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Cont: Cancel culture IRL Part 2

At the Hollywood Reporter the headline and the sub-headline were, "FCC Chair Threatens Jimmy Kimmel Over Charlie Kirk Monologue Comments; ABC Pulls Show. ABC has suspend 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' in the wake of Brendan Carr threatening ABC affiliates following the late-night host's comments about the suspected Kirk shooter's politics." From an AZ Central Op-ed: "
If Carr's threats, made to Benny Johnson on Johnson's YouTube show on Wednesday, Sept. 17, don't scare you, they absolutely should...[FCC Chair] Carr sees it differently, calling the monologue "what appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican-motivated person. If that's what happened here, with his conduct, that is really, really sick. ... It appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible."" From the cheap seats this sounds a little like "jawboning."
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
An assistant dean was fired from Middle Tennessee State University for being unsympathetic to Charlie Kirk. I do not believe that she called for violence, as reported by USA Today and other organizations. With a few exceptions, one does not lose one's first amendment protections at the public college or university. There is some evidence of pressure from a United States Senator. Whether this falls under jawboning (see FIRE article here) I will leave to those better versed in 1A law than I am.
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It's not a First Amendment question. An organization has a right to fire someone from a leadership position whom it feels is not suitable for the position. Certainly, a university would be within its rights to fire an associate dean of students whose public statements indicated that she would have no empathy for students whose political views didn't align with hers.

For elaboration, see Andrew Doyle's essay The Oxford Union and the Free Speech Fallacy.
 
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jt512 said:
It's not a First Amendment question. An organization has a right to fire someone from a leadership position whom it feels is not suitable for the position. Certainly, a university would be within its rights to fire an associate dean of students whose public statements indicated that she would have no empathy for students whose political views didn't align with hers.

For elaboration, see Andrew Doyle's essay The Oxford Union and the Free Speech Fallacy.
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Another Trump supporter unconcerned about the dIsmantling of free speech.

Hard to believe.
 
tl;dr version of the Andrew Doyle essay above = It doesn’t count as cancel culture if the speech someone was fired over could be construed as an indicator of unsuitability for their job.

I actually agree with this argument, and have actually made versions of it in this thread.

But unlike Andrew Doyle, I haven’t written multiple essays about the dangers of cancel culture relating to analogous situations to the one he’s now claiming isn’t cancel culture.

Unlike Andrew Doyle, I haven’t decried a remarkably similar situation in which a woman was fired from Home Depot for making a tasteless remark about the Trump assassination attempt.

Seems like Andrew Doyle might be full of ◊◊◊◊.
 
jt512 said:
It's not a First Amendment question. An organization has a right to fire someone from a leadership position whom it feels is not suitable for the position. Certainly, a university would be within its rights to fire an associate dean of students whose public statements indicated that she would have no empathy for students whose political views didn't align with hers.

For elaboration, see Andrew Doyle's essay The Oxford Union and the Free Speech Fallacy.
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From USA Today: "A dean at a Tennessee university was fired over social media posts saying she has "zero sympathy" for slain conservative activist, Charlie Kirk." It is a long extrapolation from this statement to assuming that she would have no sympathy for students of different political beliefs.

Regarding the first amendment and colleges and universities see this link. Rights at primary and secondary school teachers work a little bit differently. If MTSU wants claim that their termination falls under Garcetti v. Ceballos, well, let's just say that I am skeptical.
 
jt512 said:
An organization has a right to fire someone from a leadership position whom it feels is not suitable for the position.
Click to expand...
This is true for a private university, but MTSU is not that.

campusfreespeechguide.pen.org

Campus Free Speech

These principles undergird all of PEN America’s Campus Free Speech Guide. As you use this guide, you will find additional principles and recommendations that relate to a variety of issue areas. Case studies, along with resources and advice, will allow the reader to best understand PEN America’s...
campusfreespeechguide.pen.org campusfreespeechguide.pen.org
 
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have to wonder if universities have a right to fire anyone for any reason when gina carano lost her job as star wars when we were arguing about the right to cough in each others faces
 
I can tell that those are all words, but cannot make sense of what they are doing together.

