Full disclosure: I got into a little physical altercation yesterday with the Chicago police and lost my notepad in the scuffle. We'll get to that, but for now please forgive any errors in the timeline.

The first march organized by the March for the Democratic National Convention was set to take off from Chicago's Union Park at 1 p.m. Reporters were invited to get there at 7 a.m; I have no idea if any did, but at 10:30 a.m. a friend texted to say, "Union Park right now is very underwhelming." This seemed to be the consensus going in; that the anticipated 30,000 marchers would come nowhere near, and that the press would be overrepresented, which turned out to be the case—while reporting I ran into seven journalists in I know, when the average is about zero. But some of the protesters were also following the trend of pasting "PRESS" across their chests. A young woman I met on the bus around noon did the same. When I asked who she was reporting for, she looked confused; it was just a shirt. Okay, but why?

Those entering Union Park were handed a gazillion pamphlets with slogans like "NO WAR BUT CLASS WAR SMASH IMPERIALISM WITH COMMUNIST REVOLUTION," "12 ESSENTIAL FACTS FOR UNDERSTANDING THE CURRENT ISRAEL-GAZA CONFLICT," "WORKERS STRIKE BACK, WHEN WE FIGHT—WE CAN WIN," and "NEITHER PARTY REPRESENTS THE WORKING CLASS—CLASS WAR 2024,"—the all-cap emphasis conveying the commitment of the pamphlet distributors. Nearly everyone at the rally turned out to be in their 20s, dressed in today's radical chic—keffiyeh as cape, keffiyeh as neck scarf,  keffiyeh as headwrap. There were a few women in full Handmaid's Tale regalia, many young people in pro-Socialist red, and one dude wearing, refreshingly, an old Star Wars t-shirt. There was no police presence inside the park proper, but just outside there were at least 100 officers, half of them on bicycles, all of them waiting in the shade for something to happen. When I asked whether they'd be accompanying the marchers on their 1.1-mile city-approved route, I was given two short nods.

Before any marching began, there were speeches from the stage—speeches about genocide in Palestine, abortion, student debt, colonial settlers, Black Lives Matter, and cops being bastards. On and on it went, past 1 p.m.; the chanting the speakers requested was rarely very chanty. It was hot and people were thirsty and the line for the porta-potties stretched over 200 people long. 

"Can someone help me spread this out so it can be seen by the helicopter?" asked a young man, unfurling a 50-foot sheet painted with the words, "LOOK UP 'NAKBA.'"

"Would you like to carry a sign?" asked another young man, trying to offload one of the 400 or so signs strewn across the field. The sign-makers had been industrious, affixing emphatic messages like "STOP THE CRIME—FREE THEM ALL" and "GENOCIDE JOE'S LEGACY: BUTCHER OF GAZA" to wooden stakes. The problem was, there weren't nearly enough takers. How many people did the guy next to me estimate were actually here?

"Five hundred," he said, after a beat, just before someone on stage shouted into the microphone how great it was to see 15,000 people in attendance. The guy adjusted his estimate to 1,500, which I'd say was about right.

What they lacked in numbers they made up for in enthusiasm, waving Palestinian flags, communist flags, anarchist flags, "land back" flags, and a flag whose exact origin the person holding it said he did not really know. Someone mentioned they'd seen some Israeli flags earlier but I didn't see any. As for American flags, I saw exactly one, carried by a veteran named Shawn, who said he had not liked seeing American flags burned during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Congress.

"I think that's greatly deplorable," he said, as several young men with their faces covered moved close to him. But when they noticed that several members of the press also wanted to talk with the one dude carrying an American flag, they backed off. 

"Earlier they were saying derogatory things towards me like, 'get that shit out of here. What the fuck's wrong with you?'" he said. "But at the end of the day, nobody's going to intimidate me. Nobody's going to prevent me from voicing my opinion."

If there was a similarity in the way the crowd looked and behaved, their many and multiple demands were perhaps what gave the gathering a lack of cohesion and group energy. That changed at 2:02 p.m., when it was announced that there was a special guest speaker.

However you feel about independent presidential candidate Cornel West, you would have been as energized by his 5-minute speech. He roared and he cooed, talking about "our profound love for our Palestinian brothers and sisters" and how we must extend that profound love to all our brothers and sisters. It was the adrenaline shot everyone needed to get through the next hour. With the bike police edging closer, the marchers funneled out of the park and into the streets. Messages were shouted into bullhorns, girls danced, boys drummed— they were on the move to Park 578 a mile away. The sun was still shining and the press—there must have been one for every three marchers—walked on the sidewalks. Between them and the marchers were the bike police, pushing their bikes in formation, and astride yellow-vested "safety team" members, who kept themselves between the marchers and the police. It was all very choreographed, and one would not be faulted for thinking that this whole thing would go off without a hitch.

But of course, there would be a hitch, and it came in the form of young men with their heads and faces covered. Though they may have had no affiliation with them, they marched beneath an Anarcho-brat flag and a People's Defense Units (YPG) flag, representing the Kurdish militant group in Syria. A colleague mentioned he'd seen maybe eight of the men trying to start something earlier but they had not gained purchase, the other marchers not wanting to be part of whatever mayhem they might want to commit. But now we were at the mouth of Park 578, the turnaround spot for marchers and the closest point to the United Center, where the DNC was taking place.

"That way!" one of the young men shouted, pointing toward the United Center, trying to get the group, which had grown to maybe 15 men, to make a break for the tall barrier fences. It was not going to happen—not with the cops forming a triple-line barrier of bikes and other marchers yelling for the YPG brats to stop, shouting that the march had been planned for nearly a year! It was supposed to be peaceful! Stop fucking it up! At least that's what I imagined the girl in the keffiyeh was yelling at the young men, her voice so hoarse with emotion I could not make out the words.

My colleague and I tried to interview the young men, but they had the same response to every question: "We don't talk to media." It's a catchall phrase common among young protesters, the eyes above their masks growing not bolder but shakier with each iteration. You could see them thinking it was better to stonewall than risk having one's responses scrutinized and memorialized.

But this is not always the case! As I would find ten minutes later, when some of the protesters had had enough of longingly looking at the United Center and decided to breach an exterior fence. Pop pop clang, down went the barriers, in went maybe 75 protesters. Busting shit down was an exciting change, if entirely predictable, meanwhile, a gentler strain of protesters, mostly women, were shouting from the other side, "Come back!" It was time to march back to Union Park, they said. They did not like the risks people were taking, and they were not going to do their many causes any good.

I followed the protesters over the fence.

"Come on everybody! Come on!" shouted a tall lanky guy all in black, with a garbage can lid painted with the anarchist A strapped to his back. What was he wanting everyone to do?

"I want to get all the way inside the DNC!" he said, pointing toward the United Center. "I mean what are we doing here? Isn't this what we came here to do?"

Maybe not everybody; maybe not the 70-year-old lady peace activist who I'd watch gasp as the fence came down. Maybe this kind of bravado was not for her.

"I've seen 70-year-olds do it!" he said. "We can do it if we do it together. If we can dream it, we can do it!"

He was clanging his garbage can lid when someone shouted, "Cops on all sides!" We turned toward the phalanx of blue uniforms, in the jubilation no one had seen them form a walking line, or I hadn't seen it. Shouts of "Nazi motherfuckers" and "Fuck you!" lasted maybe 30 seconds before the cops were on us. I did my best to duck into a little alcove in the fencing. Yeah, that didn't work.

"Move it! Move it!" cops shouted, as people fell down or were grabbed; when they were variously combative or trying to flee.

"You're in a restricted area!" an officer shouted at me. Another prodded me with her nightstick.

"Don't hurt her!" a protester shouted, which I thought was kind of adorable and which I caught on video, just before finding a small egress to the other side. Two men pulled me through—thanks guys—and into the waiting path of another journalist pal calmly taking in the proceedings.

"Hello Nancy," he said, adding that he thought things were about to calm down—and they did. The bulk of protesters marched back to Union Park, perhaps unaware of the side streets lined with hundreds of waiting officers, who (I'm told) were instructed to pull down their face shields, in case they needed them. On this night, they did not.

The post The Anarchist Dreams: Dispatch From the DNC appeared first on Reason.com.

I cannot get enough of the Democratic National Convention vasectomy van: Imagine, in an election where, thus far, one party has positioned itself as pro-family—to the point where "childless cat ladies" have become a focal point, brought to the fore by vice-presidential contender J.D. Vance's catty, mean-spirited cable news comments—the other party is parking vasectomy and abortion vans outside of the convention.

Technically, it's Planned Parenthood Great Rivers doing it, making reproductive rights—and the Republican Party's attack on them—a focal point of this convention. But Democrats are, more broadly, all over the place this first night of the DNC, as if they can't quite figure out what they're all about or where they want to go, whether they're the party of joy or a party that just dealt with a succession crisis, or a party that's riven by the Israel-Hamas conflict or a party that stands in defiance of purported Republican attacks on essential freedoms.

Consider the new ad, unveiled by Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign:

DNC airs new "Freedom" ad to kick off the Democratic Convention pic.twitter.com/lXLqKi2rAN

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) August 20, 2024

But such an ad assumes Americans have short memories. Ones that forget all the regulations Democrats have imposed that have driven up housing costs. Ones that forget how people were not enjoying freedom when they were shut inside their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, or forced to stay home from school and church, by blue-staters. Ones that forget the last decade of (Democrat-enforced) culture war language policing and hypersensitivity to all manner of grievance. Democrats aren't really the party of freedom, they're the party of dictating, in ways big and small, how you live, either for your own good or the greater good, as they define it.

What exactly are they for? The first night of the DNC was a good reminder of the party's schizophrenia. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D–N.Y.) speech was excellent, proving that they have at least one promising young talent waiting in the wings. Formerly an outsider given a paltry 90-second speaking slot, Ocasio-Cortez has earned her spot as a Democratic Party mainstay, a primetime speaker whose name is chanted by an adoring arena. (This undeniable charisma is bad for the rest of us, mind you, as Ocasio-Cortez is economically illiterate and embraces Bernie Sanders-style socialism.)

At times, they veered away from light-touch diversity—a raft of speakers from all different backgrounds—and toward more explicit identity politics. Hillary Clinton's speech was all about shattering the glass ceiling. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison emphasized that a "black convention chair and a black D.N.C. chair lead us in nominating a black and [Asian American and Pacific Islander] woman to be the next president," saying that "this election is about every little boy inspired by a party chair who looks like them, and every little girl who will finally see a president who looks like her." (I highly doubt young children are paying attention to the party chair.)

This emphasis—on being a candidate of firsts, on the "I'm with her" mentality—is especially interesting because it's one Harris has steered away from, ostensibly learning from the mistakes of Clinton's failed 2016 run. Ocasio-Cortez directly inverted this emphasis in her speech, shifting from voters being with the candidate to the candidate being with the voters. "If you are a working parent trying to afford rent and childcare, Kamala is for you," said Ocasio-Cortez. "If you are a senior who has to go back to work because your retirement didn't stretch far enough, Kamala is for you. If you're an immigrant family just starting your American story, Kamala is for you."

Everyone who covered 2016 will overthink that race forever, but AOC's "Kamala is for you" sounds like the inversion of "I'm with her."

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) August 20, 2024

Oh, and President Joe Biden also spoke. He didn't really say much of note. It was fine. But the fanfare was…aggressive, thanking Biden constantly for his service, for his leadership, for everything. Also, implicitly, for stepping aside and putting the presidency back in play.

The shenanigans also turned destructive: Outside of the security perimeter, protesters—a smaller turnout than was expected—succeeded at tearing down gates and fencing.

Tearing down the fence. Others trying to keep the peace pic.twitter.com/jgVU4WklS2

— Nancy Rommelmann (@NancyRomm) August 19, 2024

Things turned chaotic:

Last vid of the day. Two funny things: the protesters saying to the cops, "Don't hurt her!" and, once I wriggled out of the fencing (with the help of two dudes pulling me), who is standing there cool as a cucumber saying, "Hello Nancy" but @mcmoynihan. Hello from Chicago! pic.twitter.com/vjhFdnREj9

— Nancy Rommelmann (@NancyRomm) August 20, 2024

There were also some protesters inside:

Group of protesters with their backs turned to Biden and hands over their mouths. They're quiet. So far unmolested by officials or security. pic.twitter.com/VuKcwc1Kzc

— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) August 20, 2024

It remains to be seen how much trouble the protesters will cause, and how the situation in Gaza will be discussed on the main stage, but the protests outside were a decidedly inauspicious start.

