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

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Family Values

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Shiloh Hendrix 2

The Shiloh Hendrix Trial Was Even More Corrupt Than We Thought

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

Implicit Bias

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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

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Jail

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Matt Walsh

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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

Britain

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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Canada

Freedom of Religion

Hate Crime

Our schools are a breeding ground for domestic terrorists — I’ve witnessed it firsthand.
A business professor in the University of North Carolina system called for the assassination of President Donald Trump before being arrested for assaulting a woman and resisting a police officer. Despite the arrests occurring weeks ago, the university has not addressed the story.
<a href="https://go.unca.edu/business/#faculty">Susan Clark Muntean</a>, 54, is an associate professor of <a href="https://go.unca.edu/business/">business</a> at my alma mater, the <a href="https://go.unca.edu/">University of North Carolina Asheville</a> (UNC Asheville). There are two active criminal cases against her, one for <a href="https://portal-nc.tylertech.cloud/app/RegisterOfActions/#/0403CCFF563DC2625754A56A0699833D3252177284B42720FE83D76A5716425E7BA00829A8ACAD4941C58D38AA400EAB1EB41B408F1E93BFCD68015EB7E63E050ACE0F25A99BE595B54B52D1FF45267C/anon/portalembed">trespassing on UNC Asheville’s campus and resisting an officer</a>, and another for <a href="https://portal-nc.tylertech.cloud/app/RegisterOfActions/#/02E5A6C947841B290E6453FE58E1BC57D49BEE490A52E3FFABECBDCBB0C578F83BB37265D70B95C448C32FEC65B396A0FBF36550C30C94B7D54004EA5612261CFD86A4A464B7E08CCC5848D251852DA9/anon/portalembed">assaulting a government official or employee and simple assault</a>.
Court documents reveal that on April 8, Muntean went to the UNC Asheville campus and refused to leave “after having been notified not to enter and remain there” by university officials. When a campus police officer tried to escort her off the property, she “did resist, delay, and obstruct” by lying on the ground and “refusing to cooperate in any manner.” It is unclear why the university originally asked Muntean to stay off UNC Asheville property.
Muntean was released on a $2,000 unsecured bond only to be arrested days later for kneeing a member of the Asheville Police Department. The incident occurred after she assaulted a woman by “grabbing her wrist in an aggressive twisting motion” at Asheville Yoga Center. She was released on a $1,000 unsecured bond.
These events come after a series of troubling social media posts by the professor. On <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-clark-muntean-6380b630/">her LinkedIn profile</a>, Muntean released <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/susan-clark-muntean-6380b630_activity-7448181737211334656-8DCV?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAAFEgmpEBN9hlpRHNt9qXH1ChM_YGMT3PYj4">a rambling video</a> of nonsensical statements, including that President Trump “must be taken down now.”
The call to violence against the president was followed by her saying she would not “kill” members of the Trump administration before taking them to The Hague, a site in the Netherlands that hosts the United Nations’ International Court of Justice. She also stated she wants to wrestle Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on her trampoline.
Other LinkedIn posts from Muntean include her <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-clark-muntean-6380b630/recent-activity/all/">claim</a> that the current chancellor of UNC Asheville, Kimberly van Noort, along with several of the college’s professors, “will be brought before trial at The Hague and are preparing their defenses.”
“I will serve as the new acting emergency Chancellor until the State of North Carolina is purged of corruption,” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-clark-muntean-6380b630/recent-activity/all/">wrote Muntean</a> in the post.
She also used the hashtag “#Muntean4President” while <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/susan-clark-muntean-6380b630_muntean4president-activity-7448752128552087552-A2Xm?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAAFEgmpEBN9hlpRHNt9qXH1ChM_YGMT3PYj4">asking her LinkedIn followers</a> for “consent to remove Donald Trump from the Office” of the presidency.
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/susan-clark-muntean-6380b630_this-is-our-new-political-party-ill-be-activity-7448447285123969026-RrGR?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;rcm=ACoAAFEgmpEBN9hlpRHNt9qXH1ChM_YGMT3PYj4">On her LinkedIn</a>, she boasts about her affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America in Asheville before saying that UNC Asheville’s “campus is being evacuated and the fascist in North Carolina are being prosecuted in the Hague.”
