NY TIMES CHATBOT TEACHES YOU HOW TO OVERCOME VACCINE SKEPTICS. It appears to be an earnest attempt to teach people how to teach others to come to believe the “right” things, though I can’t escape the feeling that helping people overcome skepticism of government policy is just a super awkward fit for a newspaper.

RUTGERS LAW STUDENT GOVERNMENT: PROMOTE CRITICAL RACE THEORY OR ELSE. Apparently enjoying no access to First Amendment scholars, it’s engaging in viewpoint discrimination by denying funding to law student organizations unless they plan events “through the lens of Critical Race Theory, diversity and inclusion, or cultural competency.” I was in the Duke Law Drama Society. We put on Blithe Spirit. How you do that through the lens of critical race theory, I have no idea.

HOW COLLEGES SUPPRESS CURIOSITY: Effects like this are probably worse, long-term, than the political indoctrination. The political dimension is so obvious and in-your-face (especially now) that you can at least be aware of it — and people can always change their views. I’m not so sure you can restore curiosity once it’s been beaten out of a young person.

THESE ARE THE FOLKS WHO DECIDE IF YOU’RE NUTS: My friend, Duke emeritus professor John E. R. Staddon, has been banned from an American Psychological Association email listserv for violating its circa-2019 “Code of Conduct,” which I am 100% sure was totally adopted based on SCIENCE and not as a transparent attempt to enforce ideological conformity. In true SCIENCE fashion, these SCIENCE-oriented people failed to point to what exactly got him banned, because specific evidence is totally unnecessary for SCIENCE, leaving him to guess it was the following shocking and intemperate remark: “Hmm… Binary view of sex false? What is the evidence? Is there a Z chromosome?” (Staddon, an Englishman, is one of the politest people I know.)

But then, I am just some lawyer and not an important SCIENCE man like Jonathon Crystal, Mark Krause, and Tony Puente, the “Presidential Trio” who announced Staddon’s ban. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go not wear a mask because it will make things worse wear a mask even if I can’t breathe or else I will die wear at least two masks unless I am outside, because you gotta defer to the SCIENCE.

BIDEN TO NOMINATE CATHERINE LHAMON TO LEAD EDUCATION DEPT’S OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS. She was the head of OCR under Obama, and was the primary person responsible for all of the Obama Administration’s Title IX policy. I wrote a short book about how well this policy worked, called Twisting Title IX.

EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT THE END TIMES, BUT NOBODY DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT. The Center for Applied Eschatology aims to change that. From its FAQ:

Q: Why do you want to end the world?
A: CAE is devoted to practical, pragmatic solutions. We’re interested in the how, not the why.

We can’t keep waiting around in our gas lines (or, for folks unfortunate enough to be anywhere near the Capitol on January 6, jail) for the SMOD to make good on its string of broken promises.

DISPATCHES FROM THE CARTER BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: As I sat in a gas line discovering my parents’ 70s experience here in North Carolina today, I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if the NSA and our other “intelligence” agencies had spent more of their time helping companies defend vital infrastructure like pipelines and less building giant facilities so they can illegally spy on Americans? It’s not like they didn’t know this was a problem.

Update: Sorry for basically replicating Ed’s post from 12 minutes ago; I was late because of the dang line for gas! Shoulda bought that Tesla, my power is nuclear…

CENTRAL MICHIGAN U. FORCES PROF OUT FOR QUOTING THE N-WORD. Prof. Timothy Boudreau, having settled his lawsuit, speaks out for the first time about his concerns. His “crime?” Pronouncing the forbidden words while quoting and discussing important First Amendment cases like Matal v. Tam and Dambrot v. CMU (the latter, an early campus speech code case, even involved his own institution).

This is how you make a generation dumber and more easily led.

FACEBOOK “SUPREME COURT” UPHOLDS TRUMP BAN: But says the decision must be reviewed in six months. That “time limit” is a clever way of trying to limit his reach while recognizing a reality that social media companies and the political establishment will have to face, but that nobody talks about. If Trump decides to run again in 2024, they keep him banned from their platforms, and he loses, there will be no way to convince his supporters that the election was fair — because it wouldn’t be. And if he were to win in spite of the bans, they would have to expect severe revenge from his supporters. This is a very dangerous game they’re playing, and I see no evidence that they are even aware of it. But self-awareness is not Silicon Valley’s strong point.

IN AMERICA, YOU VISIT SPACE STATION. In Communist China, SPACE STATION VISITS YOU!

(Apologies to Yakov Smirnoff.)

U. OF PENNSYLVANIA CAPITULATES; APPROVES HUNTING, ARCHERY, AND SHOOTING CLUB. Penn’s bogus COVID holdup of approving even remote meetings for the new group was ultimately shot down by pressure from FIRE and attorney Patricia Hamill. Its efforts clicked on an open chamber. Penn’s quiver of excuses ran dry. This attempt at viewpoint discrimination misfired. I have lots more of these, folks.

MUSK SAYS “A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WILL PROBABLY DIE” GETTING TO MARS; BUNCH OF NINNIES ON EARTH UPSET. There is absolutely no way to make a trip to Mars, or living on Mars, “safe,” at least at the beginning. Exploration never has been safe – but it’s still worth it. I’d guess that proportionally, far fewer people will die exploring the Final Frontier than any frontier on Earth. (And before you ask, yes, I’d go to Mars if they’d let me!)

