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Allison Stanger
The Atlantic
Excerpt: In ruling Friday on the future of the social-media app TikTok, the Supreme Court understood it was dealing with a novel issue. “We are conscious that the cases before us involve new technologies with transformative capabilities,” the justices declared in a per curiam opinion. “This challenging new context counsels caution on our part.”
When the nation’s Founders enshrined freedom of speech in the First Amendment, they couldn’t have imagined phone apps that amplify information around the world almost instantaneously—much less one controlled by a foreign power, as TikTok is, and capable of tracking the movements, relationships, and behaviors of millions of Americans in real time.
Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: Texas A&M University said this week it’s no longer sending representatives to a conference aimed at recruiting prospective minority doctoral students after online accusations and threats—including from the governor.
Martin Gurri
City Journal
Excerpt: Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to “get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram” marks an astonishing turnaround in the long, twilight struggle over information in the digital age. In this conflict, it should be noted, Zuckerberg has played a Hamlet-like part, uncertain whether to be or not to be an advocate of openness and free speech. His latest decision to embrace a set of grand principles was doubtless influenced by political considerations; now he stands accused of currying favor with the free-speech rebels of the incoming Trump crowd.
But at 3 billion monthly active users and 100 billion pieces of content daily, Facebook remains, at least for now, the brontosaurus in the room when it comes to social media.
Eugene Volokh
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason
Excerpt: I was having a conversation with my Stanford colleague Diego Zambrano, and this perspective on the TikTok case emerged. I'm not positive it's a sound perspective; but I thought I'd pass it along and see what people thought about it.
Haley Gluhanich
FIRE
Excerpt: When tenured Millsaps College professor James Bowley sent an email sharing his opinion on the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, he didn’t anticipate it would result in his termination. But in a perfect storm of overreach and red tape, that’s exactly what happened.
On Nov. 6, 2024 — the day after the election — Bowley emailed the students in his “Abortion and Religions” class, canceling that day’s session to “mourn and process this racist fascist country.” With only three students in the class, Bowley got to know them quite well, including their political feelings, and knew canceling class would be best for those students. As Bowley told FIRE, “I just want to be caring and kind to my students, whom I knew would be troubled by the election.”
Ilya Shapiro
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason
Excerpt: As I wrote on Monday in my introduction to Lawless, the crisis in higher-ed is different than the decades-old complaint about the liberal takeover of the academy. Instead, university officials placate, facilitate, and even foment illiberal mobs, with everyone else keeping their heads down to avoid the cancellation crossfire. And that's a story of growing bureaucracies.
In the 25 years ending in 2012, the number of professional university employees who don't teach grew at about twice the rate of students, while tuition at public colleges more than tripled. Those trends have only accelerated, though useful statistics are hard to come by as surveyors change methodologies and the government fails to collect or disclose uniform data.