Scenes from New York: Why does 3.5 grams of weed, purchased legally, cost $60 in New York, while unlicensed bodegas are selling for $40? Some of it also has to do with the federal, state, and local taxes (including 13 percent sales tax upon purchase) that must be forked over by dispensaries, as well as the security systems they must put in place to keep their wares safe. They're also trying to recoup the costs of legal fees and securing expensive licenses to operate legally.

Basically, everywhere a legit entrepreneur turns, the state has made it quite expensive for them to simply open up a cannabis business. And a big chunk of that cost gets passed down to the consumer.

QUICK HITS

• "Democrats begin their four-day national convention Monday in the city that perhaps best exemplifies the chasm between their party's dreamy policy rhetoric and grim real-world results," writes Reason's Matt Welch. "As a direct result of one-party misrule (there are zero Republicans on the 50-seat City Council), Chicago's tax base is decreasing, not increasing. The population has declined for nine consecutive years, is shrinking by an annual rate of 1 percent, and is at its lowest point in more than a century."
• Anarcho-brat summer (if you're confused, read this):

Anarcho-brat flag flown at March on the DNC. pic.twitter.com/BFptgEUGa0

— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 19, 2024

• "US job growth in the year through March was likely far less robust than initially estimated, which risks fueling concerns that the Federal Reserve is falling further behind the curve to lower interest rates," reports Bloomberg.
• Protests are still happening in Venezuela, where Nicolas Maduro has wrongly declared himself victorious in the latest presidential election (and refused to release results corroborating the outcome).
• On Friday, The San Francisco Standard published a piece titled "How ex-liberal billionaires Ben and Felicia Horowitz made a MAGA U-turn," which essentially spends a lot of words grappling with the idea that Felicia, a black woman, could not possibly authentically support former President Donald Trump, and that there must be some kind of mental derangement at play:

Wow, @micsolana nails it exactly. Amazing. @PirateWires for the win. pic.twitter.com/ikUrZrTJeZ

— benahorowitz.eth (@bhorowitz) August 19, 2024

The post All Aboard the Vasectomy Van appeared first on Reason.com.

Depending on how you feel about protesters, there's good news or bad news about the estimated number expected to converge on Chicago this week for the 2024 Democratic National Convention: 30,000. Either way, you would not be faulted for thinking the number is possibly aspirational, based on the fewer than 50 who showed up yesterday for an outdoor event and press conference organized by the Coalition to March on the Democratic National Convention.

"Almost 270 organizations from across the U.S. have joined the Coalition to March on the DNC. And tens of thousands will be out on the streets starting tomorrow," Hatem Abudayyeh, coalition spokesperson and U.S. Palestinian Community Network national chair, told the assembled, who politely took notes and asked him to repeat the marching schedule. They nodded in commiseration at the city's "approved march route," a 1.1-mile stretch that threatened to become a human parking lot and did not take marchers past the United Center, where the DNC is taking place.

"Which means that the thousands do not get their First Amendment rights upheld," he said. "They do not get to be within sight and sound [of United Center] to say, end Israeli occupation, end U.S. aid for Israel, end U.S. support of the genocide."

Abudayyeh vowed to keep pressure on the city until the very last minute, hoping that after months of legal wrangling, it would allow the 2.4-mile route they had originally hoped for. It sounded rather self-limiting and not perhaps in the spirit of the protests that have roiled the country since October 7, a refashioning perhaps of rage into something potentially more politically expedient.

There was no rage at yesterday's event, no black hoodies or keffiyeh-shrouded faces, no shouting or snapping when Faayani Aboma Mijana, a spokesperson for the coalition, cited the "horrific genocide of Palestinians that's being aided and abetted by the Democratic leadership and its representatives, Genocide Joe Biden, Killer Kamala Harris, Baby Killer Blinken." Even when Mijana enjoined the crowd to chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," the response was muted.

Maybe it was activism fatigue. Maybe the long run-up to the convention—the march had been in the planning stages since before October 7—had sapped some spontaneity. Maybe the multifariousness of those looking to coalesce under the coalition's umbrella—Abudayyeh mentioned "the Black Liberation Movement and the Immigrant Rights Movement and the Women's Rights Movement and the LGBTQ Movement and the Workers' Rights Movement and the Reproductive Rights Movement"—rendered the movement more PTA, less punk rock.

Not that the event was without anger. Mijana, an organizer also for the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, was especially critical of the Chicago Police Department, claiming that "the same Israeli occupation forces that are committing the genocide in Gaza, train police departments like the Chicago Police Department, who then implement the offensive tactics they learn onto our communities."

Still, no one anticipated any violence and certainly would not be participating in it. "We intend to have a family-friendly, peaceful march," Mijana told me. "That's why we're fighting for the permits, because we know that will keep the police away from us and allow us to march on our own with our own people."

But any movement of size creates a collective effervescence that can spill over and attract people outside the cause, including bad actors and those seeking a perverse type of heroism. This was evident when James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a group of counter-protesters during a 2017 "Unite the Right" protest in Charlottesville, killing Heather Heyer, and when Michael Reinoehl, in an effort to prove his commitment to Black Lives Matter, shot Jay Danielson point blank during a 2020 protest in Portland. 

This suggests DNC protesters might welcome some police protection, if only for themselves.

"I'm from Minneapolis, so I know a little something about some mayhem," said Jess Sundin, of the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice. "Every time I've seen that on any significant scale, it's been police attacking demonstrators, is what starts it. I am not trying to be dismissive, but my experience is that if the police refrain from using violence against the demonstration, we won't see any sort of significant no mayhem, no significant outbreaks of drama."

Perhaps. And if Sunday's event was a foretaste, the protests will be disciplined, even mild. But I wouldn't count on it.

The post Muted Outrage and Aspirational Crowds: Dispatch From the DNC  appeared first on Reason.com.

Gird your loins, it's DNC time: The Democratic National Convention starts today in Chicago, and the Israel/Palestine-related tensions that have been coursing through the left since October 7 may very well come to a head this week.

Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to set up right outside of security to protest the party's support of Israel; presumptive nominee Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, is expected to speak about Judaism on stage; and, just like during the Republican National Convention, some families of hostages taken by Hamas will plead onstage for the return of their loved ones.

Some delegates who eschewed voting for Kamala Harris, calling themselves the Uncommitteds, have broken from the party pick precisely because they do not support U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza war. The Uncommitted factor is especially relevant to Michigan, a swing state with a large Middle Eastern population, and Democratic officials have been attempting to make inroads with the vocal disgruntled in recent weeks; they want a DNC that signals unity, and the likelihood that massive protests will be taking place just outside the gates undermines this.

"The key question for Democrats this week is whether the demonstrators represent a meaningful group of voters who could swing the election in November, or if they are outliers on the left who should be resisted in an appeal to the center," sums up The New York Times. 

Hamas rejects latest ceasefire proposal: On Sunday, following days of tense negotiating and Secretary of State Antony Blinken shlepping to Israel believing an agreement was imminent, Hamas rejected a proposed ceasefire deal with Israel.

"After being briefed by the mediators about what happened in the last round of talks in Doha, we once again came to the conclusion that Netanyahu is still putting obstacles in the way of reaching an agreement, and is setting new conditions and demands with the aim of undermining the mediators' efforts and prolonging the war," declared Hamas in a statement, adding that the U.S.-brokered ceasefire "aligns with" Israel's demands.

At issue is the fact that the ceasefire did not force full a Israeli withdrawal from the entirety of the Gaza Strip. Israel had proposed maintaining a large security presence on the border between Egypt and Gaza, as well as maintaining control over the Netzarim Corridor, which divides the Gaza Strip's north from its south.

Blinken has called this round of negotiations a "decisive moment" for Israel and Hamas. In the last few weeks, Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, have vowed to strike Israel in retaliation for its July assassinations of Hezbollah official Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Thus far, wider war has been staved off, but it's unclear for how much longer that will last; the fact that negotiations were in progress may have played a contributing role. Now that may not be so.

Scenes from New York: One of the New York City hospital systems, Northwell Health, is starting a studio to make its own movie and TV shows following the success of the Netflix show Lenox Hill, which followed doctors and patients within the system. But just a few years ago, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center had to pay out a more than $2 million settlement to federal regulators for failing to protect patient privacy when a television crew was filming inside the hospital. Expect more issues, both ethical and legal, to arise.

QUICK HITS

• "The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which account for roughly a third of all US container imports, had their third-strongest month ever in July, just shy of an all-time high reached in May 2021. Back then, a wave of inbound consumer goods caused supply bottlenecks on land and a queue of cargo ships waiting for a berth offshore was getting longer by the day," reports Bloomberg. "Demand now is driven by retailers and other importers that are stocking up ahead of US tariffs on Chinese goods and a possible strike by a large group of American dockworkers—adding to the usual frenzy of pre-holiday ordering that occurs this time of year."
• Planned Parenthood Great Rivers is offering free vasectomies and abortions for DNC attendees at a van near the convention center, which seems a little self-defeating if the idea is to grow your political party.
• Also in DNC abortion news: Some protesters have dressed up as abortion pills.
• Officials in Georgia "like the prosperity that could come with making [electric vehicles], but not the California-style mandates that prop them up. They like the jobs but agree with many of their voters who think electric vehicles are a sheet metal-clad tenet of the Democrats' woke ideology," reports Politico. 
• Donald Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, responded this weekend to news of a Kamala Harris poll bump by saying the "media uses fake polls."

The post DNC Readies for Protesters appeared first on Reason.com.

After noise complaints, Des Moines, Iowa, decided to decrease the number of chickens that one is allowed to have within city limits from 30 to 12. Chicken owners protested by holding a chicken parade last week, and now the city is revising its plan to allow for a full complement of chickens, so long as the chickens are licensed. — Read the rest

The post Chicken parade protests proposed chicken limit appeared first on Boing Boing.

After black-clad demonstrators protested Donald Trump's inauguration in an "Anti-Capitalist/Anti-Fascist Bloc" march on January 20, 2017, federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., charged more than 200 of them with rioting. While 21 defendants pleaded guilty, all of the other cases ended in acquittals, mistrials, or charges dismissed with prejudice. One reason for that fiasco, according to recently filed disciplinary charges, was the discovery that the federal prosecutor who oversaw the cases persistently withheld exculpatory evidence and repeatedly lied about it to judges and defense attorneys.

In a "specification of charges" filed with the D.C. Court of Appeals Board of Professional Responsibility last month, Disciplinary Counsel Hamilton P. Fox III alleges that Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens, who is now a federal prosecutor in Utah but previously worked at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, violated six rules of professional conduct while trying to convict "DisruptJ20" protesters, including many who had not participated in vandalism or violence. Muyskens "knew that most defendants did not commit violent acts themselves," Fox notes, but "she argued that these defendants were still liable for felony rioting and felony property destruction because they joined a criminal conspiracy to use the protest march to further the violence and destruction that occurred."

To support that theory, Muyskens presented video of a DisruptJ20 planning meeting that had been clandestinely recorded by an "operative" from Project Veritas, a conservative group that frequently has been accused of using misleadingly edited videos to portray progressive and leftist organizations in a negative light. Although Muyskens "understood Project Veritas had a reputation for editing videos in a misleading way," Fox says, she initially concealed the source of the video, saying in court that "who provided it is irrelevant." And although Muyskens "knew that Project Veritas had omitted and edited some of its videos" before releasing them, Fox adds, she "did not request or obtain Project Veritas's missing videos or unedited footage."

According to Fox, Muyskens and Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Detective Greggory Pemberton edited the meeting footage in ways that bolstered the prosecution's case, and Muyskens covered up the extent of those edits. Fox says Muyskens also withheld Project Veritas videos of other DisruptJ20 meetings that would have been helpful to the defense, pretending that they did not exist. And she allegedly concealed the fact that Pemberton, in testimony to a grand jury, had erroneously identified one of the DisruptJ20 defendants as a woman who appears in the video of the planning meeting.

