UCLA Flails Amid Pro-Palestine Group's Planned Conference, While L.A.'s City Council Goes Full Stupid
from the inconveniently-free-speech dept
Those of you who geek out over trademark law like me may have seen the recent dust-up between UCLA and a group called National Students for Justice in Palestine this past week. I had intended on writing something up about the whole thing because of how blatantly stupid it was. The pro-Palestinian group has a chapter at UCLA and it is hosting a conference in the future, for which it put out some promotional materials that feature a bear flying a kite with the colors of the Palestinian flag and dared to mention that the conference was being held at UCLA. For this, UCLA lawyers sent a cease and desist to SJP, claiming that the way the promo material displayed the UCLA name and its use of bear imagery created confusion in the public suggesting that the school was affiliated with the conference.
UCLA argues that SJP’s “use of the ‘UCLA’ name” and use of “the UCLA mascot of the Bruin Bear in a logo/digital poster” effectively claims, suggests, or implies an “affiliation with” UCLA. The university says the group may state where the conference will be held (“at UCLA”) if the font size for the word “UCLA” is “no larger than the font used for the remainder of the communication.” Failing compliance, UCLA expressly threatens to cancel the event.
Not for the first time, a California university is wielding a pretty clearly unconstitutional law, one designed to give California universities sweeping powers to keep the public from mentioning school names, even if in an entirely accurate manner. No room is made for fair us, while schools have the authority under this state law to put in all kinds of silly restrictions, such as the font size restriction mentioned above.
What kept me from writing this up initially is that the school quickly signaled it would reversed course after SJP made minor changes to the promotional material. Oh, and after the ACLU got involved.
Tod M. Tamberg, a spokesman for UCLA told NBC News in an email on Wednesday “it was never about the bear all by itself” and that it appreciated the groups [sic] alteration to remove the UCLA name. The university, which threatened to cancel the conference, also said that the event would go on as scheduled.
“As you may have heard, some members of the Jewish community have been sharply critical of upcoming conference, demanding that UCLA move to cancel it,” the school said in statement provided by Tamberg. “As a public university, UCLA is legally bound to comply with the First Amendment, which protects everyone’s right to express their views, even those that are offensive and hateful or that the university opposes.”
Yes, it certainly does. Now, many have levied claims of hate speech against SJP. These claims, however you might agree or disagree with them, tend to be fairly laughable. If the best you can trot out is the following to claim a whole group is a hate group, you're not going to meet any kind of First Amendment bar.
In an Oct. 11 letter to UCLA chancellor Gene Block, [State] Rep. Sherman argued that speech on the National SJP website “may very well constitute anti-Semitism” as defined by the State Department — a definition Sherman says was “recently adopted” by the Department of Education “for enforcement purposes.” Sherman’s letter highlights three particular examples contained in that definition, including “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” applying “double standards” to Israel by “requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation,” and “[d]rawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
None of that is hate speech, no matter what some silly State Department missive might suggest. Words matter, after all, and we can no more accept that the kind of political speech above, even if you disagree with it, is hate speech any more than we can condone the government crying terrorism anytime it's convenient. It also seems obvious to me that if you replaced this pro-Palestinian group with a pro-Israel group, we never would have heard this story at all. Argue with that if you like, but you're wrong.
And, yet, the L.A. City Council is now getting involved in the stupidest way possible, passing a resolution that first acknowledges UCLA's need to adhere to free speech rights and then somehow calling for the cancellation of this conference entirely.
Add the City of Los Angeles to the government actors calling on UCLA to cancel the convention. While dubious California statutes and trademark concerns falter, the Los Angeles City Council has issued an internally incoherent resolution recognizing that the university has First Amendment obligations while demanding that the conference be canceled, First Amendment be damned.
The resolution, embedded below, was unanimously adopted with the “concurrence” of Mayor Eric Garcetti. The resolution cites UCLA’s “responsibility to allow freedom of speech,” but quickly skips past the pesky nuances of the First Amendment to demand that UCLA “cancel and ban” the conference because it would be “inappropriate” to host the conference “given the atmosphere in the country.” The resolution also concludes that there is “never a good time to have this type of event.”
Follow along with me in a resolution too dumb to make up: UCLA needs to protect free speech on campus, but it should cancel this conference given the current political climate and some tragedies that happened on the other side of the country, and, oh, also there will never, ever be a climate in which this conference should take place. The speed with which the city council and mayor got from "we acknowledge free speech rights" to "we can never allow these people those free speech rights" is breathtaking.
And fundamentally stupid, given that these are people in government we're talking about. Frankly, the flailing UCLA administration that once attempted to trademark bully SJP for no good reason comes out looking way better than the City Council for Los Angeles. It's also worth noting that for all the hand-wringing that takes place over the type of political speech allowed on campus by a certain segment of our population, it's been complete crickets when it comes to defending a pro-Palestinian group's rights.