Clark Muntean has worked as an associate professor at UNC Asheville since August 2014. She previously taught at Ball State University, the London School of Economics, and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), <a href="https://smuntean.wp.unca.edu/">according to her website</a>. She received her PhD from UCSD and her Master of Business Administration from the University of Oregon.
Despite the obvious danger this professor poses to students, current students told me they never knew or were notified of the events she was involved in.
This isn’t shocking. UNC Asheville is known for its violent far-left ideology — and I was victimized by it when I was a student there.
Just last year, <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/angry-student-wrecks-pro-life-clubs-table-at-unc-asheville-video/">a student destroyed the pro-life table</a> hosted by <a href="https://unca.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/tpusa-unca">the chapter of Turning Point USA</a> I founded and led in partnership with Students for Life of America. I was behind the table. The student who attacked me was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DH3qSBCRVdQ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&amp;igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==">voted into the student government days later</a>, only for the university to force him to resign. But do not mistake this for appropriate action: This year, he was allowed to be <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DWcp216GkC3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&amp;igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==">voted back in as a senator</a>.
Not long after my tabling, the university’s now <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/unc-asheville-dean-caught-on-video-admitting-she-breaks-rule-to-advance-dei/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">former Dean of Students, Megan Pugh, was caught</a> admitting to violating North Carolina’s ban on DEI offices and programs <a href="https://aim.org/2025/06/03/unc-asheville-dean-admits-she-loves-breaking-anti-dei-rules/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on camera</a>. Pugh was <a href="https://abc11.com/post/megan-pugh-fired-unc-asheville-dean-students-secretly-recorded-dei-comments-surface/16687007/">ousted</a> shortly after public outrage, but the ideology that infects this school remains unaddressed.
My experience is not unique. The trend of enabling unstable teachers, which has gone unaddressed, doesn’t end with Asheville. The nation just witnessed yet another assassination attempt on President Trump, this time executed by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/heres-what-we-know-about-whcd-shooter-cole-tomas-allen?row=1&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;rowType=Web+Search">a California tutor</a> recognized as “Teacher of the Month” in 2024.
Since then, the internet has been filled with educational leaders wishing that the would-be assassin had been successful. Educators, from a <a href="https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2048838314526945342?ref_src=twsrc%255Etfw%257Ctwcamp%255Etweetembed%257Ctwterm%255E2048838314526945342%257Ctwgr%255Ed3930ec477213c58abfca9ed0a596a8ef1b82b46%257Ctwcon%255Es1_&amp;ref_url=https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/current/trump-assassination-online-support-teachers/">Wisconsin high school social studies teacher</a> to a <a href="https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2048880206899724425?ref_src=twsrc%255Etfw%257Ctwcamp%255Etweetembed%257Ctwterm%255E2048880206899724425%257Ctwgr%255E2df4292761587c112752b842787cca6f3a459e66%257Ctwcon%255Es1_&amp;ref_url=https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/current/trump-assassination-online-support-teachers/">Cincinnati kindergarten teacher</a>, have been documented lamenting the failure of this pathetic man’s horrific plan. Nowhere in America is safe from this radical ideology.
Many of these schools — including UNC Asheville — are public institutions, meaning our tax dollars are funding the perpetuation of violent indoctrination. Even private schools receive some government grants, meaning any school not addressing this problem is profiting from government-funded brainwashing that could eventually kill our president — or even us.
North Carolina and other states must do more than enact weak bans on DEI labels and departments. Taxpayers must demand that their legislators stop funding schools that promote an ideology that has repeatedly been shown to lead to violence and domestic terrorism, as well as conduct investigations into how this ideology spreads and impacts students.
If we do not, the consequences could be much worse than what we have already seen.
***
Olivia D’Angelo is a journalist, editor, and policy analyst who graduated from UNC Asheville. She has also been featured in Newsmax, The Washington Post, and The College Fix. Follow her on X: @olivia_dangelo