According to the Supreme Court's 1963 ruling in Brady v. Maryland, due process requires prosecutors to share potentially exculpatory evidence with the defense. Fox says Muyskens violated that rule by excising footage and withholding videos that could have been useful in rebutting the prosecution's case.

The material that Muyskens and Pemberton excised from the planning meeting video included footage that would have revealed its provenance. They also cut footage of a phone call in which a Project Veritas infiltrator told a colleague, "I don't think they know anything about the upper echelon stuff."

The excised footage "revealed that the video was filmed as part of Project Veritas's infiltration of DisruptJ20, which tended to undermine the credibility and reliability of the government's evidence," Fox writes. "In addition, the operative's post-meeting report indicated that some DisruptJ20 protest organizers did not know anything about plans or decisions that were being made by an 'upper echelon.' This lack of knowledge supported the non-violent defendants' theory that, assuming a plan to riot existed at all, only a small group was involved, which they knew nothing about. Alternatively, if the operative was discussing protest organizers being unaware of Project Veritas's 'upper echelon' plans, the statements supported…claims that Project Veritas conspired to frame DisruptJ20 defendants for third-party violence, including by possibly inciting violence themselves. Both judges who later considered the issue…found that the complete, unedited footage was exculpatory."

The videos that Muyskens withheld included evidence that, contrary to the prosecution's narrative, the DisruptJ20 protest was supposed to be peaceful. Those videos "were exculpatory," Fox explains, "because they showed that DisruptJ20 planning meetings consistently involved training and instructing protesters how to participate in its unpermitted 'Actions,' including the anti-capitalist march, as non-violent protests, using nonviolence and de-escalation techniques, which supported the non-violent defendants' claim that their intent was merely to peacefully protest."

The undisclosed videos also "showed Project Veritas operatives discussing their infiltration operation of DisruptJ20, which supported the defense's theory that Project Veritas conspired to blame DisruptJ20 for others' misconduct," Fox notes. "For example, the undisclosed videos showed Project Veritas operatives discussing—before the Inauguration protests—how they were providing information on DisruptJ20 to the FBI, how there was likely to be violence from 'outside influencers,' and how DisruptJ20 would 'catch the blame' for outsiders' misconduct because the FBI was 'going to say' that they incited it."

In court, Fox says, Muyskens "falsely said that the government had made only two edits, which were both to redact the identity of the videographer and an undercover officer," and "that, other than the two redactions, the defense had the same videos as the government." She "falsely told the court that she had provided defense counsel with 'the full entirety of those videos from that day.'"

According to Fox, "Pemberton testified falsely that Project Veritas had produced only the four disclosed video segments of the [planning meeting video]" and that "the only editing the government did was to combine the first three video segments into one exhibit to be played at trial." Muyskens and Pemberton "did not disclose how they had edited the original videos they received from Project Veritas," and they did not "disclose that they had omitted from discovery many other videos Project Veritas videos of DisruptJ20's planning meetings."

Muyskens told a judge that Project Veritas had "provided unedited video" at Pemberton's request and that "we posted the video" to the discovery portal. Those statements, Fox says, "were false and misleading." Muyskens also "falsely said that other than redacting the identities of the Project Veritas operative and [the undercover officer], 'the defense has the exact video we have.'" The judge "later found that [Muyskens] 'left a clear impression' that she had disclosed everything that Project Veritas had produced."

Muyskens told another judge that "the government had 'provided the clips as we have them'" and that "'the only editing' by the government 'was to combine the three clips' of the anti-capitalist 'breakout' into a single video exhibit for trial." Those statements also "were false and misleading," Fox says.

Muyskens eventually "acknowledged that the government had additional, undisclosed Project Veritas videos of DisruptJ20's planning meetings." But she "mischaracterized them and falsely suggested that they were irrelevant."

During the investigation of her conduct, Fox says, Muyskens "repeated her false statements and material omissions" regarding the video edits, the withheld videos, her suppression of "relevant information and evidence," her failure to produce grand jury transcripts from the misidentified defendant's case, her "misrepresentations and omissions to the grand jury, the defense, and the court," and her failure to "correct known misrepresentations to the court." She also "made additional false statements and material omissions to falsely explain her conduct." She claimed, for example, that the undisclosed videos "were irrelevant and did not discuss the anti-capitalist march."

Fox says Muyskens' actions violated the District of Columbia's Rules of Professional Conduct in half a dozen ways:

1. She allegedly violated Rule 3.3(a) by "knowingly making false statements, offering false evidence, and failing to correct material false statements to the court."

2. She allegedly violated three sections of Rule 3.4 by "obstructing the defense's access to evidence and altering or concealing evidence, or assisting another person to do so when she reasonably should have known that the evidence was or may have been subject to discovery; knowingly disobeying the court's direct orders to produce information in the government's possession without openly asserting that no valid obligation existed; and/or failing to make reasonably diligent efforts to comply with the defense's discovery requests."

3. She allegedly violated two sections of Rule 3.8 by "intentionally avoiding pursuit of evidence and information because it may have damaged the prosecution's case or aided the defense; and by intentionally failing to disclose to the defense, upon request and at a time when use by the defense was reasonably feasible, evidence and information that she knew or reasonably should have known tended to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigate the offense."

4. She allegedly violated Rule 8.4(a) by "knowingly assisting or inducing another to violate the Rules of Professional Conduct and/or doing so through the acts of another."

5. She allegedly violated Rule 8.4(c) by "engaging in conduct that involved reckless or intentional dishonesty, misrepresentations, deceit, and fraud, which misled the grand jury, the defense, the court, the government, and disciplinary authorities about the
evidence in the government's possession and the government's conduct."

6. She allegedly violated Rule 8.4(d) by "engaging in conduct that seriously interfered with the administration of justice."

Possible sanctions against Muyskens range from "temporary suspension of her law license to full disbarment," Washington City Paper notes. The Washington Post reports that lawyers for Muyskens did not respond to requests for comment and that "Pemberton also did not respond to an inquiry." The U.S. attorney's offices in D.C. and Utah "declined to comment." So did the MPD, which "would not say whether the department has opened an investigation of Pemberton, who now chairs the police labor union."

The failed prosecutions and the disciplinary charges against Muyskens are not the only embarrassments stemming from the Inauguration Day march. In 2021, the Post notes, "the D.C. government agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle two lawsuits" by protesters who argued that the police response to the DisruptJ20 march violated their First Amendment rights.

"It speaks volumes that the District has chosen to settle rather than defend MPD's obviously unconstitutional actions in court," Jeffrey Light, one of the protesters' attorneys, said when the settlement was announced. Scott Michelman, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia, added that "MPD's unconstitutional guilt-by-association policing and excessive force, including the use of chemical weapons, not only injured our clients physically but also chilled their speech and the speech of countless others who wished to exercise their First Amendment rights but feared an unwarranted assault by D.C. police."

The post Prosecutor of Anti-Trump Protesters Allegedly Withheld Exculpatory Evidence and Lied About It appeared first on Reason.com.

The recent attempted assassination of Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, which resulted in the death of one rally attendee and injuries to the candidate and two others, was not an isolated event. The high profile incident occurred against a backdrop of lower-level attacks and violent protests across the country that indicate too many Americans are increasingly willing to exchange battles over ideas for fists, bullets, and firebombs. It's a sign of an existential political climate in which nobody thinks they can afford to lose—or that opponents can be allowed to win.

Not-So-Isolated Incidents

"A Michigan man used an all-terrain vehicle to run over and critically injure an 80-year-old man who was putting a Trump sign in his yard, in what police have described as a politically motivated attack," the BBC reported July 23. The apparent attacker killed himself after calling police to confess to the crime.

Just days later, anti-Israel protesters vandalized property and battled police in Washington, D.C. in what has become almost a matter of routine.

The partisan Michigan attacker, the mysteriously motivated would-be assassin, and the subset of protesters who cross the line don't really represent mass endorsements of violence. They're often lone actors or extremists within their own movements. But no majority vote is required before people and property are attacked. It just takes somebody willing to get physical, and too many meet that bar.

Politics Plagued by a Violent Minority

Last month, the University of Chicago's Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science who studies political violence, released the results of a study on Americans' attitudes towards using violent means to achieve political ends. What he found is that 10 percent of respondents agree "the use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president." Opposing them are 6.9 percent of respondents who agree "the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency."

When questions about justifying violence are given broader scope, researchers find larger numbers open to its use. Last year a study from the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis found "one-third of respondents…considered violence to be usually or always justified to advance at least 1 of 17 specific political objectives," including preventing discrimination based on race or ethnicity and preserving an American way of life based on Western European traditions.

The good news is that even the larger numbers still represent a minority of the population, outnumbered by those who prefer to keep bullets and bombs out of their political discourse. The bad news is it only takes one person to target a candidate or run over a homeowner putting a sign on his lawn. And it only takes one, or a handful, to stage any of the myriad lower-profile incidents that suggest we're in a cycle of political strife.

Rising Tide of Threats and Attacks

In March, a California man pled guilty to firebombing a Costa Mesa Planned Parenthood clinic—the third suspect to do so in that crime. They had planned other attacks that were thwarted by their arrests.

In January, the Center of the American Experiment, the Upper Midwest Law Center, and TakeCharge—three Minnesota conservative groups—were targeted by arsonists in what was believed to be an act of political terrorism. The organizations are offering a $100,000 reward "for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual or individuals who started the arson fires."

A car belonging to a Portland, Oregon, city commissioner's family was torched outside his home just weeks before that. In response, Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt warned "acts of political violence and acts of political vandalism are unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

Gonzalez is far from alone in being violently targeted by people who disagree with him.

"The number of threats to public officials is growing," according to a May data review from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. "While 2013-2016 had an average of 38 federal charges per year, that number sharply increased to an average of 62 charges per year between 2017-2022."

The review added that ideological motivations could be confirmed for roughly half the cases, and that "the number of federal prosecutions is on pace to hit new record highs" this year.

High Stakes Politics and Rising Illiberalism

Much of this is the result of the rising tensions of recent years. Political factions have gone from opposing each other to despising each other and considering opponents too vile and dangerous to be allowed to win office and exercise power. That political leaders tear not just into each other, but into whole segments of the population they perceive as alien understandably reinforces fears of the criminal justice system and the regulatory state in the hands of enemies.

Added to that is the abandonment of liberal ideas about restrained government and tolerance by both the left and the right. In their place are thuggish ideologies that leave little room for dissent.

"On the left, a new crop of socialists hope to overthrow the liberal economic order, while the rise of intersectional identity politics has supplanted longstanding commitments to civil liberties," Reason's Stephanie Slade wrote in 2022. "On the right, support for free markets and free trade are more and more often derided as relics of a bygone century, while quasi-theocratic ideas are gathering support."

That creates an environment in which violence might become just another tactic for people who consider their causes of overriding importance. In January, The New York Times interviewed Andreas Malm, a celebrity activist who advocates for political violence on behalf of climate causes. He clarifies that he supports targeting property, not people, but "can't guarantee that it won't come with accidents."

He also thinks his opponents shouldn't be allowed to use the same tactics in return, saying "the idea that if you object to your enemy's use of a method, you therefore also have to reject your own use of this method would lead to absurd conclusions."

Malm, it should be noted, is Swedish. And that points to the fact that America isn't alone in seeing activists adopt violence as a preferred means of achieving results.

"American political violence has much in common with that taking place in Germany and India, as well as in France's most recent election," Rachel Kleinfeld recently noted in Foreign Affairs.

Shared misery is cold comfort, but it may be the only kind available right now.

The post The Wave of Political Violence Has No End in Sight appeared first on Reason.com.

Seven out of 10 college students say that speech can be just as damaging as physical violence, according to a new survey from the Knight Foundation, a journalism and free speech nonprofit. The survey, which polled more than 1,600 college students, also found that since 2016, college students' faith in the security of free speech rights has declined.

"2024 marks a crisis for free speech on college campuses as international conflicts, like the war in Gaza, and domestic strife come to a head, bringing urgent political and personal issues to center stage," the report states. "With campuses cracking down on protests, political leaders casting a questioning eye on the decisions of university administrators, and emerging technology making disinformation easier and faster to produce, the position of higher education as a forum for open discussion has never been more crucial or imperiled."