One might nearly call that racist, were there not the worry that such a call would be labeled "hate speech."
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Filed Under: 1st amendment, conference, free speech, los angeles, national students for justice in palestine, palestine, trademark
Companies: ucla
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Paging Freud?
Indeed :D
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Arabs Are Semites Too
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Re: Arabs Are Semites Too
So if it's anti-Semitic to support Palestinians over Israelis, it's equally anti-Semitic to support Israelis over Palestinians. Judaism is a religion, not a race.
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Re: Re: Arabs Are Semites Too
That one always drives me crazy. If people want a different word for people of Jewish heritage only then think of a new word, don't use the same name as the religion.
People change religions, treating someone's birth religion as their race is harmful and unfair to them, especially in many 2nd and 3rd world countries where there's actual legal complications to changing religions.
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Re: Re: Re: Arabs Are Semites Too
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Re:
The far right adores Israel. Nazi Richard Spencer is a huge admirer of Israel as a model racist ethno-state.
They may hate Jews (as you appear to do), but they love what Israel represents.
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Re: Re:
Only part true. The "real right" who usually go by paleo-conservative or Populist, despise Israel for its murderous, manipulative, propagandizing while screaming they're the victims, and advocacy of usury in banking, with which they gained nuclear weapons and now blackmail the whole world.
We really need new, clear and fixed terms, but problem is that the terms have been hijacked. Indeed, actual Marxists like Bill Kristol just started calling themselves "the right", "neo-conservatives", and "Republicans" in the 80's, deliberately confusing. -- By the way, that was begun by William Buckley, a typical Ivy League commie who pretended to be a "conservative" to destroy the term.
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Re: Re: Re:
Kristol is a Marxist? How did you come to this conclusion?
Oh I see, you're a crazy person. Never mind.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Bill Kristol's father Irving Kristol was a card-carrying Communist (of the Trotskyist variety) before forging the Neoconservative movement, which was originally allied with Democrats (in particular, "Scoop" Jackson Democrats) before migrating to the Republican party, which they basically took over in the early 2000s. (Then after Trump emerged, many prominent Neocons migrated back to the Democratic party and supported Hillary Clinton over Trump.)
Actually, "Most Wanted Poster" seems to have a much deeper understanding of what's really going on behind the scenes in politics than the average "lemming on the street." Many adherents of subversive ideologies (of which Neoconservatism is just one of many) have traditionally disowned the things they really believe, while pretending to be part of a more mainstream movement in order to take it over from within.
Marxism is far from dead. It still infects many political and ideological movements.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So when are Kristol and the other neocons going to actually start advocating for communism? What are they waiting for? I mean, this is a really long game they're playing.
Actually, you are both showing classic signs of conspiratorial thinking: you think you're the few who really understand what's happening and everyone else is in the dark; you profess to have a deep understanding without being able to provide evidence; and I'm guessing you probably believe in various other conspiracy theories as well.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
He's woke, fool.
No chemtrails gettin' him, no way. They can't pick up his brain waves through the tin foil.
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Re: Israel as a model racist ethno-state.
If you remember, there was a UN report due to be released last year which was officially going to classify Israel as an apartheid state. Only it was suppressed after massive political pressure from you-know-who.
But it got out anyway.
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Re:
Some far right hate groups hate Israel and Jews yes. But among politicians the Far Right ones can't get enough of making themselves look like friends to Israel. Many Evangelicals (especially in the US) view siding with Israel as a way of protecting Christian holy land from the Muslims in the Middle East.
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Correct me if I'm wrong
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Re: Correct me if I'm wrong
Granted given the current jurisprudence it is doubtful that even 'incitement to violence against a protected class' would qualify when the standard is an incitement to imminent violence as when it is no longer free speech.
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Re: Re: Correct me if I'm wrong
…which is why hate speech laws, at least in the U.S., rarely get any traction in legislatures of all levels: The potential collateral damage that could be done to already-protected speech would outweigh any benefit gained by outlawing “hate speech”. The primary sticking point of any such proposition lies in its patently “vague” nature: What would qualify as hate speech, who would determine what qualifies, in what contexts would hate speech be legal to print/say, and how should we deal with pre-existing speech that would get dinged by a hate speech law if it were made after the passage of that law?
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Wow, that's Republican Legislation-level doublespeak there.
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Re: Republican Legislation-level doublespeak there.
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Re: Re: Republican Legislation-level doublespeak there.
Oh, wait, you're serious?
Let me laugh harder.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Whatever, Blue2.0
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There. You've covered the whole conflict.
But isn't even faint hint of the underlying cause, why Palestinian here must fight for clear rights.
