.S. Senate

Shiloh Hendrix 2

The Shiloh Hendrix Trial Was Even More Corrupt Than We Thought

First Amendment

Minnesota

NAACP

Rochester

Shiloh Hendrix

The Shiloh Hendrix Verdict Is A Horrifying Sign For America. Here’s Why.

Implicit Bias

Somalis

Tim Walz

A Minnesota jury found a woman guilty of disorderly conduct after she repeatedly used the racial slur &#8220;n*gger&#8221; during a confrontation at a playground. 
Thirty-seven-year-old Shiloh Marie Hendrix was captured on video as a bystander confronted her for allegedly directing the racial slur at an autistic child. Although the alleged remark itself was not captured on video, the bystander urged Hendrix to repeat it while recording the encounter.
Rochester City Attorney Michael Spindler-Krage charged Hendrix with two counts of disorderly conduct, one for her alleged behavior toward the child and the other for her confrontation with the bystander. A jury acquitted Hendrix on the first count but convicted her on the second, finding her guilty of disorderly conduct for directing the racial slur at Omar rather than the child. 
She was sentenced to one year of supervised probation, fined $1,000, and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service. She faces a 90-day jail sentence only if she violates the terms of her probation.
The man who recorded the confrontation, Sharmake Beyle Omar, was previously charged in a sexual assault case involving a 16-year-old girl. Prosecutors later <a href="https://www.kimt.com/news/charges-dropped-against-rochester-men-accused-of-sexually-abusing-a-teen-victim/article_461bf354-a3ff-11ed-bedb-d329b9d4dcb6.html">dismissed</a> those charges &#8220;in the interest of justice.&#8221; 
According to the criminal <a href="https://fromthegman.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Hendrix-Complaint.pdf">complaint</a>, the confrontation began after an eight-year-old autistic boy took an applesauce pouch from Hendrix’s diaper bag. Both Hendrix and the boy’s father chased the child as he climbed onto playground equipment in an attempt to get away. Hendrix allegedly shouted at him and repeatedly used the racial slur. 
While recording on his phone, Omar asked Hendrix why she called the child the racial slur, noting that the boy was autistic. Hendrix replied that she used the word because “he acts like one” and said he had taken her son’s belongings. When Omar continued confronting her, Hendrix responded, “I don’t give a sh*t and f*ck off.” 
Hendrix’s attorney blasted the verdict.
“I think it’s pathetic,” defense attorney Brian Karalus <a href="https://x.com/Tomhennessey69/status/2080543001323978782">said</a>. “I think it’s sad. I think it’s sick … this is a fraud upon the community.” 
Karalus argued the government was “prosecuting a young lady for language,” and this trial was the result of cancel culture. He added that Hendrix’s choice of words was inappropriate but that there is a difference between inappropriate and illegal. 
Prosecutor Nicholas Shabel argued jurors should consider both Hendrix’s conduct and her language.  
Shabel argued that Hendrix&#8217;s “screaming at the child, her demeanor, her language all speak to this. All of those are appropriate for your consideration,” said Shabel.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) set up a GoFundMe for the child, raising more than $340,000. 
The incident drew backlash from conservatives. 
The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh <a href="https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/2080623002824200284">said</a>, “The Shiloh Hendrix case isn&#8217;t even a close call or a grey area. She was charged and convicted of a crime for saying a word. If that&#8217;s not a violation of the First Amendment, nothing is. This is one of the most straightforward free speech issues we&#8217;ve seen in a long time.”

Screenshot 2026-07-24 at 3.59.23 PM

Playground Slur Case Takes Dark Turn For Free Speech

child

Court

Jail

language

Matt Walsh

Race

Racial Discrimination

U.S.