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higher education

Political Violence

A judge in the United Kingdom convicted a Christian pastor on Thursday for preaching on one of the Bible’s most well-known verses outside of a hospital that performs abortions. 
Pastor Clive Johnston was fined over $600 by Judge Peter King for preaching on John 3:16 inside a so-called “Safe Access Zone” outside the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland&#8217;s “Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act” sets up buffer zones outside facilities where abortions are done, restricting protests, sidewalk counseling, or other pro-life activities. 
Johnston was prosecuted after leading an open-air Sunday service outside the Causeway Hospital on July 7, 2024, that did not mention abortion. Prosecutors accused him of attempting to influence a “protected person” or “recklessly” behaving in a way that could influence a person. 
“This is a dark day for Christian freedom,” he said after the conviction. “And yet the buffer zones law is so broad that holding a Sunday service has been found to be a criminal offence. And at 78 years of age I find myself, for the first time, convicted of a crime.”
“I know it was an unusual place to hold an open-air service but that was the point: There shouldn’t be any public spaces in Northern Ireland where you can be prosecuted and convicted simply for preaching the gospel,” he added. 
Video from the day of the open-air service shows a police officer warning Johnston that he may only share the gospel in a &#8216;safe&#8217; chaplaincy room inside the hospital.
“However, if you are reckless as to the effect that they could have on patients, staff, or any protected person, then you may be committing an offense,” the officer said. 
“But while you&#8217;re out here in the safe access zone, any act in that area, which may” dissuade a “protected person” from using a “service” could be an offense, the officer said. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨NEW CLIP 🚨: 👮UK police officer tells pastor he may ONLY share the gospel in a “safe” chaplaincy room inside the hospital, not on the street where it MAY offend someone or dissuade them from getting an abortion.
What an utterly incredible exchange 👇 <a href="https://t.co/SmeBIwfzNA">pic.twitter.com/SmeBIwfzNA</a>
— Lois McLatchie Miller (@LoisMcLatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/LoisMcLatch/status/2046858116688499019?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Johnston was supported in his legal defense by The Christian Institute, a United Kingdom-based organization devoted to “upholding the truths of the Bible.” The organization’s director, Ciarán Kelly, said they would help Johnston look at appealing the ruling. 
“Despite assurances to the contrary when this legislation was being considered, we now see that an already controversial and deeply unjust law has now been selectively applied to criminalise gospel preaching,” Kelly said. “If the ruling stands it will represent a shocking new restriction on freedom of religion and freedom of speech so we will be helping Clive to consider the options for appeal.”
Last month, a State Department spokesman <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/04/16/us-prosecution-british-pastor-abortion-clinic/">said</a> that the United States was monitoring the case with concern. 
“The UK’s persecution of silent prayer represents not only an egregious violation of the fundamental right to free speech and religious liberty, but also a concerning departure from the shared values that ought to underpin US-UK relations,” a spokesman told The Telegraph.