It's because OVER THERE is a "nation" stolen from Palestinians, that has recently murdered hundreds and wounded thousands for the crime of protesting themselves locked up behind an apartheid wall:
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Israeli military shot over 500 Palestinians in the head during Gaza protests
http://mondoweiss.net/2018/05/military-palestinians-protests/
502 Palestinians were shot in the head and neck.
283 were shot in the chest and back.
225 were shot in the abdomen and pelvis.
938 were shot in the arm.
325 were shot in the leg.
Not even up to date, still going. Those were UNARMED protesters, distant, other side of The Wall, with the murdering / intentionally maiming snipers using special new expanding bullets from complete safety.
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Nor does it hint at:
Facebook's New Propaganda Partners
https://fair.org/home/facebooks-new-propaganda-partners/
> Glenn Greenwald (Intercept, 12/30/17) reported that "Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials."
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/facebook-says-it-is-deleting-accounts-at-the-directio n-of-the-u-s-and-israeli-governments/
--------
Israeli soldier gives 74-year-old Palestinian woman water then shoots her in the head
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20150120-israeli-soldier-gives-74-year-old-palestinian-woman-w ater-then-shoots-her-in-the-head/
> During the Israeli bombardment and shelling of the Gaza Strip last summer, an Israeli soldier approached a 74-year-old Palestinian woman Ghalya Abu-Rida to give her a sip of water. **He gave her the water, took a photo with her and then he shot her in the head from a distance of one metre.** He then watched as she bled to death, the Palestine Information Centre reported. This is how Ahmad Qdeh, a journalist in Al-Aqsa TV, described the scene that he witnessed during the latest Israeli aggression. The spokesman of the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, shared the photo of an Israeli soldier holding the water bottle and helping the old woman drink as an example of the "humanity" of the Israeli army towards the civilians in the Gaza Strip.
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BUT it'll be enough for Techdirt to claim that the whole conflict has been covered fully and fairly.
My underlying point here is to refute Masnick's claim today that he isn't "a partisan". Of course he is. He's a hidden partisan for views that he can't actually say in public. It's proven by the decades of what's NOT written up here, almost nothing anti-war or anti-Israel.
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Re: There. You've covered the whole conflict.
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Re: There. You've covered the whole conflict.
He's also pro-bestiality. It's proven by decades of him not writing pieces against bestiality.
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Re: Re: There. You've covered the whole conflict.
Oh snap!
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Section 230 & 1A from another direction:
First: Hey, fanboys: YES, this IS my web-site where I publish my views and you can LUMP IT! Techdirt is just the mechanism, the "platform" where I publish. MY right to use this site is what Section 230 actually establishes, but Masnick doesn't want to fully implement, instead asserts that he has full editorial control over all that's typed into the plain HTML box that he willingly provides. Now you can censor it away with the mechanism he also sneakily provides to disadvantage all speech that you / he don't approve of, but at least quit lying that you aren't censoring!
Anyhoo, above is another useful point:
Well, isn't THAT interesting? Guess no one will claim that university is actual gov't, and so you can't explain why it's "bound to comply with the First Amendment". But anyone who believes in free speech would naturally believe that all other "public" corporations are equally bound to comply, especially the "platforms" that were created for The Public to exercise their free speech on. But here at Techdirt, masnicks assert that public corporations are super-publishers, immune from liability for the content, while yet able to exercise full arbitrary control over all speech on "platforms". -- Oh, different, eh? No, shouldn't be. Isn't in fact: Masnick's assertions haven't actually been tested with good case. Supreme Court in Sandvik have already signaled that "platforms" are the new "public forums" and therefore not subject to corporate tyranny.
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Re: Section 230 & 1A from another direction:
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Re:
Not sure what you are babbling about, but I can absolutely explain why UCLA is bound to comply with the First Amendment.
UCLA is a public university and the main legal difference between a private university and a public university is where the operating funds come from. A public university is funded (at least in part) from the government and that makes it legally a "state actor".
This is well established in existing caselaw and has been for many years. So well established in fact, that it is rarely brought up in articles about these subjects because it is such common knowledge.
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Re: Re:
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Re: Re: Re:
Ok. I wasn't really sure if it was that way everywhere.
I know in my state we do vote for the Board of Regents for a couple of universities, but not for others that I'm pretty sure are public universities.
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Re: Re:
This is well established in existing caselaw ... it is rarely brought up in articles about these subjects because it is such common knowledge.
Maybe so, but do you have knowledge of an existing case in common law?
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Re: Section 230 & 1A from another direction:
Regarding the other part of your silly assertion, just because something is considered a "public space" that doesn't make them a "state actor".
For example, shopping mall common areas (lobbies, hallways, etc..) are considered "public spaces" even though they are mostly privately owned. You can be trespassed from these "public spaces" for any reason at all, including if they disagree with your speech (except in California where you been given some additional speech rights above and beyond the normal for the rest of country).