The Knight Foundation's survey asked students a wide range of questions on campus free speech and the First Amendment in general. The survey also asked students to identify their race, household income, and political affiliation. 

Sixty percent of students agreed with the statement "the climate at my school or on my campus prevents some people from saying things they believe, because others might find it offensive." The figure is up from 54 percent in 2016, but down from a high of 65 percent in 2021. Additionally, more than 1 in 4 agreed that it was more important for schools to "protect students by prohibiting speech they may find offensive or biased," rather than prioritizing allowing students to hear a wide range of viewpoints, including possibly offensive ones. Students were sharply divided by political opinion on this question, with 70 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of Independents, and 45 percent of Democrats supporting allowing offensive speech.

Why do so many students support censorship? It's not exactly clear, but the rest of the survey offers some clues. For example, 70 percent of students, including 82 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of Republicans, agreed that speech can be just as damaging as physical violence. Forty-four percent reported feeling uncomfortable in college because of "something someone said in reference to your race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation—whether or not it was directed at you," up from 25 percent in 2016. It's not clear, however, whether this increase is due to an uptick in genuinely offensive statements or increasing student intolerance towards mild political disagreements. 

On the bright side, increasing numbers of students opposed instituting policies like restrictive speech codes or providing safe spaces. Since 2017, support for speech codes has declined 23 percentage points, and support for safe spaces declined 15 percentage points. Support for disinviting potentially offensive speakers stayed roughly the same since 2017, declining by just three percentage points, to 25 percent after a brief jump to 42 percent in 2019.

"American society continues to be at a crossroads over how to apply First Amendment rights in the 21st century, particularly on college campuses," the report reads. "That is why it is essential that thought leaders, administrators, professors, and the public listen to the voices of college students as they grapple with issues of free speech in America and on campus."

The post 70 Percent of College Students Say Speech Can Be as Damaging as Physical Violence appeared first on Reason.com.

Donald Trump was not the first celebrity presidential candidate who could reasonably be accused of insurrection against the United States. Many decades before Trump, another best-selling author and charismatic leader in a rowdy movement to upend dominant American political mores aimed for the U.S. presidency—Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panthers' minister of information and the author of Soul on Ice.

Unlike Trump, who this year overcame challenges from Colorado, Maine, and Illinois about his eligibility due to the Constitution's Insurrection Clause, Cleaver couldn't be caught up by the 14th Amendment, Section 3, since that explicitly only bars insurrectionists who had already been government officials. But Cleaver faced his own eligibility hurdles.

In 1968, as the first presidential nominee of the Peace and Freedom Party (PFP), formed mostly by antiwar radicals disenchanted with Lyndon Johnson's Democratic Party, Cleaver was below the constitutionally mandated age of 35 and would have been so still on Inauguration Day in 1969. At least three states did eliminate his name, if not his party, from the ballot for this reason.

Many states, however, allowed someone absolutely constitutionally disqualified to remain on their ballot; in Iowa, as reported in the Davenport Times-Democrat, the secretary of state "ruled that he must accept the certification in the absence of positive proof that Cleaver is not of eligible age."

While the various charges haunting Trump during his current campaign involve less violent crimes, Cleaver, four months before receiving the PFP nomination with 74 percent of the delegates' votes, engaged in a firefight with Oakland police that resulted in another Panther's death. He was thus campaigning while out on bail, pending trial for three counts of assault and attempted murder.

As the PFP's candidate, Cleaver certainly sounded like an insurrectionist, not that there was anything (constitutionally) wrong with that. In a campaign speech, as printed in a 1968 issue of the North American Review, Cleaver said: "What we need is a revolution in the white mother country and national liberation for the black colony. To achieve these ends we believe that political and military machinery that does not exist now and has never existed must be created."

The PFP, aligning with the Panthers, pushed Cleaver as its presidential hopeful with a dual agenda, as expressed by member Richard Yanowitz in an online memoir of PFP history: "immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and support for black liberation and self-determination."

During the PFP's inaugural California convention, Cleaver said that he regarded black members of the PFP as "misguided political freaks," but he eventually embraced the alliance and accepted the PFP's national nomination, saying on the campaign trail that "we believe that all black colonial subjects should be members of the Black Panther Party, and that all American citizens should be members of the Peace and Freedom Party." The Panthers' intention, he said, was to "use our papier-mâché right to vote to help strengthen the Peace and Freedom Party and to help it attain its objectives within the framework of political realities in the mother country."

The leftist political tumult out of which the PFP arose in 1968 had many elements that echo modern-day political dynamics. Debates raged about whether black activists should have influence above their numbers and whether the movement should explicitly oppose Zionism. The same sorts of petition barricades to getting a new party on the ballot existed then, though the PFP's campaign in California in particular was a huge success, with 105,000 signatures gathered when only 66,000 were needed.

But rumors persisted about how clearly petitioners informed signers that they were officially registering with the party. PFPers insisted they let signers know they could change their registration back after the PFP got ballot access and before the election. And indeed, the PFP got over 70 percent fewer votes for the presidential race in California than it did petition signatures.

Despite his patent ineligibility and being knocked off the ballot in a few states, Cleaver's PFP campaign garnered over 36,000 votes nationwide. In late September, he polled at 2 percent in California but received far fewer votes on Election Day—a common fate for third-party candidates. Shortly after his electoral defeat, Cleaver fled the U.S. rather than face trial for the Oakland incident, not returning until 1975, after which he served less than a year in jail along with lots of probation and community service.

The cases of Trump and Cleaver illustrate a persistent American theme. Whether because they are mad at the perverted communists dominating the Democratic Party (as per MAGA) or the colonialist and imperialist white power structure (as per the PFP), a segment of American voters want insurrectionist candidates. Who are election officials to deny them?

The post The Black Panther Who Was Banned From the Ballot appeared first on Reason.com.

That there are government officials who politicize the law is about as foundational to the discourse as any complaint I can think of. The criticism is sometimes quite fair. And for the latest example of a soft-on-crime politician flouting law and order, we can look to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Abbott, of course, is no self-styled progressive. But his recent decision to pardon Daniel Perry, who was convicted last year of murdering Garrett Foster, channels the spirit of the progressive prosecutors he criticizes for allegedly refashioning the law to suit their ideological preferences. He just has different targets.

The governor, who last year urged the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend a pardon for Perry, doesn't see it that way. "Texas has one of the strongest 'Stand Your Ground' laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney," he wrote in a statement yesterday, approving the pardon after the board officially obliged his request. (It's worth noting that the board, whose members are appointed by the governor, circumvented its own requirement that "evidence of actual innocence from at least two trial officials, or the findings of fact and conclusions of law from the district judge indicating actual innocence" be submitted to even consider such a pardon.)

It is absolutely true that the right to self-defense is vital. And to argue that Perry—who, prior to killing Foster at a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest, wrote that he wanted to "shoot the [protesters] in the front and push the pedal to the metal"—acted in self-defense is to make a total mockery of that right and those who've had to exercise it.

It is also true that many district attorneys, some of them so-called "progressive" prosecutors, appear to disdain that right. There are the cases across New York City I've covered, for example, where prosecutors are unconscionably seeking lengthy prison terms for people who acted in self-defense but had the audacity to do so with an unlicensed gun. That includes the case of Charles Foehner, an elderly man who shot a mugger in Queens, after which law enforcement brought so many weapons charges against him that Foehner would go to prison for life if convicted on all. That was in June 2023. In November, LaShawn Craig of Brooklyn shot a masked man who'd entered his apartment. Though prosecutors concede the shooting was in self-defense, they also charged him with several weapons offenses, including criminal possession of a weapon, a violent felony.

And then, most famously, there was Kyle Rittenhouse, whose 2021 prosecution for murder polarized much of the nation, despite that, if you knew the facts, it was an obvious example of self-defense—something I made very clear at the time.

There are some interesting parallels between Rittenhouse's case and Perry's case that are hard to ignore. Both men used their guns at protests against police brutality, many of which popped up across the U.S. in the summer of 2020. The shootings happened exactly a month apart. Then their stories diverge considerably, ending in an acquittal and a conviction, because the way they used their firearms was quite different, despite the culture war backdrop being the same. Both of these things can be true.

In July 2020, Perry ran a red light and drove into a crowd of protesters. That in and of itself, of course, is not enough to deduce that he was looking for a fight. His own statements prior to doing so, however, add a great deal of helpful context and show his frame of mind at the time. "I might have to kill a few people on my way to work they are rioting outside my apartment complex," he wrote on social media on May 31, 2020. Also in May, he threatened to a friend that he "might go to Dallas to shoot looters." And then in mid-June, he sent that message about going to a protest, "shoot[ing] the ones in the front," and then careening his car through the hubbub.

This was part of a pattern. Austin police detective William Bursley testified, for instance, that Perry searched on Safari for "protesters in Seattle gets shot," "riot shootouts," and "protests in Dallas live." It is not hard to connect the dots between his searches and messages.

So what about that stand-your-ground defense Abbott alleges the jury nullified? Core to Perry's case and trial was whether he reasonably feared for his life that July evening. Foster indeed had a rifle on him—because open carry is legal in Texas. The Second Amendment does not solely exist for people with conservative views. The big question then: Was Foster pointing the gun at Perry when he approached his vehicle? For the answer, we can go to Perry himself, who told law enforcement that he was not. "I believe he was going to aim at me," he said. "I didn't want to give him a chance to aim at me." But that is not a self-defense justification, as Perry cannot claim clairvoyance.

That the jury reached the conclusion they did is not a mystery, nor is it an outrage. What is outrageous, however, is that a governor who claims to care about law and order has made clear that his support for crime victims is at least in part conditional on having the "right" politics.

The post Daniel Perry's Pardon Makes a Mockery of Self-Defense appeared first on Reason.com.

Across the nation, college administrators are cracking down on pro-Palestenian speech. In Texas, police violently broke up peaceful protests, and one college even reportedly told students that they couldn't use the phrases "Israel," "Zionism," or chant in Arabic. At Brandeis University, police shut down a pro-Palestine protest because its president said it had "devolved into the invocation of hate speech."

While progressives have tended to support campus censorship efforts in recent years, an article in Vox by writer Eric Levitz argues that the left should embrace free speech—and that its push to censor speech in the name of inclusion and social justice was misguided. 

"Should students concerned with social justice rethink their previous skepticism of free speech norms, for the sake of better protecting radical dissent? I think the answer is yes." wrote Levitz. "There is reason to believe that progressives would be better equipped to resist the present crackdown on pro-Palestinian advocacy had social justice activists not previously popularized an expansive conception of harmful speech."

Levitz's article also argues that rejecting censorship could lead the left to find more allies when their ideas are on the chopping block.

"In a world where right-of-center intellectuals had more cause for believing that their defense of leftists' free expression would be reciprocated," Levitz wrote, "it seems plausible that opposition to the Antisemitism Awareness Act might be a bit more widespread and its prospects for clearing the Senate somewhat dimmer."

While Levitz's piece is refreshing, its support for free speech isn't about adopting a new appreciation for the principles of free expression, regardless of political viewpoint. It's about adopting the best policies to protect left-wing ideas.

Save several paragraphs reminding progressives that debate is necessary for finding the truth and that "the more insulated any ideological orthodoxy is from critique, the more vulnerable it will be to persistent errors," Levitz's argument is pragmatic in nature. He spends most of the piece—correctly—arguing that if progressives had been willing to take a stand against censorship of right-wing beliefs, the current norms allowing for the censorship of pro-Palestine activists would not have been set in place. 

However, if your reason to defend speech is purely practical and self-interested, it becomes much easier to indulge in exceptions to your free speech principles. Surely, allowing the censorship of the most offensive, unproductive viewpoints couldn't be used to justify the suppression of your own, much better, ideas, right?

Levitz even hints at such exceptions. "If adopting a permissive attitude toward campus speech entailed significant costs to progressive causes, then doing so might be unwise," he wrote, later adding, "Defending free speech and standing up for the disempowered may sometimes be competing objectives."

When your defense of free speech comes from a core, universal principle, calls for censorship are unthinkable. This is why, for example, it's so frustrating to see Levitz group the First Amendment nonprofit the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) with a long list of "conservatives" who have spoken out against censorship of pro-Palestinian activism. 

