FROM THE U. OF NORTH CAROLINA SCHOOLS: “UPDATED MISSION STATEMENTS, COMRADE!” Weirdly, though (for these days), the news is not uniformly bad, with Appalachian State actually reining in some DEI-speak. But the Board of Governors should really be asking pointed questions about this stuff.

VIRGINIA DEMOCRAT LEGISLATOR TO FLOAT BILL TO CRIMINALLY PROSECUTE PARENTS WHO DON’T AFFIRM THEIR KIDS AS TRANSGENDER. “It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know that CPS charge could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays many people do a CPS database search before offering employment.”

At this point we’re in a race to see whether Russian nukes or deliberately turning the culture war hot destroys this country first.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: YOU CAN PLAY DOOM ON NOTEPAD.EXE NOW. Good, I was sick of playing it on my printer.

“RON SWANSON WOULD NOT BE IMPRESSED.” FIRE is demanding a Pennsylvania county parks & rec department allow a political candidate to collect ballot signatures in a public park or get sued. There is no more basic First Amendment right. The fact that such a threat is necessary is appalling, and is just another piece of evidence that at every level, too many government actors have become completely dismissive of even our most obvious rights.

TIME TO KILL THE LSAT? I have a hard time imagining that I did better on it after college than I would have before college, or that it measured anything different from the SAT – but with all the crummy lawyers out there, I am not sure making it still easier to become a lawyer is a great idea.

However, it’s undeniable that the law has become FAR too complicated for average people to navigate without constantly risking being totally bamboozled. It may be time for us to license a class of “lawyer techs” that can charge prices people will actually pay for routine yet complicated issues.

FIRE COMES OUT AGAINST (NOT SO) SOFT CENSORSHIP BY PAYMENT PROCESSORS. “When payment processing services act as political hall monitors or moral arbiters deciding what speech and viewpoints are out of bounds, they present a grave threat to free expression.”

I can tell you, from working there for 19 years (I was executive director, now I’m a Senior Fellow after moving to private practice), FIRE does not take positions like this lightly. We care deeply about private organizations’ right to expression, or we wouldn’t be free speech advocates. But the danger presented by the concerted efforts to choke off dissent in this nation, through means both private and public, is hard to overstate. When I started at FIRE in 2003, the only place Americans were likely to experience censorship was a college campus, and the victims were justifiably outraged about it. Thanks to Big Tech thought policing, hundreds of thousands (maybe millions?) of victims each year are added to that total. Those who think this can continue forever are fools who will drive us this country off a cliff if they don’t stop ASAP.

AT DAVIDSON COLLEGE: “FAILING INTRODUCTORY ECONOMICS.” Though given that not even Western governments can grasp supply and demand anymore, maybe the students are just following the trend.

“NY JUDGE RULES POLYGAMY ON SAME LEVEL AS COUPLE RELATIONSHIPS.” I actually thought polygamy would be the next big thing after Obergefell, rather than the explosion of trans issues. Polygamy is an ancient practice, and I have no idea how, under current law, one can sustainably justify (for example) telling a devout Jordanian Muslim that in this country, two men can get married, but that three of the four wives he married in Jordan simply don’t count.

For an even more fun thought experiment, imagine trying to explain the moral case for that distinction to one of his wives, whose marriage our laws have totally erased. Enjoy!

RICH VEDDER ON THE HYPOCRISY OVER AMY WAX AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. A government with a clue would have coupled its illegal student loan jubilee with an illegal immediate ceiling on how much federal loan money students may borrow for school. If we can’t have rule of law (and it looks like we can’t), at least the eternal spiral in college costs and college wealth would come to an abrupt end.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE TEXAS SOCIAL MEDIA ANTI-CENSORSHIP CASE. Without even reading 113 pages!

WHICH N.C. SCHOOLS HAVE BIAS RESPONSE TEAMS? My alma mater Duke, of course, has them, and yet somehow the “bias” continues. Weird, huh? Honestly, you ought to be ashamed to be on one of these teams.

TWILIO ANNOUNCES 11% OF EMPLOYEES WILL LOSE JOBS IN ‘ANTI-RACIST’ LAYOFFS. So what you’re saying is that you laid off people based on their skin color. Awesome tactic there. Employment lawyers should be rubbing their hands with glee.

“WHY THE CANON WARS STILL MATTER.” Seriously, just say no to any further changes. Anyone who thinks at this point that the remnants of our culture need even MORE “deconstruction” is self-evidently nuts.

FOUR MAJOR PROBLEMS IN THE PROPOSED TITLE IX REGS: We briefly hit on two attacks on free speech and two on due process in our firm’s comment to the Department of Education about regulatory proposals that would roll back Trump-era Title IX reforms. It’s amazing how much precedent ED simply ignored. This might prove a bonanza for lawyers like me–in civil rights lawsuits, losing state insitutions pay the plaintiff’s fees–but it’s a terrible idea for colleges, students, taxpayers, and for our country.

