UC Ban on "Intentional or Repeated Use of a Name or Pronoun Inconsistent with the Individual's Gender Identity" …
likely violates First Amendment, federal judge holds (and issues a preliminary injunction).
Harassment
Principal's Threatening Critics with Defamation Lawsuit Can Be "Conduct Unbecoming"
Govern yourself accordingly.
Sound of da Harassment Prosecution
Defendant's playing "the KRS-One song entitled 'Sound of da Police' at a high and disruptive volume from her vehicle while simultaneously directing offensive, suggestive, and threatening remarks toward the complainant near the complainant's home" "may reasonably be interpreted as intended to alarm, annoy, threaten, or harass."
Oklahoma Anti-Stalking Law Bars Certain Unwanted Speech to Target, not Speech About Target
Oklahoma's highest criminal court reverses a 3-year sentence for "posting a video rant about [defendant's] ex-wife."
Jewish Teacher Sued Portland Public Schools + Union for Discrimination Over Colleagues' Anti-Israel Speech
(among other things). A federal Magistrate Judge has recommended that the lawsuit be dismissed.
Stop Posting "Personal, Confidential, or Humiliating Information" About Your Ex, Influencer Is Ordered
The Texas Court of Appeals just upheld the order.
Plaintiffs Alleges "Harassment by Posting of … News Accounts … Referenc[ing His] Ongoing Litigation … [with] His Ex-Wife"
A court refuses to order defendant to stop such posting.
"[Anti-Harassment] Injunctions Are Not a Remedy for Interpersonal Conflict"
So reasons a Florida appellate court, though other courts in other states seem to take a different view.
"Making Negative Statements" About People to Their Employers = Criminal Harassment
"[S]tatements made to third parties can be 'directed at' the victim," and thus criminal harassment if they're repeated and likely to cause serious annoyance or distress, "when they are designed to provoke an adverse consequence against the victim."
Megan Thee Stallion's Request for Anti-"Cyberstalking" Injunction Against Online Defamer Denied as Prior Restraint
"Plaintiff is allegedly the target of hurtful, angry, offensive, humiliating, racial, and gender-based hate made in online posts by Defendant's followers. As tempting as it might be to force some civility into the matter by staunching Defendant's speech against Plaintiff through an injunction, doing so would ignore the protections of the First Amendment."
Court Ordered Critic of Ex-Mayoral Candidate to Stop "Publicly Writing, Printing, or Speaking [Ex-Candidate's] Name"
Fortunately, an appellate court just reversed the decision.
Carnegie Mellon Must Provide Discovery About Relationship with Qatar, in Ex-Student's Lawsuit Alleging Anti-Semitism
The student was explaining the concept of an eruv, a feature of certain Jewish neighborhoods, in class to an architecture professor, who allegedly said the time the student had spent on project "would have been better spent if [Ms. Canaan] had instead explored 'what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group.'" …
San Jose City Council Member's Request for Restraining Order Against Critic Denied on Appeal
But Council Member Peter Ortiz had gotten a temporary order that was in effect for nearly four months; the underlying disputed stemmed from a controversy related to a "Drag Queen story time."
Second Circuit Allows Claim That "Implicit Bias Trainings" Constituted Racial Harassment
The court concluded that the plaintiff, a former New York City educator and administrator, presented enough of a case to go to the jury.
Plaintiff Must "Reconcile Herself to the Fact That Litigation Is Often Accompanied by Public Attention and Scrutiny"
"Outside of certain narrow and presently inapplicable circumstances, federal lawsuits are public proceedings and members of the public are free to comment on them."
Woman Repeatedly Badmouthed Ex-Lover, Ordered Not to Say Anything Online About Him, Lost Gun Rights
She had admitted that some (though not all) of the speech was false, but the injunction (entered in a restraining order case, not following a full defamation trial) extends to all speech, not just falsehoods: "Even speech otherwise protected by the First Amendment may be enjoined if it disturbs the petitioning party's peace."
Court Allows Breach of Contract Claim for Haverford's Allegedly Failing to Respond to Anti-Semitism Complaints—But Only for Nominal Damages
"So whatever hard to imagine rationalization Haverford might offer for obscuring the content of its actual bias policy—an artifice reminiscent of Dean Wormer's 'double secret probation'—I find the demarcation 'draft' to be of no legal import."
Cancellation Litigation + Doxing Claim, over Allegedly Malicious Publicizing of Snapchat Video with Allegedly Racist Statements
"[B]oth parties exchanged these Snapchat videos while they were intoxicated and their judgment was impaired. Notwithstanding, the communications were private and intended to be jokes between close friends."
New Orleans Mayor Wasn't Entitled to Restraining Order Against Woman Who Took Photos of Her in a Public Place
A temporary order had been issued, but the trial court refused to extend it into a permanent order, and awarded $15K in attorney fees; an appellate court has just upheld the trial court's final decision, and added $8K for appellate attorney fees.
Texas Harassment Conviction for Sending 34 Messages Over 15 Weeks to Ex-Therapist Violates First Amendment
So Texas's high court for criminal matters held yesterday.