FIRE—and everyone else smeared as "conservative" for standing up against censorship—doesn't begrudgingly defend left-wing speech so that right-wing speech will stay protected—they're a nonpartisan organization that defends First Amendment rights because they believe fiercely in the importance of free speech.

Perhaps the biggest flaw is that Levitz's piece still doesn't make the core realization that there can be true, principled, defenders of free speech—those who truly think a nation with more ideas and more voices, even offensive ones, is better than one with fewer. Instead, he sees speech protections as a kind of truce, a decision from both the left and right to leave each other alone so they can both best further their political goals.

We would have a better, more functional world if more people—left or right—were willing to passionately defend the free speech rights of those with whom they disagree. However, getting to that world requires that people let go of the idea that censorship is ever a good idea, not merely that it's impractical. 

The post <i>Vox</i> Wants Progressives To Support Free Speech for the Wrong Reasons appeared first on Reason.com.

The Los Angeles Press Club on Thursday announced the finalists for the 66th Annual Southern California Journalism Awards, recognizing the best work in print, online, and broadcast media published in 2023.

Reason, which is headquartered in L.A., is a finalist for 14 awards.

A sincere thanks to the judges who read and watched our submissions, as well as to the Reason readers, subscribers, and supporters, without whom we would not be able to produce impactful journalism.

Senior Editor Elizabeth Nolan Brown is a finalist for best technology reporting across all media platforms—print, radio, podcast, TV, and online—for her November 2023 print piece, "Do Social Media Algorithms Polarize Us? Maybe Not," in which she challenged what has become the traditional wisdom around the root of online toxicity:

For years, politicians have been proposing new regulations based on simple technological "solutions" to issues that stem from much more complex phenomena. But making Meta change its algorithms or shifting what people see in their Twitter feeds can't overcome deeper issues in American politics—including parties animated more by hate and fear of the other side than ideas of their own. This new set of studies should serve as a reminder that expecting tech companies to somehow fix our dysfunctional political culture won't work.

Science Reporter Ronald Bailey is a finalist for best medical/health reporting in print or online for "Take Nutrition Studies With a Grain of Salt," also from the November 2023 issue, where he meticulously dissected why the epidemiology of food and drink is, well, "a mess":

This doesn't mean you can eat an entire pizza, a quart of ice cream, and six beers tonight without some negative health effects. (Sorry.) It means nutritional epidemiology is a very uncertain guide for how to live your life and it certainly isn't fit for setting public policy.

In short, take nutrition research with a grain of salt. And don't worry: Even though the World Health Organization (WHO) says "too much salt can kill you," the Daily Mail noted in 2021 that "it's not as bad for health as you think."

Managing Editor Jason Russell is a finalist in print/online sports commentary for his August/September 2023 cover story, "Get Your Politics Out of My Pickleball," which explored the emerging fault lines as the government gets involved in America's weirdest, fastest-growing sport:

Pickleball will always have haters—and if its growth continues, local governments will still face public pressure to build more courts. Some critics think the sport is a fad, but strong growth continues for the time being, even as the COVID-19 pandemic ends and other activities compete for time and attention. There's no need to force nonplayers to support it with their tax dollars, especially when entrepreneurs seem eager to provide courts. If pickleball does end up as an odd footnote in sporting history, ideally it won't be taxpayers who are on the hook for converting courts to new uses.

Reporter C.J. Ciaramella is a finalist in magazine investigative reporting for his October 2023 cover story, "'I Knew They Were Scumbags,'" a nauseating piece on federal prison guards who confessed to rape—and got away with it:

Berman's daughter, Carleane, was one of at least a dozen women who were abused by corrupt correctional officers at FCC Coleman, a federal prison complex in Florida. In December, a Senate investigation revealed that those correctional officers had admitted in sworn interviews with internal affairs investigators that they had repeatedly raped women under their control.

Yet thanks to a little known Supreme Court precedent and a culture of corrupt self-protection inside the prison system, none of those guards were ever prosecuted—precisely because of the manner in which they confessed.

Senior Editor Jacob Sullum is a finalist in magazine commentary for "Biden's 'Marijuana Reform' Leaves Prohibition Untouched," from the January 2023 issue, in which he disputed the notion that President Joe Biden has fundamentally changed America's response to cannabis:

By himself, Biden does not have the authority to resolve the untenable conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. But despite his avowed transformation from an anti-drug zealot into a criminal justice reformer, he has stubbornly opposed efforts to repeal federal pot prohibition.

That position is contrary to the preferences expressed by more than two-thirds of Americans, including four-fifths of Democrats and half of Republicans. The most Biden is willing to offer them is his rhetorical support for decriminalizing cannabis consumption—a policy that was on the cutting edge of marijuana reform in the 1970s.

Editor in Chief Katherine Mangu-Ward is a finalist for best magazine columnist for "Is Chaos the Natural State of Congress?" from the December 2023 issue, "Don't Just Hire 'Better Cops.' Punish the Bad Ones," from the April 2023 issue, and (a personal favorite) "Bodies Against the State," from the February 2023 issue:

Governments do unconscionable things every day; it is in their nature. But not all transgressions are equal. In the wake of the Iran team's silent anthem protest, an Iranian journalist asked U.S. men's soccer captain Tyler Adams how he could play for a country that discriminates against black people like him. What makes the U.S. different, he replied, is that "we're continuing to make progress every day."

The most perfect and enduring image of a person weaponizing his body against the state was taken after the brutal suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The unknown Chinese man standing in front of a tank didn't have to hold a sign for the entire world to know exactly what the problem was.

Reporter Christian Britschgi is a finalist for best long-form magazine feature on business/government for "The Town Without Zoning," from the August/September 2023 issue, in which he reported on the fight over whether Caroline, New York, should impose its first-ever zoning code:

Whatever the outcome, the zoning debate raging in Caroline is revealing. It shows how even in a small community without major enterprises or serious growth pressures, planners can't adequately capture and account for everything people might want to do with their land.

There's a gap between what zoners can do and what they imagine they can design. That knowledge problem hasn't stopped cities far larger and more complex than Caroline from trying to scientifically sort themselves with zoning. They've developed quite large and complex problems as a result.

Associate Editor Billy Binion (hi, it's me) is a finalist for best activism journalism online for the web feature "They Fell Behind on Their Property Taxes. So the Government Sold Their Homes—and Kept the Profits," which explored an underreported form of legalized larceny: governments across the U.S. seizing people's homes over modest tax debts, selling the properties, and keeping the surplus equity.

Geraldine Tyler is a 94-year-old woman spending the twilight of her life in retirement, as 94-year-olds typically do. But there isn't much that's typical about it.

Tyler has spent the last several years fighting the government from an assisted living facility after falling $2,300 behind on her property taxes. No one disputes that she owed a debt. What is in dispute is if the government acted constitutionally when, to collect that debt, it seized her home, sold it, and kept the profit.

If that sounds like robbery, it's because, in some sense, it is. But it's currently legal in at least 12 states across the country, so long as the government is doing the robbing.

Senior Producer Austin Bragg, Director of Special Projects Meredith Bragg, Producer John Carter, and freelancer extraordinaire Andrew Heaton are finalists for best humor/satire writing across all broadcast mediums—TV, film, radio, or podcast—for the hilarious "Everything is political: board games," which "exposes" how Republicans and Democrats interpret everyone's favorite games from their partisan perspectives. (Spoiler: Everyone's going to lose.)

The Bragg brothers are nominated again in that same category—best humor/satire writing—along with Remy for "Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor Swift Parody)," in which lawmakers find culprits for the recent uptick in thefts—the victims.

Deputy Managing Editor of Video and Podcasts Natalie Dowzicky and Video Editor Regan Taylor are finalists in best commentary/analysis of TV across all media platforms for "What really happened at Waco," which explored a Netflix documentary on how the seeds of political polarization that roil our culture today were planted at Waco.

Editor at Large Matt Welch, Producer Justin Zuckerman, Motion Graphic Designer Adani Samat, and freelancer Paul Detrick are finalists in best activism journalism across any broadcast media for "The monumental free speech case the media ignored," which made the case that the legal odyssey and criminal prosecutions associated with Backpage were a direct assault on the First Amendment—despite receiving scant national attention from journalists and free speech advocates.

Associate Editor Liz Wolfe, Senior Producer Zach Weissmueller, Video Editor Danielle Thompson, Video Art Director Isaac Reese, and Producer Justin Zuckerman are finalists in best solutions journalism in any broadcast media for "Why homelessness is worse in California than Texas," which investigated why homelessness is almost five times as bad in the Golden State—and what can be done about it.

Finally, Senior Producer Zach Weissmueller, Video Editor Danielle Thompson, Video Art Director Isaac Reese, and Audio Engineer Ian Keyser are finalists in best documentary short for "The Supreme Court case that could upend the Clean Water Act," which did a deep dive into a Supreme Court case concerning a small-town Idaho couple that challenged how the Environmental Protection Agency defines a "wetland"—and what that means for property rights.

Winners will be announced on Sunday, June 23 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Subscribe to Reason here, watch our video journalism here, and find our podcasts here.

The post <em>Reason</em> Is a Finalist for 14 Southern California Journalism Awards appeared first on Reason.com.

What should colleges do about pro-Palestinian encampments?

College students across America are camping out to demand their universities divest all investments with Israeli-linked companies that they claim profit from the occupation and oppression of Palestine. It's gone on for weeks, and even administrators at schools known as bastions of progressive activism are finally getting fed up. Harvard's president is threatening "involuntary leave" for protesters. Columbia announced on Monday that it canceled its main commencement ceremony for safety reasons. The University of Southern California has, too.

UCLA called in the cops to clear its encampment, and police have arrested more than 2,100 protesters across all U.S. campuses since April, according to the Associated Press.

Congress has continued to interrogate Ivy League presidents, and a bill to explicitly define antisemitism for civil rights law enforcement purposes just passed the House with overwhelming support last week.

Joining us today to talk about the protests, the backlash, and what it all means for free speech on campus and the wider world is Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), and host of the free speech podcast So to Speak.

Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.

Sources referenced in this conversation:

1. Full Text of the Antisemitism Awareness Act
2. International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism.
3. Columbia students define "divest"
4. Harvard President Garber Breaks Silence on Encampment, Threatens 'Involuntary Leave' for Protesters
5. Columbia cancels commencement amid campus protests
6. Map: Where College Protesters Have Been Arrested or Detained
7. Polling 1,200 college students on Encampments
8. What Americans think about recent pro-Palestinian campus protests | YouGov
9. Americans' Views of Both Israel, Palestinian Authority Down
10. Majority in US Say Israel's Reasons for Fighting Hamas Are Valid | Pew Research Center
11. Letter from judges saying they won't hire Columbia grads as clerks

Timestamps:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:33 Free Speech on Campus: A Conversation with Nico Perrino
• 02:13 The Historical Context of Campus Protests and Free Speech Debates
• 07:28 The Legal and Social Implications of Campus Encampments
• 31:38 The Role of Civil Disobedience in Campus Activism
• 38:31 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Campus Protests Through Polling Data
• 43:07 Congressional Involvement in Campus Free Speech Issues
• 50:48 The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2023: A New Legal Battleground
• 54:56 The Complexities of Free Speech and Political Expression on Campus
• 59:17 Navigating the Tensions of Privacy and Free Speech
• 01:03:42 The Role of Public Shaming and Cancel Culture in Free Speech Debates
• 01:20:03 Nico Wants You To Ask Yourself This Question About Censorship
• 01:23:58 Just Ask Us Questions: A Libertarian's Evolving Stance on Immigration

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

The post Nico Perrino: When Does Protesting Become a Crime? appeared first on Reason.com.

Raucous pro-Palestine protests have taken over college campuses across the country for the past several days. At UCLA, protesters declared areas of campus off-limits to pro-Israel students and blocked them from entering certain spaces, even just to get to class. At night, masked counter-protesters attacked the pro-Palestine encampment, tearing down barricades and shooting fireworks at the protesters.

At the University of Texas at Austin, police brutally dispersed student protesters. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was among those arrested at Washington University in St. Louis. Administrators at Brown University persuaded protesters to disband their encampment peacefully after agreeing to discuss their demands for financial divestiture from companies that do business with the Israeli military.

