The Volokh Conspiracy Archive

The verdict came Friday; here's the backstory, from a decision in March in Fox v. Nexstar Media Group, Inc. by Judge Robert Jonker (W.D. Mich.), allowing plaintiffs' claims to go forward:

These cases arise from the fallout over an internal memo that two senior news managers at WOOD‑TV—Amy Fox and Stanton Tang—either wrote or approved regarding coverage of Pride-month events. According to Fox and Tang, management initially agreed that the memo merely restated corporate policy, but after some colleagues misinterpreted the memo as being anti‑gay—and after the memo was leaked externally—management allegedly shifted its stance and planted news stories that portrayed Fox and Tang as anti‑gay. The plaintiffs contend Nexstar did this to cause Fox and Tang to absorb the blame for the controversy while allowing the company to emerge unscathed.

In early June of 2023, Stanton Tang began to feel concerned about WOOD-TV's coverage of Pride-related events. To him, it seemed that the newsroom's approach to Pride coverage differed from its approach to coverage of other events, such as women's history month or black history month.

As Tang tells it, when it came to the latter events, the newsroom tried to approach coverage in a unified way, to ensure that coverage was diversified, newsworthy, and spread throughout the month. However, when it came to Pride events, the newsroom was deviating from its typical editorial review process, and many reporters were beginning to go cover stories about Pride festivals as soon as they heard that the event was taking place—without discussing with the rest of the newsroom whether the story ought to be covered, whether it was duplicative of another story that had recently aired, or whether some unique aspect of the story could be explored in a way that highlighted the story's overall newsworthiness. Tang was also worried that the volume of Pride stories being covered by WOOD-TV news staff was alienating some of the station's more conservative viewers.

On the morning of June 13, 2023, Tang shared his concerns with his Assistant News Director, Amy Fox. He explained that he wanted to ensure that any Pride‑related reporting included appropriate historical context and that the newsroom was approaching the topic consistently. To address these concerns, he asked Fox to draft an email to the newsroom. Fox did so and then shared her proposed email with Tang. Tang added a few more lines to the email—including a directive for reporters to "get both sides of the issue" when covering Pride events—and told Fox to send the memo to all staff, which she did….

Many coworkers opposed the memo, and some leaked it to outside media outlets, which reached out to Nexstar for comment. Fox and Tang were eventually fired, and Nexstar released two statements that were then quoted by other media outlets:

From Tate v. Fox News Network, LLC, decided yesterday by Judge Gregory Presnell (M.D. Fla.):

Plaintiff has been a licensed attorney in Florida since 2006 and serves as the president of the residential homeowners' association ("HOA") in the Stillwater Lakes Subdivision ("SLS") where he resides.

On April 14, 2024, Plaintiff was arrested by the Palm Bay Police Department ("PBPD") and charged with criminal mischief and grand theft. His arrest stemmed from a probable cause affidavit (the "Affidavit") which stated the following:

On 04/14/2024, I Ofc. Barraza #158 and FTO Marcum #244 responded to a suspicious incident at Stillwater Lakes. The incidence occurred on the south side of the lake in Stillwater Lakes Subdivision, belonging to the HOA, not the defendant.

There were 3 juveniles' victims that were fishing on the property. The juvenile victims stated a man, later identified as Kyle Patrick Tate (The defendant), approached them with a firearm telling them to get off his property. Kyle willfully deprived the juveniles of their property and threw it into the woods, damaging it. The property included:

Fishing reels and rods: $1900

Tackles boxes containing fishing lures: $150

Cast nets: $150

In addition, Kyle took one of the juvenile's phones which remains unrecovered. (Approximately $1500)

Based on the above information Kyle did deprive the victims of their property by taking the cell phone, and willfully and maliciously damaged the fishing equipment (3 fishing poles, fishing tackle) he was placed under arrest for Criminal Mischief (above $1000) and Grand Theft. Kyle was taken into custody and later turned over to the Brevard County Jail.

On May 2, 2024, Defendants published an article reporting on the incident with the headline: "Florida HOA president pulls gun on kids fishing on property: affidavit." The article reported the details in the PBPD Affidavit, acknowledging that the children involved (which it identified as being aged 7, 10, and 15) did not live in the subdivision and that they were fishing on property that belonged to the HOA, not Plaintiff. It also included quotations regarding the incident from one of the children's (the 10-year-old's) mother[:] … "'A gun should've never been pulled on them,' said the mother of the 10-year-old-child, who asked not to be named in this article. 'It was startling. He's still super shaken up, knowing that on a daily basis we have to drive by this subdivision where this man lives.'" …

10/14/1911: Justice John Marshall Harlan I dies.