Clive-Johnston-5D0A8180_2-2

Pastor Convicted For Preaching On John 3:16 Outside Hospital

Abortion

Ireland

United Kingdom

Free speech isn’t free at Texas universities. Apparently, it comes with strings attached, or at least that’s what I was told when I tried to host a pro-life event that got so derailed, I had to call on Students for Life of America’s (SFLA) attorneys for a demand letter to try and get it back on track.
It&#8217;s not just me. Students at the University of Texas, both at Dallas and Austin, <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.fire.org*2Fcases*2Ffellowship-christian-university-students-university-texas-dallas-v-eltife&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563320391*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=dtwwVKn*2B7xobXYzqajEbrkoh5HCW2yQ9KzvUpM4bZnU*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AcuVwNDD$">are suing</a> the University of Texas system after being censored when schools used a Texas law as an excuse to limit free speech on college campuses. While the law is not currently enforceable, college campuses across Texas are still holding strong to their censorship regime — and it&#8217;s up to students to stand up for their rights.
My story began <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fstudentsforlife.org*2F2026*2F04*2F16*2Ffree-speech-in-name-only-how-ut-austin-is-preventing-my-student-group-from-speaking-up-for-life*2F&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563353206*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=e8RMiNBNMTNvEhywCUtnjeGTk91xp6Ut*2FmysB6LmWgw*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AT4BsCBy$">when I tried to host</a> a speaker on campus at the University of Texas as part of my SFLA activities. Rather than welcoming pro-life voices, the university demanded almost complete disassociation from SFLA for the event to go on, which made the event itself virtually impossible.
More specifically, the office told my group that our event could not include branded or promotional materials featuring both the outside organization and my student organization, Horns for Life; help managing the event; filming for social media; or co-sponsorship with SFLA or any off-campus organization.
That not only impacted my free speech rights, but my freedom of association, too.
In 2019, when Texas passed <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fcapitol.texas.gov*2FBillLookup*2FHistory.aspx*3FLegSess*3D86R*26Bill*3DSB18&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563396873*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=2AtQpIrbbtYNbU9928Xk5Ce1V*2F0kaoX7X6S88V6pMqE*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AT4TymyG$">Senate Bill 18</a>, it reinforced <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.congress.gov*2Fcrs_external_products*2FLSB*2FHTML*2FLSB10438.web.html&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563716854*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=0Ikog9aHx*2F*2BTRI1Hd*2FIaOF5Tv00HLGpukZuopplhmec*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AXDU25Tu$">Supreme Court precedent</a> that outdoor campus spaces are public forums, thereby ensuring free speech protections at universities. In a total betrayal of these values, Texas passed <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.capitol.texas.gov*2Ftlodocs*2F89R*2Fbilltext*2Fhtml*2FSB02972F.htm&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563753706*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=6JsTyqVn9QKarsTn9xQlqdGZFCPXSqtmSTYTXV8fzvA*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AakeQ9It$">Senate Bill 2972</a>, or the Campus Protection Act, in September 2025 under the guise of protecting campuses from disruptions and preserving safety during &#8220;end-of-term&#8221; periods and even during specific times of the day.
The Campus Protection Act stopped students from engaging in acts of speech between 10 pm and 8 am, as well as from bringing guest speakers, amplifying sound, or using percussive instruments at demonstrations in the final two weeks of each semester. It is extremely broad, even disallowing student speech in private conversations, whether in dorm rooms or outdoor meeting spaces.
“The First Amendment doesn’t set when the sun goes down,” <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.fire.org*2Fnews*2Flawsuit-texas-bans-first-amendment-public-universities-after-dark&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563782445*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=HEWBXSC*2Fhwx*2BevsjFIdxTtMbqSIAgPUB8HyXIE8*2Fo7g*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-ARkj-qwy$">said FIRE senior supervising attorney</a> JT Morris. “University students have expressive freedom whether it’s midnight or midday, and Texas can’t just legislate those constitutional protections out of existence.”
The bill was so unprecedented and broad that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas issued an injunction <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.fire.org*2Fnews*2Fvictory-federal-court-halts-texas-no-first-amendment-after-dark-campus-speech-ban&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563806965*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=7lyWqt1IQI12zcaFa09*2FX18T*2B8bYA8g1mtYVoxfCsUY*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUl!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AXgQLXpH$">stopping the law from being enforced</a> only a month later.