Events at Columbia University came to a head after the authorities finally tired of the occupation of Hamilton Hall. Protesters had smashed the windows of the administrative building, entered it, taken over, held a janitor hostage, and demanded humanitarian aid—not for Gaza, but for themselves. (I.e., they wanted snacks.)

Reporter grills Columbia student after she demands the university help feed protestors occupying Hamilton Hall:

"It seems like you're saying, 'we want to be revolutionaries, we want to take over this building, now would you please bring us some food'." pic.twitter.com/vNczSAM4T1

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 30, 2024

It is easy to make fun of these protesters, many of whom seem to know very little about why they are even protesting. And some of their antics deserve not just mockery, but condemnation: Statements in support of terrorist violence and exhortations for "Zionists" to be killed "or worse" are contemptible, as are tactics that involve preventing other students from moving about campus and pursuing their education.

But critics of the campus left should not lose sight of the much greater threat, which is that campus authority figures, members of law enforcement, and even national legislators will act in a manner that gravely threatens the free speech rights of everyone. Indeed, in response to the protests, identity-obsessed busybodies are already working overtime to criminalize protests on the grounds that offensive speech is a threat to the safety of Jewish students.

Safe Space Reprise

These are not new arguments; for years, university bureaucrats have subtly chipped away at their institutions' stated protections for free speech by invoking dubious safety concerns. You might remember the concept of the safe space: A very real notion, frequently invoked by progressive student activists, that being forced to confront speech with which they disagree is a form of physical violence.

In my first book, Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump, I traveled to college campuses and interviewed activists. What I learned was that for a variety of reasons—their upbringing, their ideology, their social circles—they did not want free and unfettered debate. They thought that outside speakers, professors, and even other students should be silenced for expressing nonprogressive views. In fact, they viewed the university administration's role as that of a parent, shielding them from painful speech. Administrators were all too happy to comply, and school after school took steps to shield their most unreasonable students from emotional vulnerability. Not all of these efforts are explicitly contrary to free speech principles, even though they were universally silly: In 2016, for instance, the University of Pennsylvania created a safe space so that students spooked by former President Donald Trump's rise to the presidency could take time to breathe, play with coloring books, and pet some puppies. Duke University's 2016-era safe space—a production of the campus's diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracy—included the presence of a social worker.

More perniciously, hundreds of campuses created bias incident reporting systems, whereby students were instructed to call the campus authorities—in some cases, the literal cops—if they overheard anyone say something that could offend another person on the basis of a protected class, such as race, gender, sexuality, or ability status. At Colby College, someone filed a bias incident report when they overheard the phrase "on the other hand," with no explanation given, though I gather the ever-vigilant person worried that a one-handed person might take offense.

These developments on campuses produced widespread mockery from many Democrats as well as Republicans. Aside from a minority of extremely difficult young people, and the administrators who coddle them, most people do not think the university's job is to protect students from having their feelings hurt.

Enter Congress

Unfortunately, many elected officials are hypocrites, and during a perceived crisis—like the one unfolding on college campuses right now—they are all too eager to pass bad laws. Case in point: On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act by a margin of 320–91. This bill empowers the Education Department to take action against educational institutions that do not sufficiently combat antisemitic speech on campus. It also defines antisemitism incredibly broadly; Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.), who voted against the bill, pointed out on X that political statements about Israel would be effectively criminalized if the bill became law.

Do you agree with all of these examples of antisemitism? Should people in America be prosecuted for saying these things in all contexts? I think not. This is a poorly conceived unconstitutional bill and I will vote no. pic.twitter.com/L3AI5MCFGw

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) May 1, 2024

Some of the statements deemed impermissible antisemitism include "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" with respect to a Jewish state and "applying a double standard" to the state of Israel. It should go without saying, but the First Amendment robustly protects the right to disagree with the political project of Israel. This bill is obviously unconstitutional, and moreover, a clear violation of the idea that college students don't need protection from uncomfortable speech. Universities must protect their campuses from violence and harassment, whether motivated by antisemitism, some other political animus, or any other cause. It's the action that should count, not the content of the belief.

The collective national media are obsessed with campus protests, and understandably so—the spectacle of disproportionately elite, privileged young people resorting to histrionics is frequently amusing to general audiences. People should feel free to mock them, but let's not forget that Congress is using them as a pretext to grant vast new powers to federal bureaucrats, with the explicit goal of enshrining into law a new right not to be offended: one giant safe space.

This Week on Free Media

Reason's Emma Camp and I mocked Drew Barrymore's cringeworthy interview with Vice President Kamala "Momala" Harris, surveyed media coverage of the campus protests, criticized the Biden campaign's youth outreach strategy, and argued about RFK Jr.'s appeal.

Worth Watching

Famed satire website The Onion was recently acquired by Ben Collins, a former disinformation beat reporter for NBC News. (Regular readers will know Collins and I have clashed before.)

That said, I have to give him props for his plan to revive The Onion's TV department. I am particularly eager to the see return of Today Now, the site's mock morning show. The entire archive is available here; the humor has only become more relevant for me over time, now that I, too, host a morning show. It's hard to pick a favorite, but here's one.

The post The Antisemitism Awareness Act Will Make It Illegal To Criticize Israel on Campus appeared first on Reason.com.

Who has better crazies? Last night, California law enforcement moved in to start clearing the pro-Palestine encampment of protesters at UCLA.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers over at Columbia, which had its own night of arrests just a day prior, the college students at UCLA sprayed cops with fire extinguishers and barricaded themselves with plywood. (They literally built a wall and instituted checkpoints, the irony of which does not seem to register.)

Counter-protesters tried to pull the plywood down. They shot fireworks into the encampment. They reportedly sprayed mace. Violence on both sides ensued:

Dueling groups of pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israel counterprotesters clashed Wednesday at UCLA, breaking out in fistfights, tearing down encampment barricades and using objects to beat one another. https://t.co/eLTOkdLARP pic.twitter.com/rlM40wLHDx

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 2, 2024

So last night, the school sent law enforcement in to attempt to stop the violence and clear the tent city. Video emerged of police using stun grenades. A little before publication time, at least one California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer shot something toward the protesters in the encampment, which was met with shouts of "Don't shoot!" and "We're just students!" (The CHP said officers are loaded with nonlethal tools like flash-bang devices. The officers also held off for roughly six hours after issuing orders for protesters to disband; they have only just recently begun moving in and attempting arrests.)

"More than 1,300 protesters have been taken into custody on U.S. campuses over the past two weeks," reported The New York Times. "Arrests were made on Wednesday at the University of Texas at Dallas, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and Tulane University in New Orleans, among other places."

The questions of what type of speech ought to be permitted are fairly thorny here. Restrictions on speech should, of course, be content-neutral. Public and private universities have different obligations. Protests surely run afoul of university policies when they disrupt university operations:

Campus operations will be limited tomorrow and Friday. Please continue to avoid campus and the Royce Quad area. Per Academic Senate guidance on instruction, all in-person classes are authorized and required to pivot to remote tomorrow and Friday. https://t.co/MNiqJ7bu67

— UCLA (@UCLA) May 2, 2024

And protests that devolve into vandalism and violence—as many have—ought to be treated differently than mere speech. One could make the case that encampments, housing peaceful protesters, are civil disobedience, but part of what makes civil disobedience work is being willing to stoically incur harsh consequences for your actions. Universities are well within their rights to clear tent cities from their campuses, but perhaps protesters who believe in their cause would be better served by simply taking the arrest and proving to the interested public that they are willing to sacrifice for this cause.

Absent that, the UCLA protesters—who have likened the waving of bananas near their encampment (since someone has an allergy) to Israeli settlers waving machine guns, and prevented students from attending class—deserve little respect.

Relevance allergies: Yesterday, the Libertarian Party (L.P.) announced a huge convention get: Former President Donald Trump will be speaking, and you can even buy merch in preparation for the big event (never mind the fact that the man already had four years during which he could have pardoned Julian Assange or Ross Ulbricht, yet chose not to). It says it also invited President Joe Biden and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to speak, but to my mind it's not exactly shocking that Biden ignored the invite.

The Libertarian Party is selling Trump-themed merch ahead of a speech by Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, at the Libertarian National Convention. https://t.co/S0zelJMszJ https://t.co/msMmma51o2 pic.twitter.com/vN9T0napjF

— Zach Weissmueller (@TheAbridgedZach) May 1, 2024

"I know there are some libertarians who have a severe allergy to relevance, but it is an undeniably great thing that Trump is speaking at the Libertarian Party National Convention," wrote comedian Dave Smith on X. "It will generate more attention on our party and the issues that we care about, than we've ever had."

Perhaps you're sitting there wondering why the L.P.—which, at this convention, will be nominating its own presidential candidate (contenders include Chase Oliver, Mike ter Maat, and Michael Rectenwald)—would want to host the former president and presumptive nominee for another party. To answer these questions, I called up L.P. Communications Director Brian McWilliams.

All publicity = good publicity? The media attention "is going to be more than we have ever experienced," says McWilliams. "Do you think libertarians will be happy about it?" I asked, to a firm yes from him: "This gives us an opportunity to get Donald Trump up there, to make him answer questions from our philosophical base." When I asked who would be moderating—who will be doing the pushing back, and making sure Trump doesn't turn this into a bloviating stump speech—he said he did not yet know, but possibly the L.P. chair, Angela McArdle.

"RFK [Jr.] was flirting with [the L.P.] because we are a growing bloc. Trump's seeing that," says McWilliams. "Growing bloc via what metric?" I asked. "I think we now are getting to a point where we're representing more Americans," he continued, to which I pressed: "Do we have data that reflects that?"

"We don't have data that reflects that as far as party registration or affiliation," responded McWilliams. "I'm basically speaking from the point of what we're seeing from a cultural perspective." Following the Reno Reset in 2022, at which point the Mises Caucus—essentially, mostly anarcho-capitalist edgelords who spend a lot of time online—took over the party, libertarians have widely criticized the nouveau L.P. for its dropping membership and struggles with fundraising.

As for the merch, McWilliams says "it was basically an internal miscommunication as far as timing…some version of merch might be made available, I can't say if it's going to be that exact variety." And, there's still "a question of whether or not we want to be selling merch for Donald Trump that's affiliated with the Libertarian Party or not."

"This was something that somebody clearly spent time and resources on," I noted, to which he admitted that "without a doubt there was internal thought given to creating the merchandise, you know, that there's no denying that….[But] this was not something that I wanted to go out the same exact day the same exact time." All of this struck me as wishy-washy, like they were caught in something that looked bad, and want to save face.

Awfully close? McArdle released a meandering 17-minute video chalking up a lot of the rollout awkwardness to internal incompetence.

"The founders of this party were hardcore radicals. They were anarchists. They hated the government. Many of our members are anarchists; we want total abolition of the federal government. And when we see someone else [Donald Trump] get potentially kicked off the ballot for, you know, not agreeing with the election results, complaining about the federal government, and so on and so forth, that looks awfully close to some of the views we have about the legitimacy of the federal government."

Well then! So maybe this isn't an L.P. endorsement of Trump, but boy could you be forgiven for thinking they fancy him and are willing to excuse some of his more election-subverting actions.

Scenes from New York: It's now confirmed, both by Columbia's president and by Mayor Eric Adams, that "individuals not affiliated with the university" were the ones leading the Hamilton Hall break-in and barricade that got shut down by NYPD yesterday. "Approximately 300 people were arrested," and they do not know the breakdown yet of outside agitators vs. students.

QUICK HITS

• Bill Ackman, a major Harvard donor who was one of the top voices calling for former President Claudine Gay to step down following her insufficient handling of antisemitism on campus, has seemingly decided to take his dollars elsewhere:

William. pic.twitter.com/tdkHbzSIfK

— Katie Herzog (@kittypurrzog) May 1, 2024

• "NO bagels" needed at the UCLA pro-Palestine encampment. (Too Jewish-coded? Are they coming for lox next? SMH, I knew I didn't like these kids.)
• "Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell kept hopes alive for an interest-rate cut this year while acknowledging that a burst of inflation has reduced policymakers' confidence that price pressures are ebbing," reported Bloomberg. Jerome, you big tease!
• Everything you ever wanted to know about regional skating cultures and the Atlanta scene.
• "Lack of ammunition is forcing the outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers to pull back, one village after another, including three surrendered Sunday, as intense fighting roils the countryside surrounding Avdiivka nearly three months after the strategic city fell to Russia," reported the Associated Press. "Facing an outcry after Avdiivka's fall, Ukraine is rushing to build concrete-fortified trenches, foxholes, firing positions and other barricades on the front lines. But relentless Russian shelling, lack of equipment and crippling bureaucracy plague construction across the vast 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front, even as a new Russian offensive looms."
• How to stay fit on the moon.