Still mad about Rangers of the New Republic, though. It would've been badass.

Had Disney stood up to the cancel mob back then, perhaps they'd've grown enough spine to do so for Jimmy Kimmel.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
At the Hollywood Reporter the headline and the sub-headline were, "FCC Chair Threatens Jimmy Kimmel Over Charlie Kirk Monologue Comments; ABC Pulls Show. ABC has suspend 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' in the wake of Brendan Carr threatening ABC affiliates following the late-night host's comments about the suspected Kirk shooter's politics." From an AZ Central Op-ed: "
If Carr's threats, made to Benny Johnson on Johnson's YouTube show on Wednesday, Sept. 17, don't scare you, they absolutely should...[FCC Chair] Carr sees it differently, calling the monologue "what appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel to play into that narrative that this was somehow a MAGA or Republican-motivated person. If that's what happened here, with his conduct, that is really, really sick. ... It appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible."" From the cheap seats this sounds a little like "jawboning."
Click to expand...

Carr’s threat was pretty explicit:

I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.
Click to expand...
That’s a pretty direct threat to intermediaries to punish Kimmel for obviously First Amendment protected speech.

Just last year, in a 9-0 ruling in NRA v. Vullo, the Supreme Court called out how this kind of thing is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

A government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs, and she can do so forcefully in the hopes of persuading others to follow her lead. In doing so, she can rely on the merits and force of her ideas, the strength of her convictions, and her ability to inspire others. What she cannot do, however, is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression….
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And, more explicitly:

The Court explained that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from relying on the “threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion . . . to achieve the suppression” of disfavored speech.
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While Carr initially appeared to threaten Disney/ABC’s “licenses,” he knows full well that (other than a small number of owned and operated affiliates) ABC doesn’t actually have most of the licenses. Instead, it’s the local affiliates that do. But Carr directly targeted them with a threat:

There’s action we can take on licensed broadcasters. And, frankly, it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast or Disney and say, listen, we are going to preempt, we’re not going to run Kimmel any more until you straighten this out because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.
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This is a not so subtle threat to affiliates to drop Kimmel or face fines or have their licenses pulled.

And, not surprisingly, this threat worked. Hours later, Nexstar, the largest owner of local TV stations in the US which has been sucking up to Trump to try to buy out even more TV stations, announced that it would not run Kimmel’s show on their stations, and shortly after that Disney announced that it was pulling Kimmel’s show “indefinitely.”

www.techdirt.com

Cowardly Disney Caves To Brendan Carr’s Bogus Censorial Threats, Pulling Jimmy Kimmel

There are multiple ways into this story, but almost all of the reporting on what’s happened claims that Disney pulled talk show host Jimmy Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” over comments that Kimmel mad…
www.techdirt.com www.techdirt.com
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d4m10n said:
I can tell that those are all words, but cannot make sense of what they are doing together.

Still mad about Rangers of the New Republic, though. It would've been badass.

Had Disney stood up to the cancel mob back then, perhaps they'd've grown enough spine to do so for Jimmy Kimmel.
Click to expand...

A fictional “cancel mob” didn’t come for Kimmel, a fascist government did.

What happened to Carano was an internal personnel decision. What happened to Kimmel was an authoritarian crackdown on free speech.

Pretending the two are somehow the same is what the authoritarians want because it legitimizes them.

And it's painful to watch gullible dupes fall for it.
 
Brendan Carr: "I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way." Pretty nice station you got here. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it.
 
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d4m10n said:
I can tell that those are all words, but cannot make sense of what they are doing together.

Still mad about Rangers of the New Republic, though. It would've been badass.