From Judge Timothy Kelly (D.D.C.) today in CNN, Inc. v. Trump:

On September 18, 2026, President Trump posted on social media that he was "proud to announce that, effective immediately," he was "banning" CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO "from the White House." And sure enough, when reporters from those news organizations who hold "hard passes" allowing them to work there showed up the next day, they were denied entry. So Plaintiffs—these three news outlets and three individual hard pass holders who work for them—promptly sued the President and several Executive Branch officials, alleging that Defendants were violating their rights under the Fifth and First Amendments. They also moved for a temporary restraining order restoring their hard passes, which the Court granted. The Court found, under Sherrill v. Knight, 569 F.2d 124, 130–31 (D.C. Cir. 1977) and subsequent precedent, that Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims that their hard passes were revoked without due process required under the Fifth Amendment, were likely to suffer irreparable harm without interim relief, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest tilted in their favor.

Now before the Court is Plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. The Court will grant that motion as well, finding that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed not only on their due process claim, but also on their two First Amendment claims. Still, no one should interpret the Court's decision to suggest that President Trump's concerns about accuracy and fairness in the media's reporting are unfounded, or that the government is powerless when its true aim is to protect national security when classified information is unlawfully disclosed. That said, for the reasons explained below, the Court will extend the relief it already ordered, which will continue to preserve the status quo while this case proceeds.

Unlike the decision granting the temporary restraining order, which was based only on plaintiffs' Due Process Clause rights, this decision also rules in favor of plaintiffs on First Amendment grounds. An excerpt from the court's conclusion that the Administration likely unconstitutionally retaliated against plaintiffs based on their speech:

From Rockett v. Eighmy, decided today by Eighth Circuit Judge David Stras, joined by Judges Bobby Shepherd and Jane Kelly:

When Judge Eric Eighmy had courthouse officers lock two children in holding cells because they refused to leave with their mother following a custody hearing, he violated their clearly established Fourth Amendment rights….

Bart Rockett and Kami Ballard divorced in Missouri, but initially stayed together to give their two kids, who were "aspiring stars," a chance to "make it big" in Los Angeles. The children found some success in the entertainment industry, including appearing on America's Got Talent, but their parents eventually split up.

Ballard filed a petition for sole custody that landed on Judge Eighmy's desk. During a hearing several months later, the children waited outside the courtroom while their parents tried to work it out. They agreed on primary custody for Ballard, with Rockett responsible for them at the beginning of each month and "during TV pilot season."

Once the hearing was over, however, neither child was willing to leave with her. With an argument unfolding in the lobby of the courthouse, Judge Eighmy walked over, introduced himself to the children, and told them to follow him to a conference room. Once there, he informed them that they had no choice but to leave with her. A youth counselor then reinforced the point by telling them that they "ha[d] to listen to the judge." The children would not budge, even after the judge mentioned that the other option was foster care.

Frustrated, Judge Eighmy had the children follow him again, this time to a waiting area in the courthouse's juvenile division. Once there, he told someone to "[k]eep an eye on" them to "make sure they [did not] go anywhere." After disappearing for a few minutes, he led them down a hallway to two holding cells. A second threat to place them in foster care made no difference, so he had a juvenile officer "lock them up." Before they entered the cells, the officer patted them down and ordered them to remove their socks and shoes. Judge Eighmy stood by as the officer locked the doors behind them.

Our peer-reviewed Journal of Free Speech Law, which is now five years old, has published over 150 articles, including by Jack Balkin (Yale), Mark Lemley (Stanford), Jane Ginsburg (Columbia), Philip Hamburger (Columbia), Christopher Yoo (Penn), Stuart Benjamin (Duke), Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern), and many others—both prominent figures in the field and emerging young scholars, including ones who didn't have a tenure-track academic appointment. (This list doesn't include our reprinting others' symposia, which have also included many other top scholars, such as Robert Post, Mark Tushnet, Geoffrey Stone, Lee Bollinger, Jeremy Waldron, Danielle Citron, Genevieve Lakier, and more.)

The articles have been cited so far in 11 court cases, over 2000 articles (using Google Scholar counts), and at least 100 briefs. And note that all the articles have only had five years or less to attract these citations.