The post L.A. Beats NYC? appeared first on Reason.com.

Which side were you on in the allergy wars? Over at UCLA, the pro-Palestine protesters have reached peak Angeleno zoomer by figuring out how to be victimized by bananas.

According to Twitter user Linda Mamoun (with video footage to back it up): "There was a protestor in the liberated zone…with a potentially fatal banana allergy. Counterprotestors invaded the encampment and saw all the no bananas warnings. The next day they came back waving bananas like settlers waving machine guns & smeared bananas everywhere."

Yes, just like settlers!

Meanwhile, over on the East Coast, the Columbia protesters have decided that actually they are the ones who need "humanitarian aid."

"They're obligated to provide food to students who pay for a meal plan here," said one spokesperson-protester. "Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill, even if they disagree with you? If the answer is no, then you should allow basic—I mean, it's crazy to say it because we're on an Ivy League campus, but this is like basic humanitarian aid we're asking for."

The protester appears to be referring to the fact that the university has limited meal-hall access and that the protesters were occupying and barricading Hamilton Hall, wanting assurances that the college would not stop deliveries of food from entering.

Crackdown: Now, it's effectively a non-issue: Dozens of protesters were arrested last night as New York Police Department officers entered the building at around 9:30 p.m., called in by President Minouche Shafik. "We regret that protesters have chosen to escalate the situation through their actions," wrote Shafik in a statement. "After the university learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized and blockaded, we were left with no choice."

Shafik also noted, interestingly, that "the group that broke into and occupied the building is led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university."

Meanwhile, police cracked down on other protests across the country—like one at Washington University in St. Louis—sometimes using what looks like excessive force. In St. Louis, reports emerged of police beating up a professor from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, named Steve Tamari; Tamari reportedly suffered injuries including a broken hand and ribs.

It's very difficult to sort out all the different threads of this loose campus movement, along with the very different responses from university administrators and local law enforcement. For anyone inclined to forget: speech should be given a wide berth (even that which is ugly and offensive). Campus speech restrictions—to the extent that they ought to be permitted at all—should be content-neutral, a quite legitimate case can be made that tent cities are not permitted by university policies, but nobody should cheer agents of the state exerting more force than is absolutely necessary to break it all up.

Updates from the actual war zone: Hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas keep breaking down.

The U.S. is trying to hastily broker yet another deal as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made sounds indicating that the military will invade Rafah, an area in southern Gaza where some 1 million Palestinians—plus an unknown quantity of Hamas terrorists, in the thousands—are sheltering.

But mediators—Americans, Egyptians, and Qataris—"worry that Hamas appears willing to sacrifice even more Palestinian civilians," according to The New York Times. "[Hamas] officials believe that the deaths in Gaza erode support for Israel around the world." As a result, they're not willing to do very much to prevent an invasion of Rafah and are also resistant to more hostage-for-prisoners deals, including one offered by Israel that would have been imbalanced in Hamas' favor.

Hamas has rejected previous offers, claiming that they cannot meet Israel's demand for 40 living hostages who are female, sick, or elderly, leading many to speculate that Hamas has killed more of the hostages than previously thought. "Throughout the months of negotiations since the last ceasefire Israel has repeatedly asked for a list of the hostages and their conditions," reports CNN. "Hamas has argued that it needs a break in the fighting to be able to track and gather down the hostages, the same argument it made in November before a week-long pause that broke down after Hamas failed to deliver more hostages."

Of the roughly 250 hostages taken on October 7, some 129 are still being held by Hamas, with 33 of those believed to be dead.

One of the Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar, appears to be at least responsible in part for the sinking of deals. He has reportedly been negotiating while surrounded by 15 hostages, whom he uses as human shields to prevent Israel from taking him out. (I wonder if he's banana-vulnerable; have we tried that yet?)

Demands for a ceasefire from pro-Palestine activists in the U.S. are fine and good, but they look hollow when it's Hamas that's refusing to agree to a ceasefire or a plan to return the hostages.

Scenes from New York: A meta take that's pretty much spot-on (though that one guy's crop top is beautiful, at least in his own imagination).

More than anything, these people are boring, and artless, and ignorant. They are a total repudiation of everything beautiful about humanity, which I think is what's most irritating of all. The specific cause - which changes seemingly by the month - is in actuality irrelevant https://t.co/EkJtaRW739

— pjeffa (????,????) (@jeff82874662) May 1, 2024

QUICK HITS

• "Since 2019, prices for many types of consumer purchases in the U.S. have shot up," reports The Atlantic's Amanda Mull. "On average, goods cost nearly 20 percent more than they did before the pandemic."
• A good point, raised by Just Asking Questions guest Peter Moskos:

Crime. People, it's about crime. There's tons of cheap housing in American cities. Virtually free to buy. But you won't live here because of crime. Not race. Crime. (Well crime and schools.) Reduce crime in cities and double affordable housing. Quadruple in some. https://t.co/IWJPdrttqE pic.twitter.com/A2zmxNF2nl

— Peter Moskos (@PeterMoskos) May 1, 2024

• Elon Musk went to China to try to convince regulators to approve his self-driving cars.
• "Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance, was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison, a much lighter penalty than other crypto executives have faced since the industry imploded in 2022," reports The New York Times.
• Good observation:

Europe is falling behind the USA in effectively every area of technology

SpaceX completely killed the EU launch ecosystem etc

The one area EU is keeping up?

Biotech…

Because even though they try to regulate innovation to death… at least in biotech the US does the same ????

— delian (@zebulgar) April 30, 2024

The post Weaponized Bananas appeared first on Reason.com.

May Day was coming up and the feds were worried. In April 2015, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent out a bulletin warning that "anarchist extremists will probably engage in criminal or violent activity in one or more US cities on 1 May 2015 and may attempt to co-opt legal protest activity to carry out attacks."

It was the anniversary of the deadly 1886 labor unrest in Chicago's Haymarket. Several anarchists were executed for the violence back then, and in the 2015 bulletin's words, May 1 became "an international day honoring workers' rights that frequently results in anarchist extremist violence both domestically and internationally." To emphasize that anarchism was still a live threat, the Feds listed several recent anarchist attacks in their bulletin.

One of them, the firebombing of a congressional office in Kansas City, Missouri, was serious stuff. Police car tires were also slashed in Bloomington, Indiana; anonymous anarchists claimed online that the vandalism was in "Solidarity with the revolt in Ferguson." But another incident was more Parks and Recreation than V for Vendetta.

"In October 2014, 'some Bull City anarchists' chained the front door and glued the locks to a parking lot at a government facility in Durham, North Carolina, according to media reporting," the memo read. "The graffiti on the front of the building stated 'Solidarity with Missouri Rebels' and '[Expletive] the Police.'"

Reason was unable to locate any media reports from October 2014 mentioning the phrase "Bull City anarchists" or a parking lot incident in Durham like the one the bulletin describes.

Journalist Emma Best obtained a copy of the bulletin through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and published it to the public records platform MuckRock late last month. The FBI heavily redacted the version it sent Best. Reason also found an original copy of the bulletin in the BlueLeaks document dump, a trove of homeland security "fusion center" files released by hackers in June 2020.

The parts of the bulletin that the FBI had chosen to redact are a story unto themselves. The original version states that there is "no specific credible reporting to indicate anarchist extremists are planning violent criminal activity." But the FBI censored that line in the version it sent to MuckRock and Best under FOIA.

Curiously, the FOIA version also censored the assessment that "anti-police and law enforcement sentiment will likely continue to serve as a prominent motivator for anarchist extremists in 2015, barring any significant changes in anarchist extremist rhetoric or major public events that could galvanize anarchist extremists against other traditional targets."

Editorializing aside, that prediction turned out to be true. Anarchists played a significant role in the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and were often blamed for violence during the unrest. 

In the FOIA version of the bulletin, the FBI redacted its specific recommendations for local police, citing the "law enforcement techniques" exemption to the Freedom of Information Act. Not that any of the advice was hard to guess. Basically, if police see anarchists training or gathering weapons and barricade materials, they should be extra vigilant and try to confiscate the weapons.

But, the Feds warned, local police shouldn't get too paranoid.

"Some of these behavioral indicators may be constitutionally protected activities and should be supported by additional facts to justify increased suspicions," the bulletin noted. "Independently, each indicator may represent legitimate recreational or commercial activities; however, multiple indicators could suggest a heightened threat."

The post Feds Worried About Anarchists Gluing the Locks to a Government Facility appeared first on Reason.com.

This column was written before police entered Columbia University's Hamilton Hall

One challenge of free speech advocacy is holding the line even when the speech in question is vile. Then you must make distinctions between acceptable forms of expression and those that violate the rights of others. That's why it's important to have clear, firm principles applied equally to all points of view. In the absence of clarity, you find yourself making things up as you go along—like too many institutions of higher learning at a moment of campus unrest.

Muddled Boundaries for Expression

"Early this morning, a group of protestors occupied Hamilton Hall on the Morningside campus," Columbia University advises. "In light of the protest activity on campus, members of the University community who can avoid coming to the Morningside campus today (Tuesday, April 30) should do so."

The school subsequently locked down the campus. That was two weeks after over 100 protesters were arrested at an encampment on campus grounds and days after administrators then muddled boundaries by vowing not to summon police again to handle demonstrations against Israel's response to the October 7 attack by Hamas. The protests frequently feature antisemitic language, sometimes turn violent, and passed the point of violating Columbia's rules and control over its own property weeks ago.

Columbia has done a poor job of defining what is and isn't acceptable. Without firm guidelines, the protests have lingered and spread to other institutions. Some are dealing with the protests better than others—particularly those that respect speech rights but also make clear where the line is drawn.

Free Speech With Respect for Others

"Against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, college administrators are confronting a flurry of student activity on campus that includes peaceful protest and lawful self-expression, punctuated at times by bursts of severe disruption and even isolated acts of violence," notes the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which consistently calls for respect for expression and regard for the equal liberty of others. "Separating First Amendment-protected speech from illegal conduct in these situations can present challenges, but it's not an impossible task."

The key is setting expectations ahead of time. That's true at public universities bound by the First Amendment and at private schools educating students to function in a society where people disagree.

"Whenever you have protests, universities will define the time, manner and way in which it's done," Daniel Diermeier, Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, told NPR last week. "So for example, you're not allowed to disrupt classes, and you're not – you know, injuring a security guard and forcing your way into a closed building is not an expression of free speech."

When Vanderbilt students did exactly that in March, police ejected them within a day. Three were expelled and about two dozen others received lesser discipline. They were punished not for their message—others criticized Israel without consequence—but for occupying property and attacking a guard. There's a distinction between the two that must be maintained if institutions are to simultaneously preserve speech rights while forestalling chaos.

"To provide clarity—and to ensure freedom of expression—universities must adopt free speech principles and enforce them consistently," emphasizes FIRE. "Harmful, hateful, and offensive speech" is protected by the First Amendment, the organization points out. That includes expression directed at specific groups, like the antisemitic slogans sometimes encountered at recent protests.

That said, FIRE adds that "a campus where unprotected conduct and expression—such as violence, true threats and intimidation, incitement, and discriminatory harassment—go unaddressed is a campus where faculty and students will be afraid to speak."

A Difficult Balancing Act

Yes, that is a balancing act. It's one that leaves room for criticism of both Columbia's paralysis over its campus encampment as well as the crackdown by public colleges in Texas on demonstrations that may be offensive but are peaceful and conducted within constitutional boundaries.

In March, Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed state institutions "to address the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses and establish appropriate punishments, including expulsion from the institution." That impermissibly targets speech protected by the First Amendment.

A better take is found in the Chicago Principles developed in 2014 at the University of Chicago and adopted elsewhere with varying degrees of consistency. The principles embrace freedom of expression and state that "it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive," but also that "the University may restrict expression that violates the law, that falsely defames a specific individual, that constitutes a genuine threat or harassment, that unjustifiably invades substantial privacy or confidentiality interests, or that is otherwise directly incompatible with the functioning of the University."