Free speech in Europe, and Britain in particular, has been a concern for the second Trump administration. At the 2025 Munich Security Conference, Vice President J.D. Vance gave European leaders both barrels over the issue. Since then, U.S. government figures such as Sarah Rogers have ceaselessly drawn attention to the ever-increasing infringements on free speech in the U.K.
In recent years, Britain has seen high-profile stories such as the jailing of mother-of-two Lucy Connolly for a swiftly deleted tweet about asylum seekers in the midst of the Southport riots in 2024, the arrest of comedian Graham Linehan over tweets about transgenderism, and police officers dismissed from their jobs over gallows humor in private WhatsApp groups. Much more could be said about “non-crime hate incidents” resulting in police visits, a proposed special ban on “anti-Muslim hostility,” and the Labour government’s clear desire to reduce digital freedoms through different forms of regulation, and even the outright banning of Elon Musk’s X.
To American readers who take pride in the First Amendment, this might sound unthinkable. It can seem as if Britain is a victim of its un-American political system. Unlike the United States, Britain has no single written constitution. Rather, it combines unwritten conventions and statutes passed by its elected Parliament. Free speech warriors in both the U.S. and the U.K. increasingly suggest that, to protect their liberties, they should adopt a written constitution or Bill of Rights to safeguard things such as freedom of speech.
However, Britain’s Parliament has never worked this way, nor should it start. The driving force of British politics has always been parliamentary sovereignty; that is, an elected Parliament can create and remove whatever laws it likes if it has a majority and the political will.
Crucially, this means that no Parliament can bind its successor. If a new government is elected with a mandate to overturn the laws of the last one, it can always do so. This is not the case in written constitutional systems, such as the United States, which are subject to a constitution that is incredibly difficult or even impossible to change. It is this reality that has left President Trump, even with a conservative majority in the Supreme Court, unable to make good on his central campaign pledge to end birthright citizenship. In a true British system, he could have passed that law on day one.
Britain’s free speech crisis is downstream of bad laws created by Parliament. This began with the Race Relations Act 1965, which, in the wake of tensions arising from post-World War II immigration, outlawed the expression of certain political beliefs. This was worsened by the Public Order Act 1986, which criminalized speech that was “likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.” Later, already confused communications offenses designed for the era of snail mail and telephone operators collided disastrously with public-facing social media, just as “hate speech” offenses began to appear on the books under Tony Blair. It is these laws and others that helped to shape Britain’s own strain of cancel culture.
But the British answer to bad speech laws is not a new written constitution that takes the question out of our Parliament’s (and therefore voters’) hands. Instead, it is to repeal the bad laws and, if necessary, replace them with good ones.
This is the approach outlined in <a href="https://x.com/Prosperity_Inst/status/2075135466974618075">Reversing Britain’s Free Speech Recession</a>, the latest report from the Prosperity Institute. Barrister Jon Holbrook, himself a vindicated survivor of cancel culture, has identified the laws that most need to be repealed or amended to restore a boom in the British free speech economy, with new legislation drafted and ready for implementation for a free speech government.
In the revived Britain imagined in this paper, laws criminalizing speech that merely causes “harassment, alarm or distress” will be repealed; communications speech will be criminal only if it is intentionally menacing and targeted; all so-called “hate speech” laws will be repealed. Interference with free speech in the civil sphere will no longer be a matter for contested anti-discrimination law, but a simple matter of tort law. Spurious allegations will be deterred by a new costs regime that protects those wrongly accused. A cultural shift will be needed, certainly. But we must start with the law.
English liberty gave the Western world its tradition of free speech. Yet lately, as Shakespeare wrote in Richard II, “That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.” But it possesses all that it needs to liberate itself once again.
***
Rhys Laverty is Editorial and Research Director of the Prosperity Institute.