I expect that many authors are planning to submit articles on free speech to the usual law reviews when the submission cycle restarts in August. But if you submit exclusively to us before that, we will give you an answer within 14 days; and then if you'd like to have it published quickly, we can publish it in within a few months, if it's sufficiently clean and cite-checked by your research assistant. This means your article can be published by us, if it's accepted, almost a year (or more) before it would be published by the law journals.

Of course, also please pass this along to friends or colleagues who you think might be interested. Note that the submissions don't compete for a limited number of slots in an issue or volume; we'll publish articles that satisfy our quality standards whenever we get them.

All submissions must be exclusive to us, but, again, you'll have an answer within 14 days, so you'll be able to submit elsewhere if we say no. Please submit an anonymized draft, together with at https://freespeechlaw.scholasticahq.com/. A few guidelines:

From State v. Elavsky, decided yesterday by Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge Kevin Ross, joined by Judge Elise Larson:

Neil Elavsky expressed his opposition to a social cause that was the subject of an outdoor fundraising event by posting leaflets on the windshields of cars near the event, and he confronted a supporter of the cause after he saw her removing his posted leaflets. He rushed toward her, demanded she return the removed leaflets to him, and grabbed them from her hand when she refused.

After the woman claimed that Elavsky scratched her finger when he snatched the leaflets from her, the state charged him with fifth-degree assault (fear), fifth-degree assault (harm), and disorderly conduct. A jury acquitted him of assault (harm) but found him guilty on the other charges, and the district court convicted him of assault (fear). Because the record contains insufficient circumstantial evidence to prove that Elavsky intended to cause the woman fear of immediate bodily harm, we reverse the assault conviction ….

Up to 5,000 supporters, including the employees of business sponsors, of the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) gathered at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis one morning in September 2023 to participate in a fundraising march. An altercation at the event resulted in the state charging Neil Elavsky with fifth-degree assault (fear), fifth-degree assault (harm), and disorderly conduct. At Elavsky's trial, the jury heard evidence of the following account.

From State v. Amyda, decided Friday by the Iowa Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion by Justice Edward Mansfield:

In this sexual abuse case, we are asked to decide whether the district court erred in admitting a video. The video graphically shows the defendant abusing the victim. However, there was no chain-of-custody evidence connecting the video to the defendant. The victim was asleep at the time and could not personally attest to the abuse shown in the video. And the defendant claimed "deepfake."

On our review, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the video. The video came to the victim's attention about a month after the defendant had been in the victim's bedroom. The video appears to be taken by the perpetrator of the abuse at close range using a cellphone. It shows the victim sleeping, but she testified in detail that she recognized her bedroom, her bed and furnishings, the clothing she had been wearing, her legs and genitalia, and the defendant's tattooed hand—all as they had been that evening.

Collectively, these circumstances were enough to admit the video. And the defendant's mere speculation that the video was a deepfake was not enough to bar its admission….

The court concluded that the video had been adequately authenticated:

My new essay in Civitas introduces novel research about the understanding of the Establishment Clause in 1868. I dug through recently digitized archives of the Freedmen Bureau. In short, a federal government agency, headed by military chaplains, worked with religious groups to establish schools in the South, and the curriculum in those classes included bible readings and prayers.

Here is an excerpt:

The regulations for Freedmen schools in Texas provided that classes would begin at 9 A.M. and "[t]he morning Exercises will commence with either the singing of an appropriate hymn, or prayer, or the reading of the Scriptures." For Louisiana Freedmen schools, each day, "[t]he opening exercise in every school will be the reading a passage of Scripture or a prayer in place thereof." After prayers, the students would sing "an appropriate hymn or melody." The Freedmen school in Bainbridge, Georgia opened the day by reading one chapter from the Bible. The Freedmen school in Mobile, Alabama opened each day with a "divine service, which exercises consist of reading short selections from the Bible, after which the school repeat[s] the 23rd Psalm." (It begins, "The Lord is my shepherd. . . .") "Then all kneel, when a short prayer is offered by some designated teacher, at the close of which all join in the repetition of the Lord's prayer, when the exercises are concluded by singing . . . "

In February 1868, a teacher at the Clinton's Freedmen's School in Tennessee reported to the Freedmen's Bureau that "the prayers of the pupils is [sic] encouraging." In October 1868, Dellie Gordon, a teacher at a Sabbath School in Prince George's County, Maryland, wrote to Rev. John Kimball, the Superintendent of District of Columbia Schools. Gordon relayed that she "opened school on Sunday afternoon and recited the Ten Commandments which, the children had never heard before." Gordon added that "with explaining the 2nd chap St. Matthew the afternoon passed very pleasantly." (This chapter discusses Jesus's birth and early childhood.) . . .