Had Disney stood up to the cancel mob back then, perhaps they'd've grown enough spine to do so for Jimmy Kimmel.
Click to expand...

what i mean is that if you were arguing that the government pressuring organizations to silence people on social media during covid was a problem, and are ok with anything happening now which is much more ham fisted and disingenuous, you’re not to be taken seriously. i always thought cancel culture was a little silly, people are allowed to not like stuff and not like people, and even discuss it and convince others to their point of view.

which is not aimed at anyone in particular. everyone knows what they’re doing and everyone can read. But

but i think in the bigger picture, johnny karate is also correct in pointing out none of what’s happening now is a cancel mob. these are government threats to silence political dissidents. to me, the more i think about it, this is way beyond cancel culture anyway, even if the usual rubes fell for another one and cheer because it’s hurting people they don’t like. they seem to get off on being manipulated.

and again that’s not to call you a rube specifically damion, i like you and don’t think that’s what you’re doing. i think anyone coming into this conversation with any awareness of current events saying anything other than this is too far is beyond the pale. like, you’re lost buddy
 
Defense Attorney Scott Greenfield wrote, "That this is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment and a gross abuse of the FCC’s authority isn’t a worthwhile discussion. It is and the government not only doesn’t care, but is damn proud of itself for having brought ABC to its knees." There are people (Ken White and Geoffrey Stone come to mind) who are more directly steeped in 1A law than Mr. Greenfield is; I suspect, however, that there will be a consensus among specialists in this area that the government stepped not just a little over the line in this instance.
 
dirtywick said:
what i mean is that if you were arguing that the government pressuring organizations to silence people on social media during covid was a problem, and are ok with anything happening now which is much more ham fisted and disingenuous, you’re not to be taken seriously. i always thought cancel culture was a little silly, people are allowed to not like stuff and not like people, and even discuss it and convince others to their point of view.

which is not aimed at anyone in particular. everyone knows what they’re doing and everyone can read. But

but i think in the bigger picture, johnny karate is also correct in pointing out none of what’s happening now is a cancel mob. these are government threats to silence political dissidents. to me, the more i think about it, this is way beyond cancel culture anyway, even if the usual rubes fell for another one and cheer because it’s hurting people they don’t like. they seem to get off on being manipulated.

and again that’s not to call you a rube specifically damion, i like you and don’t think that’s what you’re doing. i think anyone coming into this conversation with any awareness of current events saying anything other than this is too far is beyond the pale. like, you’re lost buddy
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It should also be noted that the whole furor over "cancel culture" was specifically engineered for this moment. The purpose being to sanitize the authoritarianism and make it seem like it's just an extension of an existing phenomenon, thereby granting a level of tolerability to an otherwise intolerable situation.

And we can see the success of this campaign in this very thread. We actually have someone here comparing a private company firing a problematic employee to a government threatening a private company over speech they didn't like as if these two situations are somehow equivalent.

It's working, and the gullible dupes are the reason it's working.
 
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johnny karate said:
It should also be noted that the whole furor over "cancel culture" was specifically engineered for this moment. The purpose being to sanitize the authoritarianism and make it seem like it's just an extension of an existing phenomenon, thereby granting a level of tolerability to an otherwise intolerable situation.

And we can see the success of this campaign in this very thread. We actually have someone here comparing a private company firing a problematic employee to a government threatening a private company over speech they didn't like as if these two situations are somehow equivalent.

It's working, and the gullible dupes are the reason it's working.
Click to expand...

like, i already know what’s going to happen but i look to people like joe rogan and dave chappell who are making comedy legal again by picking on the trans who couldn’t stop talking publicly about cancel culture. what is their take going to be? was kimmel one of the 250 elite comedy assassins, or is peter thiel still telling them what to say?

it’s whatever makes them money, principles are for losers. and if that’s the case, shouldn’t you guys who were beating the cancel culture drum for them feel duped at this point? the government says, cancel kimmel for some stuff he didn’t even say because he’s the left, and if he apologizes and makes a donation to toilet paper usa all will be forgiven.

it’s ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ sad if you can’t see it for what it is
 
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote, "He [Brendan Carr] told a podcast host on Wednesday that when it comes to how ABC handles Kimmel, "we can do this the easy way or the hard way." Those are usually the words of mob bosses or movie villains, not government officials tasked with ensuring our airwaves remain free and open for the American people. He's defending his threat by saying that he is merely holding them to their responsibility to serve the "public interest." This is a funhouse mirror version of the FCC's role — but without the fun. No other chairman in history has ever read the law to give the FCC authority to demand changes to particular programs or personalities."