Celtic v Rangers – William Hill Premiership – Celtic Park

What Britain Can Do To Save Free Speech

DW Opinion

Hate Speech

Free speech is America’s greatest protection against tyranny. It also creates one of our greatest vulnerabilities to foreign enemies. Our challenge is to defend that freedom without letting our enemies turn it against us.
The First Amendment protects free speech for good reason. Once government gets to decide which opinions are allowed, every other freedom becomes less secure. But the same openness that lets Americans criticize the government, organize movements, and argue for radical ideas can also be exploited by enemies who would never permit that freedom at home.
In America and the West, people are free to fund nonprofits, organize protests, build campus movements, and use social media to shape public opinion, even against the country’s own institutions. You wouldn’t be allowed to use those same tools to undermine the regime in China, Iran, Russia, or North Korea. Those governments keep a tight grip on their universities, media, and public square.
That asymmetry is how a free society becomes vulnerable. Every society produces fringe ideas. That’s normal. But potentially harmful ideas usually remain harmless as long as they stay fringe. They become dangerous and divisive when someone gives them money, legitimacy, and a way to spread.
Right now, self-destructive beliefs that once remained on the fringe are growing in popularity across America and the West. Some of these ideas surely started organically. But that doesn’t mean these ideas are spreading at this scale on their own. They can also be magnified by foreign money flowing into the universities, nonprofits, and platforms that shape the worldview of millions of Americans.
Take energy. Radical activists push to block pipelines, shut down nuclear plants, and eliminate coal in the name of saving the planet, while China keeps burning cheap coal to power its economy. Taken to its extreme, this agenda, dressed up as climate virtue, becomes a form of industrial self-destruction while handing our competitors a massive economic advantage.
Or take immigration. Done right, legal and controlled with real integration, it’s a strength. Done wrong, an unchecked open-borders policy is a recipe for national self-destruction. No rational state would allow indiscriminate migration on a scale that destabilizes its own society. Yet many Western constituencies now treat basic self-preservation as something shameful.
We don’t need to prove that foreign money is the main driver of every self-destructive belief spreading through America. The vulnerability itself is the problem. Hostile governments don’t need to invent these ideas from scratch. They only need to find the radical ideas already capable of tearing us apart and fund their growth. Adversaries who have spent decades studying how to weaken America would be foolish to pass up such an obvious opening. Why spend trillions trying to beat America militarily when a fraction of that can get Americans to do the work for them?
What can we actually do about this?
Not censorship of Americans. That would be the most dangerous response. Americans have every right to argue and protest against America itself. That’s part of the deal free speech gives us. If we answer foreign manipulation by giving the government the power to police what Americans believe, we expose ourselves to something worse than foreign influence: a government powerful enough to turn against its own citizens. The First Amendment has to stay fully intact.
The better answer is to extend a principle America already accepts: foreign money should not be allowed to shape American public life from the shadows. <a href="https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/foreign-nationals/">Foreign nationals</a> already can’t donate to American elections. <a href="https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara">FARA</a> requires certain foreign agents to register and disclose their activities here. Those laws exist because America understands that foreign money can be weaponized, and that foreign influence can be restricted or exposed without touching any American’s right to speak.
We should apply that same logic more broadly to nonprofits, universities, and advocacy groups that shape American culture and politics. The distinction should stay simple: ordinary commerce is fine. Foreign money financing domestic influence is not.
Foreigners can buy products, hire American companies, or pay full price for their own children’s education here. That is foreign money exchanged for real goods and services, and it’s not the problem. The problem is foreign governments, foreign nationals, or foreign-controlled groups endowing chairs, funding programs, or financing research in ways aimed at shaping our culture, our politics, or how young Americans are educated.
If Americans want to fund radical climate activism or open-border movements, that’s their right. The First Amendment protects them. Americans are free to be wrong and free to be radical. But the First Amendment does not require us to let foreign adversaries bankroll our national self-destruction.
Perhaps a broad restriction is too blunt an instrument. We would welcome any narrower solutions that actually work. At the very least, full transparency about which foreign governments, foreign nationals, and foreign-controlled entities are funding our nonprofit institutions would be a good first step.
But transparency alone may not be enough. According to the <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-releases-latest-foreign-funding-disclosures-federally-funded-american-universities">Department of Education’s 2025 foreign-funding disclosures</a>, Qatar was the largest foreign source of reportable gifts and contracts to American universities, including Harvard and Carnegie Mellon, with China third. Qatar alone accounted for more than $1 billion. That fact is already public, since federal law requires universities to report large foreign gifts and contracts. Yet the money keeps flowing anyway. At some point, transparency must be followed by real restrictions on foreign money flowing into causes designed to reshape American society.
America does not need to become less free to protect itself. It needs to stop being naive. Our enemies understand that free speech in an open society can be used against it. We are under no obligation to give them the tools to turn our freedom against us. If we want free speech to survive, we need to defend not just our right to speak, but the society that makes that right worth having in the first place.
***
Rabbi Elie Feder, PhD, and Rabbi Aaron Zimmer host the “<a href="https://www.physicstogod.com/">Physics to God</a>” podcast.

100 US dollars on the background of the banknote of the Chinese yuan. The concept of a trade war between the USA and China

Free Speech Is The West’s Greatest Asset. It’s Also Our Greatest Vulnerability.

