The images appeared on Twitter in late 2016 just as the presidential campaign was entering its final stretch. Some featured the message “vote for Hillary” and the phrases “avoid the line” and “vote from home.” Aimed at Democratic voters, and sometimes singling out Black people, the messages were actually intended to help Donald J. Trump, not Hillary […]
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In a decision that jangled the nerves of some elected officials, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court last week reaffirmed a basic liberty established by the founding fathers: the right to be rude at public meetings. The ruling sent waves of consternation across the state, where many local select board and school committee members have emerged […]
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Brought by the nonprofit organization Upsolve and the Rev. John Udo-Okon, a pastor in the South Bronx, the case focuses on debt collection lawsuits. Hundreds of thousands are filed annually in New York State, and millions more across the country. Many people sued in these cases cannot afford a lawyer. With help, many could defend […]
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In higher education, there is one professional golden ticket: tenure. For academics, securing tenure — a highly coveted permanent teaching position at a college or university — usually requires years of education, a rise through the professorial ranks and scholarship. Its benefits are significant: job security that lasts indefinitely, better pay and prestige. One of […]
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The article said “all cultures are not equal” and lamented “the single-parent, antisocial habits, prevalent among some working-class whites; the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks; the anti-assimilation ideas gaining ground among some Hispanic immigrants.” After some students called for her firing, conservative media rallied, allowing Professor Wax to spread her views across the […]
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It’s a sign of the times that the list above — from the left and the right — is woefully incomplete. Careful observers will be able to point to any number of additional culture-war-motivated statutes, regulations and government actions that take aim at the Bill of Rights. State attacks on civil liberties are even affecting […]
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When Amira Bouraoui, an Algerian-French pro-democracy activist, boarded a plane to France from Tunisia last month, she thought her ordeal had finally come to an end. She had already failed twice to flee Algeria, where her activism had put her in the government’s cross hairs. Her third attempt, by illegally entering neighboring Tunisia, resulted in […]
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Under the bill, a public figure would no longer need to show actual malice to win a defamation case if the allegation against the figure wasn’t related to the reason for the person’s public status. So if a person is publicly known for being elected president or governor, and a news organization publishes an investigation […]
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Tennessee on Thursday became the first state to sharply restrict drag performances as the state’s governor, Bill Lee, signed a bill banning the shows on public property and in places where they could be watched by minors. The law, which limits “adult cabaret” performances that feature “topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or […]
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Then there was this gut-punch paragraph: We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of […]
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WASHINGTON — In a case with the potential to alter the very structure of the internet, the Supreme Court on Tuesday explored the limits of a federal law that shields social media platforms from legal responsibility for what users post on their sites. The justices seemed to view the positions taken by the two sides […]
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — One day in November 2015, Saad Almadi typed out a 14-word post on Twitter about Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince. “Mohammed bin Salman has taken over the economy, defense and everything under the king,” he wrote, replying to a professor who is a fierce critic of the kingdom’s monarchy. A Saudi-American […]
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SOUTH ROYALTON, Vt. — For years, when students at Vermont Law and Graduate School came to Shirley Jefferson with objections to the murals in the student center, and their depictions of Black people that struck some as racist caricatures, the longtime Black administrator urged those protesting to move on. Ms. Jefferson, 69, is no stranger […]
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LONDON — New editions of the works of Roald Dahl — the best-selling British novelist whose children’s classics include “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Matilda” and “James and the Giant Peach” — have been rewritten in an effort to make them less offensive and more inclusive, according to a representative from the author’s estate. The […]
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Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old California college student, was studying abroad in Paris in November 2015 when she was among the 130 people killed in a coordinated series of terrorist attacks throughout the city. The next year, her father sued Google and other tech companies. He accused the firms of spreading content that radicalized users into […]
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WASHINGTON — The last time the Supreme Court considered what the First Amendment has to say about threats, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. found himself reciting lyrics from the rapper Eminem. “Dada make a nice bed for mommy at the bottom of the lake,” the chief justice said at a 2014 argument, quoting from […]
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A nationwide campaign urging children to make candles for soldiers has become so popular, he said, that anyone questioning it in a school chat group might be called a “Nazi and an accomplice of the West.” At the same time, he argued, daily life has changed little for Russians without a family member fighting in […]
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Newly disclosed messages and testimony from some of the biggest stars and most senior executives at Fox News revealed that they privately expressed disbelief about President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, even though the network continued to promote many of those lies on the air. The hosts […]
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Some readers might object to dwelling on one instance of misguided sensitivity at one small college when the country is in the midst of a nationwide frenzy of right-wing book bans, public school speech restrictions, and wild attempts to curtail drag performances. But I think this moment, when we’re facing down a wave of censorship […]
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“I do not get involved in any way with social media,” he said. “I don’t have an account. I don’t tweet, I don’t Facebook, and I don’t pay attention to that.” In addition to the States of Missouri and Louisiana, the plaintiffs include two prominent epidemiologists who questioned of the government’s handling of the pandemic, […]
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Yes, this is in part a consequence of anti-intellectual strains on the right and among right-wing media. And this conservative mistrust of higher education (and secondary education) is causing it to turn its back on free speech and instead resort to punitive legislation, such as Florida’s recently passed “Stop Woke Act,” which a federal court […]
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