In response to recent protests at the University of Chicago, within hours administrators reaffirmed the school's commitment to free expression. They also reminded participants that the encampment "clearly violates policies" and reserved the right to take "disciplinary action" over disruptions of campus life.

In FIRE's free speech rankings of 248 universities, the University of Chicago ranks "above average" at 13, while Columbia is "below average" at 214.

Self-Inflicted Wounds

Columbia's low score represents not wholesale suppression of all expression, but years of selective tolerance of some points of view and crackdowns on others. That's been a feature of life at many Ivy League and other elite institutions, where those with the "right" ideas have grown accustomed to doing what they please while muzzling opponents. That likely contributed to the current unfortunate moment of confusion over where boundaries lie, if anywhere.

For those concerned over the need to tolerate vile speech, even within limits, it is worth knowing that trumpeting offensiveness to the world may carry its own penalty.

"33% of those making hiring decisions said they are less likely to hire Ivy League graduates today than five years ago," Forbes's Emma Whitford reports of a survey of employers intended to measure the impact of campus chaos. "Only 7% said they were more likely to hire them."

We all have a right to voice our views—peacefully. But we can't make people like them.

The post For Peaceful Campus Protests, Colleges Need Free Speech Principles appeared first on Reason.com.

In England, a judge has ruled that London's Metropolitan Police cannot bar Niyak Ghorbani from attending pro-Palestinian protests. Ghorbani, an Iranian dissident, has become famous for attending such protests while carrying a sign that reads "Hamas is terrorist." He has been arrested by Met police three times at those protests. At his last arrest, he did not have the sign, but he was arrested for refusing to stand where a police officer told him. After that arrest, the police gave him a piece of paper saying that one of his bail conditions was "not to attend any protest relating to Israel or Palestine in the City of Westminster." The judge said that condition was not "necessary or proportionate."

The post Brickbat: Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign appeared first on Reason.com.

No sit-ins on company dime: Yesterday, Google fired 28 of its workers after employees held sit-ins to protest the company's contracts with the Israeli government. The employees were part of a group called "No Tech for Apartheid," which protests the provision of cloud computing—called Project Nimbus—to the Israeli government.

"Physically impeding other employees' work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior," said a company spokesman in a statement.

It's interesting watching tech companies decide they have no tolerance for this type of employee heckler's veto. Anti-Israel activism—which has for years involved protesting Project Nimbus, to the point that Israel even wrote a provision about employee activism into the contract it has with Google—has long been an undercurrent at the tech company. But just a few years ago, when companies wanted to be at the vanguard of wokeness, they treated such activism differently than they're treating it today.

Back in 2018, thousands of Google employees protested Project Maven, a contract with the Pentagon that would have used the company's AI technology to assess drone surveillance footage. Google higher-ups acquiesced to the activists' demands, saying they would not renew the contract and developing a set of AI guiding principles that landed squarely in the middle of the road. "While we are not developing AI for use in weapons," CEO Sundar Pichai wrote at the time, "we will continue our work with governments and the military in many other areas." After all, "these collaborations are important and we'll actively look for more ways to augment the critical work of these organizations and keep service members and civilians safe."

Give an inch, take a mile: Now, employees are understandably emboldened. "I refuse to build technology that empowers genocide," one Googler shouted last month during a tech conference keynote speech given by Barak Regev, head of Google Israel. The employee was promptly fired for "interfering with an official company-sponsored event."

Employees who apply to work for Google should probably be aware that the company has a long history of military contracts, both American and foreign. "The Federal Procurement Data System shows the Coast Guard bought licenses to Google Earth in 2005; the Army did the same in 2007," reported Wired. Not to mention: "The Pentagon had a sympathetic ear at the top. In 2016, Eric Schmidt, formerly Google's CEO and then Alphabet's executive chair, became chair of the department's Defense Innovation Advisory Board, which promoted tech industry collaboration with the agency."

"This is a huge escalation and a change in how Google has responded to worker criticisms," said one employee who protested yesterday. But the actual types of contracts Google goes after has not changed; it's merely that the company pivoted from soft on activism to much tougher, as it seemingly realized inmates cannot—and should not—run the asylum. Or, in this case, occupy the offices of Google Cloud's CEO during the workday.

Seating the jury: In Manhattan, former President Donald Trump's trial is proceeding more quickly and smoothly than expected, with seven out of 12 total jurors already picked.

The case against Trump concerns the falsifying of business records related to hush money payments he doled out following a sexual tryst with porn star Stormy Daniels. He's being brought up on 34 felony counts and could face a total of four years in prison if convicted. Given what a polarizing figure Trump is, there were concerns about how jury selection would go, but it appears to be proceeding rather smoothly.

The jurors so far include "a man originally from Ireland who will serve as foreman, an oncology nurse, a grandfather originally from Puerto Rico, a middle-school teacher from Harlem, two lawyers and a software engineer for Disney," reported The New York Times. Picking a truly fair and impartial jury, that's representative of New York as a whole, is a near-impossible task; it remains to be seen whether anyone will pull the wool over the eyes of those selecting them or become improperly enchanted by the media spotlight. (More detail on those who were not picked, and more on the questions jurors have been asked.)

Scenes from New York: New excuse just dropped for why state legislators can't put together a budget on time.

QUICK HITS

• NPR's new CEO appears to hate tech and the people who make it, arguing in support of the idea that "the rise of tech empires threatens society," wrote Pirate Wires' Sanjana Friedman. (Not to mention, she was apparently very triggered by Hereticon, the best social event of the year.)
• What comes next for Israel?
• Everything you ever wanted to know about the forgotten moral panic over beepers.
• As the International Space Station gets retired, are we entering the era of the private space station?
• Europoor discourse is raging on Twitter:

There's a European upper middle-class cope which basically says "yes, America might look richer, but there's no work-life balance, culture, or accessible healthcare." What I've learnt moving here is that, no, for genuinely comparable professionals, America is just much richer.

— Ryan Bourne (@MrRBourne) April 17, 2024

• "When the government of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and his country's opposition signed an agreement in October to work toward free and fair elections this year, it was seen as a glimmer of hope after years of authoritarian rule and economic free fall," reported The New York Times. The U.S. lifted oil sanctions, hoping for the best. Now, merely six months later, "the Maduro government has made several moves that have dimmed the chances of legitimate elections, and a frustrated Biden administration on Wednesday announced that it was letting the sanctions relief expire."
• A better debate format is possible:

I would enjoy a debate between him and Trump where the moderators just teed them up, shame-free, to tell the most fanciful bullshit stories about themselves and their families. https://t.co/9QO20RsKBk

— Matt Welch (@MattWelch) April 17, 2024

• The libertarian take on Cruel Intentions we didn't know we needed.

The post Google Fires 28 appeared first on Reason.com.

Iranians went to the polls on Friday—or didn't—for the first time since a women-led uprising against religious rule rocked the nation. Authorities reported a record-low turnout of 27 percent, even after they extended voting for an additional two hours, amidst widespread disillusionment and calls for an election boycott.

The country had suffered months of unrest following the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for not complying with the country's mandatory hijab rule in September 2022. Although the streets have calmed down, it was the most significant challenge to the Islamic Republic yet.

The Iranian government was clearly hoping that the parliamentary elections would be an opportunity to show that Iranians had renewed their trust in the system. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently argued that voting was an act of resistance against the Islamic Republic's enemies. Banners in public places stated that "strong turnout = strong Iran."

Instead, the election became an opportunity for Iranians to show that they were still fed up with the system. Jailed women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, called on Iranians to avoid the "sham elections" in order to show the "illegitimacy of the Islamic Republic."

Even many figures from within the Iranian system declared their intent to boycott. A group of 300 political figures, including former members of parliament, signed a petition stating that they would not participate in an "engineered" vote.

The news site Khabaronline cited a poll in the run-up to the election projecting a 36 percent turnout. Authorities ordered the article deleted. The final turnout number turned out to be ten percent lower than the offending poll.

Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has had a mix of democratic and theocratic institutions. Election turnout has rarely fallen below 50 percent and has sometimes reached as high as 70 percent. Iranian "leaders crave constantly high turnout as evidence of the people's love of the revolution, but…loathe the results that high turnout always brings," in the words of political scientist Shervin Malekzadeh.

Over the past few years, the government has dropped the pretense of caring. During protests in November 2019, authorities launched a crackdown that killed hundreds of people, then banned thousands of candidates from the February 2020 parliamentary election. A record low 42 percent of voters turned out that year, a result that the Iranian government blamed on coronavirus and "negative propaganda."

Even Hassan Rouhani, who was President of Iran during the November 2019 crackdown, has been banned from running for office. He joins a long list of elected Iranian leaders who have outlived their usefulness to the system, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in office during the 2009 protest wave and crackdown.

Ahmadinejad and Rouhani have both refashioned themselves as dissidents.

"Something should have been done to make these elections more competitive. Instead, they limited people's opportunity to participate," Rouhani said in an August 2023 interview. "Those who are in favor of minority rule over the majority should know that they are threatening the future of the system and the revolution. It's not so easy to call this system an Islamic republic anymore."

The post Record Low Turnout in Iran as Voters Lose Faith in Elections appeared first on Reason.com.

Earlier this week, protestors at the University of California, Berkeley, violently shut down an event organized by a Jewish student group, which featured Israeli attorney Ran Bar-Yoshafat. Protestors organized by the student group Bears for Palestine prevented students from entering the building where the talk was supposed to take place, chanted "Long live the intifada," and broke glass doors.

Several students who attempted to attend the event claim they were physically assaulted by the protestors. One attendee claims she was grabbed by the neck and another says he was spit on.

"It was an extremely frightening experience," Berkeley student Veda Keyvanfar told Fox News on Wednesday. "The door to the venue was ripped out of my hand by a mob of protesters and my hand was injured in the process…we are allowed as students to host any type of speaker, and to attend any event we want to, we are not in the wrong at all."

The disruption wasn't simply a protest that got out of hand—it was a pre-planned attempt to prevent the event from going forward. An Instagram post from Bears for Palestine about the event said "We are 'combatting the lies' by SHUTTING IT DOWN," adding that Bar-Yoshafat "is a genocide denier, and we will not allow for this event to go on."

The event was canceled after university officials determined that they couldn't guarantee student safety "given the size of the crowd and the threat of violence," according to a university statement. Students attending the event had to be escorted out the back of the building. According to the Associated Press, the local police department received multiple calls over the event, and a university spokesperson confirmed that the school was opening a criminal investigation into students' behavior.

So far, the Berkeley administration has taken a strong stance against the students who disrupted Monday's event. 

"We deeply respect the right to protest as intrinsic to the values of a democracy and an institution of higher education," reads a Tuesday statement from Chancellor Carol Christ and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Benjamin Hermalin. "Yet, we cannot ignore protest activity that interferes with the rights of others to hear and/or express perspectives of their choosing. We cannot allow the use or threat of force to violate the First Amendment rights of a speaker, no matter how much we might disagree with their views."

Videos of the protestors have received significant social media attention, leading to calls to expel or discipline students who engaged in the disruption.

"Everyone has a right to due process. But violent rioters have no place at any institution devoted to the fearless pursuit of truth. Certainly not at Berkeley, home of the Free Speech Movement," Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) President Greg Lukianoff and FIRE senior writer Angel Eduardo wrote in a recent column in The Free Press."Violence is not extreme speech, but the antithesis of speech—and the antithesis of what higher education is supposed to be all about."

Lukianoff and Eduardo are right—if you care about securing university students' free speech rights, punishing disruptive and violent protestors is absolutely necessary. While students have the right to peacefully protest an event, preventing individuals from hearing a speaker, damaging a building, and physically assaulting attendees obviously crosses a line into unprotected conduct. 

The only way to prevent speaker disruptions is for administrators to take a clear stand against them, and punish those responsible. When universities crack down on disruptive or violent protest tactics, they set a precedent, and send a clear message to student activists who are planning on protesting an event: that disruptive, speech-quashing conduct won't be tolerated.

The post Berkeley Students Violently Shut Down Event Featuring Israeli Attorney appeared first on Reason.com.