In years past within this thread FIRE has taken some heat (IIRC from catsmate and perhaps others). I argued against this criticism by saying that they were nonpartisan in their defense of free speech.
 
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without looking i’m sure i was critical of them at the time. i am happy to see they are standing for their principles
 
dirtywick said:
none of what’s happening now is a cancel mob
Click to expand...
You don't get to add a few government officials making unconstitutional threats alongside a mob and thereby disappear the mob itself.

Also, you seem to be completely discounting grassroots efforts to get people fired or their businesses shut down. I don't have to look beyond my local animal hospital to find a (government-free) cancel mob stirring ◊◊◊◊ up. One guy even went so far as to print out the offending post on a huge banner and post himself outside the business.
 
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d4m10n said:
You don't get to add a few government officials making unconstitutional threats to the mob and thereby disappear the mob itself.
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i don't know if i'd describe the highest levels of office in the federal government as a few government stooges. to each their own

d4m10n said:
Also, you seem to be completely discounting grassroots efforts to get people fired or their businesses shut down. I don't have to look beyond my local animal hospital to find a (government-free) cancel mob stirring ◊◊◊◊ up.
Click to expand...

you're right, that's a good point. i did discount the large lists being compiled, that is grass roots and comparable to cancel culture of yester year. perhaps a better way for me to frame it is a government endorsed mob. i think what's happening now is substantially different in that way.
 
d4m10n said:
I have to agree that it's substantially worse when people with real power join in, whether that power comes from government or capital.
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i agree it's worse, but i think government is substantially worse. it's a betrayal of the people for the government to break it's own laws to damage people for political purposes in a way that a private organization simply isn't capable of. in fact, the only people that could ensure that the private companies are remaining without the bounds of what would be considered fair by law is the government. there's no such recourse when the government does so. it's truly a threat to free speech in a way that cancel culture, whatever the definition, is carried out in a constitutional way by private citizens couldn't possibly be.
 
Chris_Halkides said:
From USA Today: "A dean at a Tennessee university was fired over social media posts saying she has "zero sympathy" for slain conservative activist, Charlie Kirk." It is a long extrapolation from this statement to assuming that she would have no sympathy for students of different political beliefs.
Click to expand...
I have no idea why you think it is a "long extrapolation" from having no sympathy for one conservative to other conservatives. Regarless, I was just giving an example of a valid and legal reason that a dean might be fired.
Chris_Halkides said:
Regarding the first amendment and colleges and universities see this link. Rights at primary and secondary school teachers work a little bit differently. If MTSU wants claim that their termination falls under Garcetti v. Ceballos, well, let's just say that I am skeptical.
Click to expand...
A dean is different than an ordinary faculty member. A deanship is an administrative position in the university. As such, it doesn't have the same constitutional free speech protection as an academic position. If the dean also had a professorship (which many deans do) and she was also fired from her professorship, that would be a violation of her protected speech. But just to lose a deanship, no.
 
d4m10n said:
This is true for a private university, but MTSU is not that.

campusfreespeechguide.pen.org

Campus Free Speech

These principles undergird all of PEN America’s Campus Free Speech Guide. As you use this guide, you will find additional principles and recommendations that relate to a variety of issue areas. Case studies, along with resources and advice, will allow the reader to best understand PEN America’s...
campusfreespeechguide.pen.org campusfreespeechguide.pen.org
Click to expand...
That has nothing to do with the case of the Tennessee dean.
 
jt512 said:
That has nothing to do with the case of the Tennessee dean.
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Whether "public universities are beholden to principles of the First Amendment" has nothing to do with whether they can fire someone for political commentary?
 
d4m10n said:
Whether "public universities are beholden to principles of the First Amendment" has nothing to do with whether they can fire someone for political commentary?
Click to expand...
Those free speech rights don't apply to administrators in the same strict way they do to academics and students.
 
