Opposition to University Censorship Grows, Part 2

The New York Analysis of Policy & Government concludes its examination of the opposition to campus censorship.

The growing opposition to campus censorship is giving rise to legislative action.

State legislators are acting on a legislative proposal written by Stanley Kurtz, James Manley and Jonathon Butcher for the Goldwater Institute. The authors have developed model legislation designed to ensure free expression at America’s public university systems. They reported that “Surveys show that student support for restrictive speech codes and speaker bans is at historic heights. As both a deeply held commitment and a living tradition, freedom of speech is dying on our college campuses, and is increasingly imperiled in society at large. Nowhere is the need for open debate more important than on America’s college campuses. Students maturing from teenagers into adults must be confronted with new ideas, especially ideas with which they disagree, if they are to become informed and responsible members of a free society.”

The report cited worrisome problems. One example: In November 2016, campus police at Grand Valley State University in Michigan threatened to arrest students for handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution.

The proposed measure:

creates an official university policy that strongly affirms the importance of free expression, nullifying any existing restrictive speech codes in the process.
It prevents administrators from disinviting speakers, no matter how controversial, whom members of the campus community wish to hear from.
It establishes a system of disciplinary sanctions for students and anyone else who interferes with the free-speech rights of others.
It allows persons whose free-speech rights have been improperly infringed by the university to recover court costs and attorney’s fees.
It reaffirms the principle that universities, at the official institutional level, ought to remain neutral on issues of public controversy to encourage the widest possible range of opinion and dialogue within the university itself.
It ensures that students will be informed of the official policy on free expression.
It authorizes a special subcommittee of the university board of trustees to issue a yearly report to the public, the trustees, the governor, and the legislature on the administrative handling of free-speech issues.

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In June, Campus Reform reported that “At least 13 states have now proposed or implemented legislation designed to protect free speech on college campuses. While Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia, and Arizona have already passed bills that would crack down on disruptive university demonstrators and so-called ‘free speech zones,’ legislators from California, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin are attempting to push similar bills through their own state chambers.”

There is movement on the federal level as well. In May, Rep. Phil Roe, M.D. (R-TN) introduced H.Res. 307, which seeks to reinforce First Amendment rights on college campuses. This resolution is designed express a sense of Congress that institutions of higher education should facilitate and recommit themselves to protecting and promoting the free and open exchange of ideas, and that free speech zones and codes are inherently at odds with the First Amendment. “Today,” notes Rep. Roe, “we are seeing more and more frequently a vocal minority of dissenters essentially be allowed to drown out or block alternative viewpoints or thoughts from even being shared. With this bipartisan resolution, we can send a strong message that Congress expects universities to protect and foster the free and open exchange of ideas.”

The Newseum study maintains that more than legislation is needed, and that the problem on campuses should be addressed at grammar and high schools:

“Elementary and secondary schools must educate students on the First Amendment, how far the right of free expression extends, and the opportunities it affords to those who want to change society. Students carry attitudes with them to college so we must address young people when their views on free speech are first being formed. Colleges and universities must make an absolutist case for speech to a generation of students who have more complicated views.Critically, we must continually make the case that free speech particularly helps minorities and those who are alienated. The failure to understand the precise challenge to free speech has caused, to some degree, the debate over expression to become politically polarized.Colleges and universities will have to become much more deliberate about encouraging advocates of free expression. In particular, we must find ways for students to become the advocates for free speech for their generation.”

