A Brazilian judge with a striking resemblance to Voldemort wants to censor more than 200 million of his countrymen from hearing or expressing viewpoints that disfavor his preferred political narrative on X.
A Russian entrepreneur behind Telegram is threatened with prison in France for failing to censor on demand.
An American ex-cabinet member is publicly calling for the arrest and prosecution of Elon Musk for refusing to censor in accordance with his political tribe’s wishes.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckeberg recently confirmed the government “pressured” his platform to censor the ruling party’s politically disfavored COVID views.
Headline grabbing, international censorship that impacts billion-dollar companies is all over the news, but sometimes the censors aim for much more modest targets.
I know — I am the Manhattan mom removed from an elected school board because my words, about an anonymous author’s antisemitism in a student newspaper at my daughter’s school, offended the leader of New York City’s Public Schools.
This week, a U.S. District Court Judge in Brooklyn made clear that the First Amendment protects all of us in a comprehensive ruling that ordered me reseated and enjoined some of the most censorious provisions of the Chancellor’s Regulations.
Judge Gujarati told my censor — Chancellor David Banks — that “securing First Amendment rights is in the public interest.”
She’s right.
We have a moral imperative to make sure our children know it.
The culture wars are cleaving America.
One of the most troubling and consequential markers is a generation of Americans, trained to worry about “hate speech” above all else, who are lukewarm about the First Amendment.
Our public schools have invested heavily in “identity” instruction which fixates on privilege — in particular, racial and gender identities.
One of the most troubling parts of that identity instruction is the idea that you can’t say something — even if you think it’s true or important to discuss — because your words might “offend” some people.
Objecting to boys in girls sports for instance: Our whole country is talking about it — but Chancellor Banks insists the topic is off limits in NYC schools.
He’s wrong. We should talk about it and we should definitely listen to the students who have to live by the radical rules of gender identity.
That’s what I wrote in a resolution my council passed in March that said we should “review” the 2019 Gender Guidelines and “include” female athletes in the discussion about the rules that mandate female-identifying males participating on girls sports teams.
Chancellor Banks brooks no compromise on the subject and many believe that is the real reason he removed me from my position.
Why can’t NYC student athletes talk about fairness in the sports they play?
“Because some people might be offended” is not a good answer and one that does not comport with the protections we all enjoy under the First Amendment.
I knew that the Chancellor’s Regulation D-210, the regulation used to remove me, was unconstitutional and would be used as a censor’s cudgel before it passed.
I wrote in December 2021 that “a code of conduct, if properly implemented, is not unreasonable. But the fox shouldn’t guard the henhouse: The DOE cannot enforce an overbroad and pretextual code of conduct clearly designed to silence parents.”
Two and half years later, my lawyer called me at close to 11 pm and read me the Judge’s determination that “plaintiffs have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of establishing that the challenged portion of [Chancellor’s Regulation D-210] facially violates the First Amendment” and “is unconstitutional as applied to Maron.”
When he read the last line of the decision “It is further ordered that Plaintiff Maron shall be reinstated immediately to her elected position on CEC 2” I whooped with happiness — so much so that my 8-year-old came bounding out of his room to see what the ruckus was about.
I had resigned myself to what I thought was a likely possibility — that the legal shenanigans would take so long that my term would expire in June of 2025 while the lawyers were still lawyering.
I am happy, and grateful, to be wrong.
Grateful to live in a country with well developed First Amendment jurisprudence that protects us all.
I am also grateful that the night before school started I was able to explain to my children that a judge restored me to my elected position because we live in America and our Constitution guarantees our Freedom of Speech.
And when I walked my youngest into his third grade classroom Thursday morning I did so as an elected member of CEC District 2 and with a big smile on my face.
Maud Maron is a city public-school parent and president of the consulting firm ThirdRail.