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d4m10n said:
Where is that written? Are you thinking of Garcetti v. Ceballos?
Click to expand...
Where is it written that a university can't fire an administrator for having "undermined the university’s credibility and reputation with our students, faculty, staff and the community at large"? Professors have protected academic freedom; administrators do not.

Here is Google AI's answer to the question, "Do university administrators have the same first amendment protections as faculty?"

"No, university administrators and faculty do not always have the same First Amendment protections, particularly concerning academic freedom. While public university administrators and faculty are government employees and their speech is generally protected by the First Amendment, administrators' speech may be limited if it is related to their official duties, unlike faculty speech, which often receives greater protection when related to teaching or scholarship.

"Why their protections differ
  • Academic Freedom:
    Faculty members are granted significant academic freedom for their speech and research related to their academic work, a protection not typically afforded to administrators in their official capacity.
  • Official Duties vs. Personal Speech:
    Administrators may have their speech treated as that of a public employee, meaning it can be restricted if it interferes with their job duties, even if it would be protected if said by someone else."
 
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d4m10n said:
You don't get to add a few government officials making unconstitutional threats alongside a mob and thereby disappear the mob itself.

Also, you seem to be completely discounting grassroots efforts to get people fired or their businesses shut down. I don't have to look beyond my local animal hospital to find a (government-free) cancel mob stirring ◊◊◊◊ up. One guy even went so far as to print out the offending post on a huge banner and post himself outside the business.
Click to expand...

The only thing that exists more in your imagination than these "mobs" is the power they have to actually do anything.
 
I think it's important to understand the relevant case law here. Public employees are barred from saying things that the government itself is barred from saying (e.g. "This university does not welcome Jews.") whenever they might be taken to be acting officially.
 
d4m10n said:
I think it's important to understand the relevant case law here. Public employees are barred from saying things that the government itself is barred from saying (e.g. "This university does not welcome Jews.") whenever they might be taken to be acting officially.
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That has nothing to do with this case. A public university has wide latitude in firing an administrator for extramural speech that expresses a personal grievance. For extramural speech on a matter of public concern (which the Texas dean's comments would likely be), a public university can still fire an administer for a number of reasons including speech that "damages the university's mission, reputation, or public trust" or speech that "demonstrates unfitness for the job" (see here and here). Those are precisely the reasons the university president gave for firing the dean.
 
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In 2022 Brendan Carr tweeted, "This is very concerning. The government does not evade the First Amendment’s restraints on censoring political speech by jawboning a company into suppressing it—rather, that conduct runs headlong into those constitutional restrictions, as Supreme Court law makes clear." Good point.
 
jt512 said:
I have no idea why you think it is a "long extrapolation" from having no sympathy for one conservative to other conservatives. Regarless, I was just giving an example of a valid and legal reason that a dean might be fired.
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The dean indicated lack of sympathy for an individual, not a group.
 
jt512 said:
For extramural speech on a matter of public concern (which the Texas dean's comments would likely be), a public university can still fire an administer for a number of reasons including speech that "damages the university's mission, reputation, or public trust" or speech that "demonstrates unfitness for the job" (see here and here). Those are precisely the reasons the university president gave for firing the dean.
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Did you actually apply the Pickering-Connick test to this case?
 
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Chris_Halkides said:
The dean indicated lack of sympathy for an individual, not a group.
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On the basis of his political ideology, obviously. And that implies that the dean would similar feel no sympathy for students of similar ideology under the dean's responsibility. The president deemed that disqualifying for the job.
 
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