And if you’re up for a much more comprehensive analysis of the proposed regs, check out FIRE’s comment as well.

LET THE LAWSUITS BEGIN! After 19 years at FIRE, the last few of them as executive director, today I moved into private practice at the law firm of Allen Harris, where I’ll continue my advocacy for students and faculty members in free speech and due process cases–but as their personal attorney. (Anyone at FIRE can tell you that individual cases were always my favorite kind of work.) Happily, I also get to continue writing and speaking on FIRE’s behalf as a FIRE Senior Fellow, so I will continue posting plenty of FIRE news here on Instapundit. And for the many readers who have supported FIRE over the years, thank you–and I hope you’ll keep doing so!

EAST CAROLINA U. TO N.C. TAXPAYERS: DROP DEAD. Land acknowledgements (you’d give the land back if you really thought you stole it), CRT, “inclusion” that just happens to mostly tell dissenters to shut up, you name it, at ECU’s faculty convocation this year. Wait a month and they’ll undoubtedly be upset that the state won’t give them more money, and totally mystified as to why.

THIS IS FINE. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS DEFINITELY NOT EVIL. If you need me, I’ll be in my demon-proof bunker.

JUST OUT: FIRE’S 2022-23 CAMPUS FREE SPEECH RANKINGS. With adminstrative behavior (such as disinvitation successes or professor punishments) now a part of the rankings, the University of Chicago retakes its place as #1, while Columbia University brings up the rear at an abysmal #203.

CLOUDFLARE GIVES IN AGAIN, THIS TIME TO ‘STOCHASTIC TERRORISM’ TYPE BALONEY. After putting up a big front about how they’re not going to deny people DDOS protection anymore, they do it anyway, even though it’s against their business interests, common sense, and even their own inclinations. Why does this keep happening? (Beware – it’s a Verge article, which I link only so you can see what the self-proclaimed great and good are telling themselves this week.)

I used to be confused about why we can’t even count on Adam Smith-style capitalist self-interest anymore. Increasingly, the only answer that makes sense is that someone with real, physical power is telling these Master of the Universe types (or just “implying” it, har har) that they had better do what they’re told, if they know what’s good for them. Mark Zuckerberg knows what I’m talking about…

BIDEN AT INDEPENDENCE HALL ON THURSDAY TO GIVE A PRIMETIME SPEECH ON “THE SOUL OF THE NATION.” Will it be what’s obviously needed from our leaders right now, which is “with malice towards none, with charity for all?” It will be interesting to see what Biden thinks is the “soul” of being an American.

A DECADE AFTER FUKUSHIMA DISASTER, FOES OF NUCLEAR POWER RECONSIDER. “‘As much as I think it is wrong to go into nuclear power, I have to ask myself this question,’ German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said this weekend at an open government day in Berlin. ‘It is complex.'”

It is not complex. Green Party member Robert Habeck and people like him are not fools. They are actively anti-human Marxists who are reconsidering things now only because they are worried that they will get the Ceaușescu treatment when the people they rule finally realize who sentenced them to freezing in the dark. Unless it’s Latin America or Africa, that’s always what the Communists end up doing to you.

GOTTA PAY FOR THE STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS SOMEHOW, I GUESS. “In upholding the constitutionality of [the National Park Service’s] permit and fee regime, the [D.C. circuit] court drew a bewildering distinction between the act of filming and other steps in ultimately communicating through film, holding that recording video “involves merely a noncommunicative step in the production of speech… Ansel Adams would enjoy full First Amendment protection to exhibit his famous National Park photos, but not in taking them.”

LIZ CHENEY’S NET WORTH BALLOONED AS MUCH AS 600 PERCENT DURING HER TIME IN OFFICE. From $7m to $44m. Of course, this is hardly confined to Cheney, but given the bipartisan nature of these suspicious wealth increases, you’d think the media would be more on top of it. I remember when Congressmen bouncing 4-figure checks was a big deal.

CAN THE UK SHOW US A BETTER WAY TO TEACH LAW? Maybe, though I strongly suspect that the only real way to deal with lawyers being so expensive and yet necessary is to have many fewer laws.

ALL IS PROCEEDING AS ANY IDIOT COULD HAVE FORESEEN.

1. Canada socializes healthcare.
2. Canada legalizes euthanasia.
3. The Canadian government-controlled health care establishment realizes, “Hey, wait a minute, it’s cheaper if these people die, let’s pressure them into it.”
4. “Euthanasia” is now Canada’s sixth-leading cause of death.

At no point does it seem to have occurred to anyone that giving the government strong financial incentive to want you dead was a bad idea.