Despite the injunction, Texas universities continue to use these rules at the campus policy level. UT Austin cites SB 2972 as a justification for their policy that “states that a guest speaker may not staff a table or set up exhibits.”
Not only is pro-life speech being targeted, but religious speech and expression as well.
A group of students has sued the UT system and its various representatives on behalf of their Texas college groups, including <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fanyfocus.org*2Fut-dallasabout*2F&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563827587*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=10DzF9ua0ems*2Fv6r2pUNa7R2NCSTEvMT39b8EOvqKu8*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AaH94gSd$">The Fellowship of Christian University Students at UT-Dallas,</a> after they were <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.fire.org*2Fnews*2Flawsuit-texas-bans-first-amendment-public-universities-after-dark&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563845212*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=81BT5sQASX2Am2oAbSw8QqBI3F9I8zpii4CCpOrfB8A*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AZIZuNqu$">prevented from bringing a minister</a> to campus to pray for them during their class finals.
Texas Woman’s University <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Ftwu.edu*2Fdean-of-students*2Fon-campus-free-speech*2F&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563861696*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=QxqF1fMSVVmEqVQ6S9YMFl30Hhf3aQFPtddVwfx6GEw*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AZofybQy$">enacted regulations on free speech,</a> calling it a “limited public forum.” The school placed limits on the times, places, and methods in which students can demonstrate on campus <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fpublic.powerdms.com*2FTWU1*2Fdocuments*2F1745744&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563879914*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=JrNy4CupwORxR0Rmvy2W7WemASJ882EPoCMuSXltjcM*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSU!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-AZcH0uUL$">while telling them</a> “nothing in this policy may be construed to limit or infringe on a person’s right to freedom protected by the United States and Texas Constitutions,” as if the rules do not inherently do exactly this. Texas Tech University’s Lubbock campus also has <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.yahoo.com*2Fnews*2Farticles*2Ftexas-tech-free-speech-policy-172434017.html&amp;data=05*7C02*7Ckhamrick*40studentsforlife.org*7Cae0cee521ae1404d4ffe08dea14d89f3*7Cb3f92ab929b141449c57d11e0e7a368a*7C0*7C0*7C639125551563896751*7CUnknown*7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ*3D*3D*7C0*7C*7C*7C&amp;sdata=c2DWOzTb5QmJ5ujYoCvwua7v2CKCf41fUBiC3W*2FmR*2FY*3D&amp;reserved=0__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!0i32ArPoKX2-mdXVxc7iuAHJ4NhaXGwgerdqxyBS4y8AQGn5PgFiv_nhctfg-IW_6ARf_artpEf-ASiBSwsP$">similar rules</a> now coming under fire.
While it is always advisable to follow campus rules, that does not mean Texas students cannot challenge them in the courts or otherwise.
Disallowing all guest speakers, claiming a limited public forum, imposing time limits, and limiting amplified sound all have precedent for being deemed impermissible in certain circumstances, especially if the university is using Senate Bill 2972 as an excuse to enforce these rules.
Using field representatives or coordinators from affiliate organizations to assist students in challenging university decisions against student organizations is a great first step. SFLA staff are equipped and eager to help our students. Additionally, reaching out to organizations like <a href="https://www.fire.org/">FIRE</a> allows student groups without resources from a larger organization to seek help navigating <a href="https://www.fire.org/defending-your-rights/legal-support">legal routes</a> addressing free speech challenges.
A university is a place to experience new ideas, diverse opinions, and freedom of discourse. The acts of tabling on campus and hosting speakers are not separate from this mission.
These unconstitutional rules do not disappear on their own. To see students’ free speech rights protected on university campuses again, students must speak up against the injustices happening on their campus and beyond — and the courts must follow their lead.
***
Tiffany Lomax is a senior student at the University of Texas at Austin. She serves as president of the Horns for Life chapter, where she is involved in pro-life advocacy and organizing events on campus.

Schwarzenegger Skips Debate To Rally Before Students

The Texas College Students Fighting Back Against Free Speech Censors

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