The purpose of teaching scripture was not merely to promote literacy. The Bureau recognized a close connection between teaching religion and promoting morality among the families of recently freed slaves. In October 1866, the Superintendent of Schools for Alabama wrote that "[e]ffort has been made to supply the moral and religious wants of the freedmen as far as possible" through the donation of 2,000 Bibles from the American Bible Society. The report observed that "portions of the Holy Scriptures find their way to households which, probably, would be reached in no other way." Another report from Alabama explained that "[e]ffort has been made to supply the moral and religious wants of the freedmen as far as possible." General O.O. Howard, the Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the namesake of Howard University, was told that teachers "explain[ed] the lessons of morals and christianity, so strikingly presented in every page of the Bible."

The schools also engaged in outright proselytization. Teachers at American Missionary Association schools for Freedmen in Alabama were required to fill out a monthly report with questions about conversion: how many Bibles were distributed? How many families were "engaged in religious services, either by reading the Scriptures, singing, or prayer"; how many "hopeful conversions, if any, during the month"? One report from the Girard Freedmen School reported nine hopeful converts. . . .

The Freedmen schools, which were managed and funded by the federal government, proactively incorporated the Bible into the curriculum. Students began their day with prayer, read from the bible, and teachers were encouraged to proselytize. These actions were viewed as a critical way to develop morality among the freedmen. This history from the Second Founding should inform how the Establishment Clause would have been understood when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted.

I have published here only a small bit of my research. The full load will come in a forthcoming symposium article. I encourage others to follow this path, and see what else comes up.

The Baltimore Rock Opera Society fired its recently hired executive director, allegedly because she was wearing her hair in cornrows and thus engaging in supposed cultural appropriation. The concern wasn't that cornrows were seen as unprofessional as such, but rather that a white woman was wearing a hairstyle that is seen as culturally black. (Katie Herzog at Blocked and Reported has a very good new podcast episode on this.)

Such a firing, I think, is illegal under federal antidiscrimination law, though it's possible (but not certain) that BROS may have a First Amendment defense, given the particular job that the woman held.

[1.] The gender identity discrimination precedent: The key precedent here is Harris Funeral Homes v. Stephens, the trans companion case to Bostock v. Clayton County. In those cases the Court held that gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination is sex discrimination, and therefore banned by the Title VII prohibition on sex discrimination. Here's the key part of the logic behind that argument:

I wrote in 2018 about a forged U.K. court order, quoting a Times (London) article (Billy Kenber):

Last week two fake documents were sent to Google in an attempt to censor a Times article revealing concerns about an online pharmacy run by an alleged internet spammer. The documents, including an order which purported to be from the UK Supreme Court, were sent to the tech giant in an attempt to get the article removed from its search result.

The "de-indexing" request was submitted in the name of Mason Soiza, 24, the owner of UK Meds, although he denied making the request. It comes amid concerns about how businesses, individuals and law firms are using takedown requests to remove damaging information from searches. At least 75 fake court documents have been sent to Google, according to a US academic….

Mr Soiza, who has emailed The Times to ask for the newspaper to "de-index" the article about him, said he had not created the forged documents or submitted them to Google. He said they were "100 per cent not sent by me" and added that they "look awful".

10/13/1890: Justice Samuel Miller dies.

From Hoover's post today (and see also our colleague John Cochrane's post about Hall's work):

Robert E. Hall, the Robert and Carole McNeil Endowed Professor in Economics and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus, and emeritus professor of economics in the School of Humanities and Sciences, is the recipient of the 2026 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Hall was recognized with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his contributions to the "microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic stabilization," alongside economist Michael Woodford, with whom he will share the approximately $1.2 million prize.

"Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford are awarded this year's prize in economic sciences for demonstrating how economic models could be reconstructed to revitalise stabilisation policy," according to an announcement from the Nobel Committee. "Rather than basing the models on statistical links between macroeconomic variables, such as inflation, production and consumption, they chose to build them on a microeconomic foundation. This encompasses an understanding for how the total mass of individual households and businesses affect the economy through their actions."

"This is a wonderful surprise," Hall said on Monday morning. "I've spent my career trying to understand how the economy works, following interesting questions wherever they led. When I thought I had a new idea, the next step was to find out whether it was actually new, whether it was right, and whether it mattered. I've been fortunate to have extraordinary colleagues and coauthors to help me sort that out, and working with them has been the greatest pleasure of my career."