American Universities

Foreign Funding

Foreign influence

foreign nationals

The Supreme Court got this one right. In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, decided today, the court struck down the federal limits on coordinated expenditures between political parties and their candidates. The vote was 6–3, with Justice Kavanaugh writing for the majority, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett. For decades, these restrictions rested on a bizarre fiction, that a political party could somehow corrupt the very candidate it nominates. Nobody who has ever worked in politics believes that. Parties exist to elect candidates. The court has now said what practitioners have known all along: the government cannot punish them for doing so.
The court did not mince words. Justice Kavanaugh wrote that Colorado II’s “reasoning has been rejected by subsequent cases and is no longer good law in light of the court’s more recent precedents. To the extent that Colorado II has retained any vitality, it is now overruled.” That 2001 decision, FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, had upheld the coordinated-expenditure limits by a 5–4 vote over a powerful dissent by Justice Thomas — the only member of that court still serving. Twenty-five years later, his dissent has been vindicated. As the majority acknowledged, Justice Thomas “explained that ‘the ordinary means for a party to provide support is to make coordinated expenditures’” and that “‘breaking the connection between parties and their candidates inhibits the promotion of the party&#8217;s message.’”
I have some stake in saying so. As a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, I was at the commission when this litigation began. The Biden administration chose to defend the restrictions. When President Donald Trump returned to office, the solicitor general shifted the government’s position, rightly, in my view, and conceded the limits were unconstitutional. That was not a political stunt. It was an honest acknowledgment of what the First Amendment requires. Because the government declined to defend the law, the court appointed Roman Martinez, a former clerk to both Chief Justice Roberts and then-Judge Kavanaugh, as amicus curiae to argue in defense of the statute.
The history matters. When the case went to the en banc Sixth Circuit, a majority of the judges questioned the continued validity of Colorado II, considering later Supreme Court decisions, particularly McCutcheon v. FEC (2014) and FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate (2022), but felt bound by the 2001 precedent. The Supreme Court freed them, and us, from that constraint.
Look at what these coordination limits did. They did not reduce the amount of money spent on politics. They just pushed spending away from political parties and toward outside groups. The court recognized this directly: the coordinated-expenditure limits imposed a “stifling effect on the ability of the party to do what it exists to do.” Meanwhile, donors sent their funds to Super PACs and other outside groups with a First Amendment right to spend unlimited money. The numbers are staggering: in the 2024 cycle, PACs raised over $15.7 billion, compared to $2.7 billion by political parties. A Super PAC run by consultants could spend without limit, but the Republican or Democratic party committee could not coordinate a mail piece with its own nominee. The First Amendment does not require that absurdity.
The majority applied what it called the “closely drawn” scrutiny from McCutcheon and Cruz, requiring that any restriction on political speech be “necessary,” “narrowly tailored,” and not “disproportionate” to the government’s interest. The only permissible interest in campaign finance restrictions, the court reaffirmed, is “preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption” — and only the narrow, quid pro quo kind. Not “influence.” Not “access.” Not “ingratiation.” The court wrote plainly: “Ingratiation and access &#8230; are not corruption,” but instead “embody a central feature of democracy.”
As for the government’s circumvention argument, the idea that donors would funnel money through parties to evade contribution limits, the court concluded that three existing tools already address that concern: base contribution limits to candidates, earmarking rules that treat directed contributions as direct donations, and robust disclosure requirements. The coordinated-expenditure limits were a “fourth line of defense” — a “prophylaxis-upon-prophylaxis” that was disproportionate to the interest it served. The majority pointedly observed that a majority of states “largely give parties free rein to make coordinated expenditures on behalf of their state-level nominees,” and yet “no evidence of corruption” via circumvention “has materialized.”
It is important to remember: parties disclose their donors. Their leadership is public. They file detailed reports with the FEC. The court itself emphasized that disclosure “offers much more robust protections against corruption” today than ever before, because of advances in technology and the Internet. If you care about transparency in elections, you should want more money flowing through parties, not less.
Critics will say this opens the floodgates. It does not. Contribution limits to the political parties still exist. Parties still cannot raise unlimited money the way Super PACs can. What changes is that parties can now spend what they raise in coordination with their candidates instead of pretending they operate independently. As the court stressed, the decision “treats all political parties equally” and will “allow all political parties, including the DNC and RNC and the respective Senate and House campaign committees, to participate more freely and compete more fully in the political process.” Some money will migrate back from Super PACs to party committees. That means more disclosure, more accountability, and more coherent campaigns.
Campaign finance reformers have spent decades getting this wrong. Every time Americans find a way to participate in political speech, the reformers’ knee-jerk response is the same: restrict it. They pushed for the coordinated-expenditure limits. They got them. The predictable result was that money flowed to outside groups while parties withered. The court has now corrected part of the problem by eliminating the coordination restriction, but the underlying contribution limits, themselves an unconstitutional restraint on political association, remain in place because the same misguided reform impulse that created them still dominates the conversation in Washington.
At bottom, this case asked a simple question: Can the government restrict political speech because regulators think there is too much of it? The answer is no. It has always been no. As the court reminded us, the “Framers were even more famously suspicious of government suppression of political speech” than they were of political parties. And it closed with the most powerful point of all: “For nearly 200 years after the ratification of the First Amendment, parties could spend on campaigns in coordination with candidates,” and no one suggests “that these elections were not functional or that they were marred by corruption.” The First Amendment is not a suggestion, and it does not come with a carve-out for election season.
That should not be a controversial statement. But in Washington, apparently it still is. Credit the court for moving the conversation in the right direction — toward freedom, and away from the reflexive assumption that government knows best when Americans speak about politics.
***
Trey Trainor is a partner at Dhillon Law Group, Inc., board certified in Legislative and Campaign Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and former Commissioner and Chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

