Harassment
Posts About Child Abuse Investigator Weren't "Harassment" That Could Be Enjoined
Among other things, posts that "target the plaintiff's reputation and cause her emotional distress" aren't covered by the Massachusetts harassment prevention order statute.
News Website Publisher Gets Harassment Restraining Order Against Insistent Seeker of Coverage
The trial court found that "Decker continued contacting Siewert after she had asked him to stop five times" and "Decker's intent was to impose his will on Siewert to make her write about certain issues and to cover those issues in the way that he wanted them covered."
Tweet Accusing Man of Rape Led to Gag Order Against the Accuser
The trial judge concluded the Tweet was “harassment by defamation.”
Social Media Political Insults of Public Employee in Election Campaign Aren't Protected by the First Amendment
So a Minnesota Court of Appeals panel concluded this Summer, over a sharp dissent.
Getting Dartmouth to Revoke Plaintiff's Admission Wasn't Speech on Issue of Public Interest,
under California's "anti-SLAPP" statute (which allows for prompt dismissal of claims brought based on certain kinds of speech).
Is Restricting Pro-Israel-as-Jewish-Democracy Speech National Origin/Ethnicity Discrimination or Harassment?
Harvard concludes that it is, but I’m skeptical that this is right—just as I’d be skeptical that an employer’s restricting pro-Hamas speech constitutes such discrimination or harassment.
Court Reverses Personal Protective Order Issued Against "Distasteful and Provocative" Critic of Inkster City Attorney
Hustler Magazine v Falwell comes to small town politics.
Repent Your Unlicensed Contractor Sins!
Repeatedly saying so isn't harassment under Florida law, court says.
Criticisms of Obamas (Including Racist Ones), Plus Other Speech, Didn't Qualify as Race-Based Workplace Harassment
So holds an Eleventh Circuit panel; Judge Andrew Brasher's concurring opinion that notes the potential First Amendment problems with imposing liability for such speech.
Criticizing Business on TikTok Can't Lead to Anti-Harassment Order, Even When Criticism …
leads some readers to engage in "threats and harassment" against the business.
Race Discrimination/Harassment Lawsuit Against Seattle Related to Its "Race and Social Justice Initiative" …
can go forward, says a federal court.
School Board Members Use "Anti-Doxing" Law to Sue Critics for Publicizing the Members' Employers
An Oregon trial court allowed the case to go forward, but the Oregon Court of Appeals threw it out.
Ban on "Mentioning Child/Parental Alienation" and "Anything About" Ex, "Including But Not Limited to" …
"that which may be immediately or remotely interpreted as demeaning or belittling to him" struck down as unconstitutionally vague.
Law Banning Distressing Speech "About" a Person Must Be Limited to Speech Within First Amendment Exceptions
So holds the D.C. Court of Appeals, D.C.'s equivalent of a state supreme court.
First Amendment Challenge to Discipline of 8th-Grader for "Racially Insensitive" Instagram Post Can Go Forward
The student had “posted a screenshot of a friend with a cosmetic mud mask on her face with the caption ‘when he says he’s only into black girls’ on her Instagram account.”
Plaintiffs "Played Spanish Music at Home"; Neighbors "Complained to the Police"; Tort Litigation Ensued
No success for the plaintiffs, at least at this stage.
A White Employee Is Suing the City of Seattle for Alleged Racial Discrimination
"If I disagreed or offered another opinion, I was told I had cognitive dissonance," Josh Diemert says.
Throuple Trouble
Threats of suicide and of disclosing an ex's sexual orientation may count as threats for harassment purposes (for the non-polyamorous as much as for the polyamorous, of course).
"[H]ere Come Your Masser" Remark to Neighbor Leads to Anti-"Harassment" Order (on "Hate Speech" Theory) …
but the Michigan Court of Appeals reverses.
Ninth Circuit Upholds Expulsions for Off-Campus Abusive Speech That Targets Particular Students
“Students ... remain free to express offensive and other unpopular viewpoints [at least outside school], but that does not include a license to disseminate severely harassing invective targeted at particular classmates in a manner that is readily and foreseeably transmissible to those students.”
Illinois Appellate Court Overturns a Stop-Posting-About-Plaintiff Order
Trial court: "I understand that you have a first amendment privilege, but sometimes the first amendment privilege contravenes certain statutes that are enacted by the State ...." Appellate court: That's "a misunderstanding of the relationship between statutes and constitutions."
Crime to Publicize Man's DUI (with Insults) as Part of "Feud," "Intended to Shame and Provoke"
So holds the Pennsylvania intermediate appellate court, rejecting a First Amendment defense.
Decriminalizing Jaywalking in California Will Help Reduce Police Harassment
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill in September that will chip away at a policy that has long been criticized as enabling racially-motivated policing.
Kiwi Farms Is Back
The return of the trollish forum demonstrates the futility of bans on bad speech.
Writing About People Who Don't Want to Be Written About
How, if at all, should we try to be nice in an inherently not-nice occupation?
Court Refuses to Order Me to Remove References to Frequent Litigant from Law Review Article
My argument: "Petitioner Jane Doe—a frequent unsuccessful litigant—is asking this Court to impose unconstitutional prior restraint to prevent a law professor from writing about important, publicly available cases about pseudonymity."