While this blog could, perhaps, be construed as a "public space" (that's really a stretch though, in my opinion) it is in no way whatsoever a "state actor" and therefore can limit your speech on this platform however they see fit.
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Re: Section 230 & 1A from another direction:
Well then, why don't you give it a go, Blue?
Go see a lawyer and ask them to sue Techdirt to force them to unhide all your comments you've made over the years and see how far it gets you.
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That's just cruel
Come now, I know lawyers get a bad rap at times, but (barring the Prendas of the field) do you really think they deserve that?
They'll end up hospitalized either from laughing themselves unconscious, or facepalming hard enough to cause a concussion.
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Save me, save me!
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Re: Save me, save me!
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Re: Save me, save me!
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Hate Speech Defined
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Hate Chain
No, you're not allowed to hate other people, but, yes, you're allowed to hate people who hate other people. For your hate speech to be "kosher," i.e., "not called hate speech,", you just got to know where to position your link in the chain-of-hate.
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No Such Thing as a ``Palestinian'' Flag
There may be some sort of affinity group, but there is no more a country of "Palestine" with a flag than there is a country of ``Central Arizona'' with a flag.
As for the bear, well, let me feign sympathy for the school. Images of bears are fairly common. Indeed, if memory serves, there is a bear on the state flag of the state where the school is located. Claiming control over bears, with or without kites, is an obvious over-reach.
[and who's idea was this "markdown" crud where you cannot even use proper quotes?]
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Re: No Such Thing as a ``Palestinian'' Flag
but there is no more a country of "Palestine" with a flag than there is a country of ``Central Arizona'' with a flag.
Or a country of "The International Red Cross" with a flag. Or a country of "The Boy Scouts of America" with a flag. Or a country of "The Holy See" with a flag.
Amazingly enough, all sorts of groups which are not government bodies have flags... though since 137 countries recognize the sovereign country of Palestine, whether or not it's a country is rather dependent on where you live.
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Re: Re: No Such Thing as a ``Palestinian'' Flag
Right. Like I said, there is no more a country of "Palestine" with a flag than there is a country of "Central Arizona" with a flag, though there may be some sort of affinity group.
For pretty much any such group, if they have art depicting a bear flying a kite in their preferred colors, it is hard to see a California state school having the power to restrict their use of that art. The challenge is getting good art, not a need for state permission from a state which uses a bear as one of its symbols.
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Re: No Such Thing as a ``Palestinian'' Flag
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hmmm
BTW 'from-the-horse's mouth' dept https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/11/13/only-jews-can-tell-the-truth-about-israel/
Only Jews Can Tell The Truth About Israel November 13, 2018
Imagine what would happen to Chomsky if he were a white gentile Chomsky Warns of the Rise of ‘Judeo-Nazi Tendencies’ in Israel
Prominent Jewish intellectual Noam Chomsky has raised concerns over what he believes is the rise of “Judeo-Nazi tendencies” in Israel. Speaking to i24NEWS last week, the renowned political dissident, linguist and scholar repeated warnings given by Yeshayahu Leibowitz, an Israeli public intellectual, biochemist and polymath, concerning the dehumanising effect of Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine on the victims and the oppressors.
Chomsky commented on remarks by Leibowitz who was nominated for the Israel Prize saying that “Leibowitz warned that if the occupation continues, Israeli Jews are going to turn into what he called, Judeo-Nazis”. Chomsky recognised the description was a “strong term” and that most people wouldn’t be able to get away with describing Israel in this manner but explained that Leibowitz’s status meant that he was able to speak about Israel without incurring fury...
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Required reading
The Palestinians are banned from the United States by the Anti-terrorism Act of 1987.
The Palestinians are a Nazi hate group. They are literal Nazis who advocated for the Final Solution and were armed by Adolph Hitler.
However, universities like to take "donations" from the Middle Eastern oil powers who are at war with Israel.
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Re: Required Reading
The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is banned from recieving government funds or assistance. Not "the Palestinians".
>> The Palestinians are a Nazi hate group. They are literal Nazis who advocated for the Final Solution and were armed by Adolph Hitler.
I mean, we are friends with Germany and Japan and Italy now, because 70 Years is a long time. It was the policy of the US Military to deny land, life and culture to native Americans through violence and we don't consider the United States a terrorist organization. I do not see why these facts free us from needing to think critically about modern Palestine.
>>However, universities like to take "donations" from the Middle Eastern oil powers who are at war with Israel.
I'm not sure largely what this article seems to "prove". You certainly believe nefarious intent, but aside from preaching tolerance, I am unsure how the center is involved in a "war" with Israel, or how this center has anything to do with the article.
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Re: Not "the Palestinians".
Thus are the seeds of genocide sown ...
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It's not about the pro-*, it's about the anti-*
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Re: The SJP is not actually very pro-Palestinian
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Re: Re: The SJP is not actually very pro-Palestinian
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