Insider Trading

The Supreme Court Restores Some Common Sense To Campaign Finance

Federal Election Commission (FEC)

political speech

Special Reporting

Supreme Court

A libertarian law professor who responded to FIRE’s recent <a href="https://www.fire.org/research-learn/free-expression-climate-self-censorship-national-survey-american-law-faculty">national survey of law faculty</a> offered a striking admission:
<blockquote>
Whether justified or unjustified, I regularly hide beliefs from colleagues who are openly discussing important topics in the public interest out of fear of retaliation, particularly as a junior faculty member.
</blockquote>
No administrator had disciplined him. No student had filed a complaint. Yet, by his own admission, he and another colleague routinely conceal their views at faculty meetings and other public events, not because anyone ordered them to stay silent, but because they worry that candor can exact professional costs.
That kind of silence is tricky to measure, but carries serious implications. And new data suggest it is relatively common in American law schools.
For a <a href="https://www.fire.org/research-learn/free-expression-climate-self-censorship-national-survey-american-law-faculty">report</a> released this week, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) surveyed 1,959 law faculty at 192 ABA-approved law schools. The findings reveal a profession caught in a contradiction: law professors overwhelmingly endorse free expression in principle, yet many describe an academic culture that discourages them from practicing it.
That should alarm anyone who cares about legal education. Law schools are supposed to be places that train students to make arguments they may not personally believe, stress-test ideas against the strongest opposing case, and examine precedents, doctrines, and historical cases that may offend some modern sensibilities. But that model depends on faculty willing to speak frankly and institutions willing to tolerate dissent.
More than half of the law faculty surveyed (56%) report that they at least occasionally feel unable to express their opinion because of how students, colleagues, or administrators might respond. And that number becomes even more striking when ideology is taken into account. Conservative law faculty, who are outnumbered three to one in the sample, were more likely than their liberal colleagues to report self-censoring (72% versus 50%), and three times as many conservatives, compared to liberals, reported at least occasionally hiding their political beliefs from other faculty in an attempt to keep their job (52% versus 17%).
The survey also found clear asymmetries in perceptions of institutional fit. While majorities of law faculty said a liberal individual would fit well in their law school, far fewer said the same about a conservative individual.
As one law professor put it:
<blockquote>
In my law school, students get only half the story in most of their courses. There are no conservatives as full-time professors, and only a few moderates. Students who are moderate to conservative rarely share their views in class.
</blockquote>
And this same professor connected that climate directly to his own choices:
<blockquote>
For the past 15 years, I&#8217;ve seen our law students become less prepared for the adversarial nature of legal practice. I&#8217;m partly to blame, as I have modified my exams and exercises to avoid potentially controversial fact patterns and claims.
</blockquote>
That self-indictment — “I’m partly to blame” — isn’t a complaint about administrators or colleagues (though they could be the other part). Rather, it’s an acknowledgment that retreating from difficulty is something he’s done, incrementally, over many years. All within the context of diminishing ideological diversity. Multiplied across a profession, that accumulation of small adjustments doesn’t just reflect the culture of law schools. It creates one.
Another law professor, a self-described strong Democrat, described the specific calculus self-censorship dynamics produce in his classes:
<blockquote>
I teach cases without ever saying what actually happened in the case because I&#8217;m afraid to say those words (notably some First Amendment cases address words I didn&#8217;t even know were slurs before reading the case).