Contemporary controversy over Columbus Day tends to focus on Christopher Columbus himself, and in particular on the treatment of Native Americans that followed European colonization. Somewhat lost in the controversy is why Columbus Day became an important American holiday in the first place: in significant part, it was a response to the severe discrimination faced by Italian immigrants.

The relevant history begins with large-scale immigration of Italians to the United States in the late nineteenth century. Italians, especially Sicilians and other southern Italians, were widely viewed as culturally and otherwise inferior, prone to criminality, and incapable of assimilating into American society.

The most infamous manifestation of anti-Italian hostility occurred in New Orleans in 1891. After Police Chief David Hennessy was murdered, a group of Italians was prosecuted for the crime. The trial failed to produce the expected convictions. On March 14, 1891, a mob broke into the jail and killed eleven of the Italian defendants and prisoners. Some had been acquitted and others had not yet been tried. The Italian consul described them at the time as "defenseless Italian prisoners."

The lynching caused a major diplomatic crisis. Italy withdrew its minister from Washington, and in April 1892 the Harrison administration paid 125,000 francs to Italy for distribution to the victims' families. Secretary of State James Blaine expressed the hope that this would end the dispute and restore friendly relations between the two countries.

Six months later, on the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas, President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed a nationwide Columbus Day observance.

Harrison did not invent the idea of celebrating Columbus. Americans had commemorated Columbus long before the 1890s, and the four-hundredth anniversary would have been a major event regardless of the controversy over Italian immigration. So it would be too strong to say that the New Orleans lynching caused Columbus Day.

But the connection between the rise of Columbus Day and the status of Italian Americans is nevertheless important. Columbus provided Italian immigrants with a particularly useful American hero. At a time when Italians were commonly portrayed as undesirable foreigners who could never become real Americans, Italian Americans could point out that an Italian stood at the traditional beginning of the American story.

Italian-American organizations accordingly made Columbus celebrations a major vehicle for ethnic pride and assimilation. In New York, Italian Americans raised the money for the Columbus monument at Columbus Circle, dedicated in October 1892. Columbus Day parades combined Italian ethnic pride with conspicuous displays of American patriotism.

Anti-Italian prejudice, meanwhile, continued well beyond the 1890s. Immigration restrictionists commonly portrayed southern Italians as inferior and inherently prone to criminality, and the immigration restrictions enacted in the 1920s drastically reduced Italian immigration.

Columbus Day gradually became institutionalized. Franklin Roosevelt established an annual federal Columbus Day observance in the 1930s. Italian-American organizations then spent years lobbying to make it a federal holiday. Congress finally did so in 1968 as part of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. The National Archives' history of the legislation specifically notes that making Columbus Day a federal holiday had been "a goal sought for years by Italian-American groups."

None of this tells us what to think of Columbus himself. There is much greater awareness today, appropriately, of the terrible treatment of Native Americans following European colonization. But that increased awareness has tended to obscure a very different part of the history of Columbus Day.

For Italian immigrants and their descendants, Columbus Day was not simply a celebration of European conquest. It was also part of an effort to gain acceptance for an immigrant group that faced widespread prejudice and, sometimes, horrific violence. Whatever one thinks of Columbus, that history is worth remembering.

10/12/1977: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke argued.

The Volokh Conspiracy

TV Station News Managers Fired for Allegedly Anti-Gay Memo Win >$4M from Nexstar Media

"Fortunately for Society, Plaintiff's Framework for Retrospectively Punishing News Outlets Is Not the Law"

Today in Supreme Court History: October 14, 1911

Open Thread

Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Requiring CNN, MS NOW, and Politico to Be Readmitted to White House

No Immunity for Judge Who Locked Children in Holding Cells in Custody Case

Submit Your Articles to the Journal of Free Speech Law, Before You Circulate Them to the Law Reviews

Interesting Criminal Case on Proving Intent to Cause Fear, Stemming from Confrontation at Protest

Claiming Video Was "Deepfake" Not Enough to Require Excluding It, Even Absent Evidence of Who Recorded It

New Essay: "The Establishment Clause At The Second Founding"

May an Employer Fire a White Woman for Wearing Hair in Cornrows?

Someone Trying to Vanish Articles About Forged U.K. Court Order Aimed at Vanishing Article About Businessman Mason Soiza

Today in Supreme Court History: October 13, 1890

Open Thread

Congratulations to the Hoover Institution's Robert E. Hall, on His Economics Nobel Prize

The Forgotten Origins of Columbus Day

Today in Supreme Court History: October 12, 1977

Open Thread

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