Quick Analysis

Judge Juan Merchan Must Recuse Himself from Hearing the Case of Donald Trump

Judge Juan Merchan Must Recuse Himself from Hearing the Case of Donald Trump By John H. Wilson In April and May of 2023, we discussed several of the weaknesses of the criminal case brought against former President Donald Trump. In particular, we described the legal insufficiency of the indictment, which does not “asserts facts supporting every element of the offense charged and the defendant`s…commission thereof with sufficient precision to clearly apprise the defendant…of the conduct which is the subject of the accusation.” We also noted that the majority of the charges brought against Trump are most likely time-barred by New York’s Statute of Limitations. https://www.usagovpolicy.com/is-trumps-indictment-beyond-the-statute-of-limitations/ In both articles, we also noted that the Judge assigned to hear the case against the former President, Juan Merchan, had previously donated small sums to several anti-Trump organizations, and was unlikely to dismiss the charges on either of these grounds. According to the New York Post, Merchan “donated $35 to Democratic causes in 2020, including $15 to President Biden’s campaign and $10 to a group dedicated to ‘resisting … Donald Trump’s radical right-wing legacy.’ Federal Election Commission records show Merchan made three small-dollar donations within the span of two days in July 2020 through ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s preferred online fundraising platform. The veteran judge contributed $15 earmarked for the ‘Biden for President’ campaign on July 26, 2020, and then the following day made $10 contributions to the Progressive Turnout Project and Stop Republicans” . Given the small amounts involved, no one seriously argued that Judge Merchan should be removed from the case after having made these contributions, even though “FEC records show that Merchan listed his occupation as ‘judge’ on the donation form, and his employer as the New York State Office of Court Administration.” This is, however, an issue of some seriousness. Under Rule 100.5(A)(1) of the Rules of the Chief Administrative Judge for the State of New York, “[n]either a sitting judge nor a candidate for public election to judicial office shall directly or indirectly engage in any political activity except (i) as otherwise authorized by this section or by law, (ii) to vote and to identify himself or herself as a member of a political party, and (iii) on behalf of measures to improve the law, the legal system or the administration of justice. Prohibited political activity shall include…(h) soliciting funds for, paying an assessment to, or making a contribution to a political organization or candidate. (Emphasis added.) This means that despite the modest sums donated by Judge Merchan, he is prohibited from making ANY contribution, in ANY amount, to the Biden campaign, or any other political organization. It’s not as if Judge Merchan wouldn’t be aware of these rules. According to CNN, “Merchan launched his legal career in 1994…as an assistant district attorney in the trial division in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office…[i]n 2006, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg…appointed Merchan to Family Court in the Bronx, and Democratic Gov. David Paterson appointed him to the New York State Court of Claims in 2009, the same year he began serving as an acting New York Supreme Court judge.” With more than 23 years of experience as a judge, Juan Merchan would certainly know he is prohibited from making contributions in any amount to political campaigns and organizations. But he did it anyway. Further, under Rule 100.3(E)(1) “[a] judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Making campaign contributions to the current President, and then hearing the case of that President’s opponent in this year’s election would certainly qualify as a reasonable question regarding Merchan’s impartiality. But this is only one basis under which Judge Merchan’s removal from the Trump case is both appropriate and necessary. There is more substantial basis for this matter to be taken away from Judge Merchan. Rule 100.3(E)(1) continues as follows; “[a] judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances where… (d) the judge knows that the judge or the judge’s spouse, or a person known by the judge to be within the sixth degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person…(iii) has an interest that could be substantially affected by the proceeding.” According to the website Living DNA, a First Degree of Relationship is a Parent to a Child, while a Sixth Degree is a second cousin. In between are Grandparents and grandchildren, great-grandparents and great-grandchildren, Aunts, Uncles, Nieces, Nephews and First Cousins. It stands to reason, then, that if Judge Merchan had a cousin, or a nephew, or a grandchild who was known to the Judge, and that person had “an interest that could be substantially affected” by a proceeding over which Judge Merchan was presiding, he would have to legally and ethically recuse himself from the handling of that matter. But what if that person is of the first degree of relationship, that is, a child of the Judge? Meet Loren Merchan, who is, according to the New York Post, “president of Authentic Campaigns, a Chicago-based progressive political consulting firm whose top clients include Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who was the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial, and the Senate Majority PAC, a major party fundraiser…Schiff’s campaign for US Senate scored an eye-popping $20 million in aid since he began soliciting donations off the presumptive GOP presidential front-runner’s unprecedented 34-count indictment last April, according to Federal Election Commission records…The Senate Majority political action committee, which supports Democratic Senate campaigns, pocketed $73.6 million since it also began firing off fundraising emails following the ex-president’s indictment…The super PAC has done more than $15 million in business with Authentic since 2019, including email fundraising and branding assistance, while Schiff’s Senate campaign paid Authentic more than $10 million for digital advertising and other consulting services the past year, records show.” Let us understand what the New York Post has revealed here. Loren Merchan is the president of an organization that has been paid ten million dollars by the Senate Majority PAC, which has earned the money to pay Loren’s company by fundraising that is, at least, […]

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