</blockquote>
A First Amendment professor, self-censoring while teaching First Amendment cases. By this professor’s honest admission, we can see how his students are learning about free speech firsthand, but in this case by what isn’t being said. They are watching their professor decide that engagement with certain material is too risky, and filing that lesson away.
This is how habits can form and a culture can shift. Not necessarily through any speech code or disciplinary action (though it can come from there too). But through hesitation and daily acts of omission that students observe, absorb, and over time likely begin to mimic themselves.
Law students go on to become lawyers who argue cases in court, prosecutors who decide what charges to bring, judges who make rulings, policymakers who debate and enact laws and regulations. What they learn in law school isn’t just the law. It’s instinct. Habits. Principles. How to respond when an idea is uncomfortable. What to do when they’re on the unpopular side of an issue. Where to turn when silence is the path of least resistance.
In February 2024, the American Bar Association adopted <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/guidance-memos/2025/25-april-standard-208-guidance-memo.pdf">Standard 208</a>, which requires law schools to adopt, publish, and adhere to written policies that protect academic freedom and encourage free expression. More than 9 in 10 law faculty support free expression policies. But the professor who hides his views at faculty meetings already knows his school has a free expression policy. The policy is not the problem, and though it is a good step, it isn’t the complete solution either.
What we see from our new data from law faculty is that the culture within law schools appears to have taken a concerning turn. And written commitments alone don’t change cultures; people do. Through individual decisions about whether to speak or stay quiet. To participate in a debate, or pass. To publicly defend a colleague, or only offer private condolences. To prepare students for their professional careers by teaching the messy topics, or avoiding them in hopes of receiving better student evaluations. These decision points provide opportunities for faculty to model courage or model calculation.
Right now, for too many law faculty, silence appears to be winning… and their students are watching.
***
Nathan Honeycutt is a research fellow and manager of polling and analytics at FIRE.

Lady Justice and Censorship

Law Professors Say They Support Free Speech. Many Are Afraid To Practice It.

Fire

Law schools

The Canadian Parliament is poised to pass a bill that would ramp up restrictions on so-called hate speech and remove religious protections in a move that concerns conservatives and Christians whose worldview stands in opposition to the LGBT ideology. 
Canada&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-9/third-reading">Combatting Hate Act</a>,&#8221; or Bill C-9, targets so-called hate crimes such as the public display of the Nazi swastika and other terrorist symbols, and it also increases the punishment for “intimidation” around places of worship and safe places. But also buried inside the bill is a controversial section that removes Canada&#8217;s religious exemption for so-called hate speech. Some worry that the bill could be used to silence Christian expression that opposes gay marriage.
The bill passed the country&#8217;s House of Commons in March and was adopted by the Senate last week. It was then sent back to the House of Commons to resolve amendments made in the Senate, and it is expected to be accepted without opposition and be signed into law by the governor general.
Canada&#8217;s Liberal government made an <a href="https://www.cccb.ca/media-release/proposed-restrictions-on-religious-freedom-bill-c-9/">agreement</a> with the secular Bloc Quebecois, a party devoted to Quebecois nationalism, to include in the bill a section that removes the religious exemption clause to hate speech that is currently in Canadian law code. With the removal of the religious exemption, people can be prosecuted for hate speech even if “the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.” 

Josh Dehaas from the Canadian Constitution Foundation <a href="https://theccf.ca/bill-c-9-has-passed-heres-what-you-need-to-know/">warned</a> that the bill could even target the reading of certain scripture passages due to the removal of this religious protection. 
“It is unlikely passages from religious texts read on their own will lead to criminal charges,” Dehaas stated. “The Crown would need to believe that the intention of reading the text was to incite hatred, promote hatred or promote antisemitism.”
&#8220;However, with the defence now removed, certain passages from religious texts could now lead to charges depending on the context including when they are read, where they are read, and what other words are used when they are read,&#8221; he added. 
The Canadian Supreme Court has made a test for hate speech by looking for &#8220;hallmarks of hatred.&#8221; The &#8220;hallmarks&#8221; include calling a specific group a “powerful menace,” accusing “a group of carrying out secret conspiracies to gain global control or that they are plotting to destroy western civilization,” calling a group “liars, cheats, criminals and thugs,” labeling a people group “subhuman,” or blaming a group for the problems of society. 

The bill does include at least one protection against abuse, requiring the approval of the provincial attorneys, so the charge cannot be weaponized by local police.
Hillsdale assistant professor Dr. John Petrakis, an expert in comparative political systems and Canadian and American law, told The Daily Wire that the Canadian Supreme Court would likely defend bill if it becomes law, following its decision in Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v. Whatcott, in which the court upheld a penalty for a man who spread anti-gay pamphlets.
&#8220;It is difficult to predict exactly how these legal changes will operate in practice, and whether people might be able to challenge them on constitutional grounds (freedom of speech and freedom of religion,)&#8221; Petrakis declared. &#8220;I will say that the Court&#8217;s Whatcott decision should make one pessimistic. The courts are likely to dismiss constitutional challenges by saying that the laws and their application to specific cases are &#8216;reasonable&#8217; limitations to constitutional rights.&#8221; 

Petrakis said that with the advent of this new legislation, Canada will likely emulate countries such as Great Britain in their crackdown on reported hate speech.
&#8220;My overall take is that Canadian free speech law and culture is much less robust than the U.S., though more robust than Western Europe, but that this new law will reinforce our trend away from American-style speech culture towards the European version,&#8221; Petrakis said.
The Senate sponsor of the bill, the Honorable Kristopher Wells, <a href="https://theprogressives.ca/in-the-senate/speeches/third-reading-of-bill-c-9-an-act-to-amend-the-criminal-code-hate-propaganda-hate-crime-and-access-to-religious-or-cultural-places/">described</a> his experience working with the “Jewish, Muslim, Asian, black, indigenous and 2SLGBTQI+ communities,” stating that their universal plea to the government is that “they do not feel safe, do not feel seen and do not feel the law is there to help them at their time of greatest need.” 

“Bill C-9 is our answer to those responses,” Wells stated. “It is an opportunity for Parliament to say, with unwavering moral clarity and with the strength of criminal law, that our country sees you, Canada will stand with you and hate will not be tolerated in this country.”
One section of the bill creates a separate hate crime offense for an “offense &#8230; motivated by hatred based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, color, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.” Previously, the charge of a hate crime could only be used to extend the sentence for a crime, but this bill creates it as a separate, punishable offense.
Wells argued that Canada needs a separate hate crime offense after claiming to witness a rise in so-called hate crimes against the LGBT community. 
“Drag storytimes are protested; pride flags are burned or removed from municipalities and schools; and 25% of adolescents in Canada have experienced at least one form of cyberbullying, with trans and non-binary adolescents almost twice as likely to be targeted,&#8221; Wells said. 
“Bill C-9 corrects this by creating a dedicated hate crime offence, ensuring that when someone wilfully commits a criminal act motivated by hatred against an identifiable group, that motivation is recognized as the very essence of the wrongdoing,” he added.
The bill also prohibits the public display of a symbol that “is principally used by, or principally associated with, a listed entity.&#8221; This bans hosting the flags for <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-en.aspx#2025-02-20-7">designated</a> terror organizations, such as the Palestine Liberation Front, the Taliban, and Al Qaida, and gangs such as La Mara Salvatrucha, along with far-Right groups such as the Proud Boys.
The bill seeks to prevent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-hamas-protesters-chant-allahu-akbar-as-they-tear-down-and-burn-american-flags-hamas-is-coming">terrorist demonstrations</a> like the pro-Hamas demonstrations in the United States, where Left-wing rioters shouted “Allahu Akbar&#8221; and burned the American flag in response to a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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