GOING ON ALL DAY: CHECK OUT STUDENT FREE SPEECH DEBATES FROM ARIZONA’S PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES. Live all day today starting at noon Eastern, both Oxford- and storytelling-style. At 3:30 PM ET, catch the keynote address, where I interview Prof. Keith Whittington of Princeton and the Academic Freedom Alliance. (I’m also one of the judges.) And kudos to Arizona’s public universities, all of which have a green light for free speech policies from FIRE, and to the Arizona regents for the unique Regents’ Cup competition.

HM ROYAL CANADIAN CONSTABULARY IS GETTING WEAPONS OF WAR OFF THE STREETS! The US needs this kind of common sense gun control.

OK, OK, cheap shot, I guess. Toronto authorities also show off the more modern weapons they seize.

For once, the Twitter comments on these posts are actually kinda worth reading…

YOU CAN’T STOP THE SIGNAL (MESSENGER PROGRAM): Cellebrite creates some of the software governments use to spy on all of us. The makers of Signal are pushing back hard by hacking them right back. If only literally any other tech company or organization would have this kind of spine!

This tech dystopia has been extremely disappointing. We were promised The Matrix or Person of Interest or, at the very least, Sneakers, and instead we got Nextdoor telling you it’s racist to post “Blue Lives Matter” as though it’s 1. not cartoonishly arrogant to do so and 2. a totally normal thing to insult your customers and decide their political views are any of your damn business.

USD PROF SUGGESTS CHINESE GOVERNMENT MIGHT BE LYING ABOUT COVID, INVESTIGATION RESULTS. Of the American professor, of course, not the Chinese government, even though the University of San Diego promises free expression. If you’d like, you can help FIRE hold USD accountable by emailing to remind it to live up to its own promises.

“GHOST GUN” RESTRICTIONS ARE A SICK JOKE: While the Biden Administration frets over the supposed problem of “ghost guns” (This heavy-breathing ABA report on how DIY guns are so dangerous is shockingly light on violence actually committed with such guns), for many years gun owners have known that the feds treat the actual felony crime of lying on the background check form as a total joke. To be clear, dealers won’t run the check at all if you check one of the boxes that would make you ineligible, such as “have you been convicted of a felony?” Yet here are the stats from a GAO report on how this was treated in 2017:

Federal “NICS” Instant Background Check Transactions: 8,606,286
Denials: 112,090 (These are not necessarily always correct, and one can appeal, but most of these are because the person is legally ineligible and lied on the form.)
ATF Field Division Investigations: 12,710 (This happens when the local ATF is so concerned about you trying to buy a gun that they actually investigate it.)
United States Attorney’s Offices Prosecutions: 12.

That’s not a typo. In the entire United States of America in all of 2017, the feds prosecuted 12 people TOTAL out of probably more than 100,000 people who illegally tried to buy a gun, committing a felony crime while doing so for which the government already has all of the evidence necessary to convict — with 12,710 of those alarming enough that local ATF agents spent even more time on them.

Here’s a thought: if the government is so concerned about the “epidemic of gun violence,” how about it prosecute 100% of the people who signed a form evidencing their felonious attempt to get a gun (it’s not even a trap; the form itself warns you about this more than once) and see what happens? Instead, we are left to ponder what kind of sick people running our “justice” system see this kind of low-hanging fruit that could easily be used to clean up our streets and say, “eh, who cares?”

IT’S PROBABLY TIME TO STOP USING GOOGLE CHROME: EFF reports that a new kind of ad targeting is being released to random users, and the only solution to opt out is a bad one. (If you want to opt in, you conveniently need do nothing.) Probably the most mainstream drop-in replacement is Brave, which is what I use, and which works perfectly with most Chrome extensions, but there are other options as well. Note: you may want to avoid using Firefox after its maker, Mozilla, came out in favor of even “more than deplatforming” on the Internet earlier this year.

FUTILITARIANISM: That feeling when you have to judge a man who is accused of a crime but who doesn’t appear to be guilty but the elites and the mob want him dead so you decide to kill him anyway because it seems like it will pacify the mob and make the problem go away but then he comes back after three days and 2000 years later 2,300,000,000 people are still worshipping him.

Another Bible story with a lesson and reminder that work outside the religious context, too — and one that our “judges” at all levels need today more than ever. And Happy Easter, everyone!

FACEBOOK BAN ON PRESIDENT TRUMP EXTENDS TO INTERVIEWS OF TRUMP: At least if you are a member of “Team Trump,” affiliated with some campaign, or even a “former surrogate” (like there aren’t plenty of those hostile to the former president). And you will be punished if you don’t comply. This is an extremely bad idea in every way and it’s gonna get real weird if Trump runs for office (or is elected!) again. If you can imagine a world where such a situation doesn’t lead to an overreaching regulatory backlash by governments to prevent this, you have a better imagination than I do. Just imagine how this conversation’s going to go:

2024 Democrat Voter: “Trump loses again! The people have spoken!”
2024 Trump Voter: “You are telling me that this was a fair election and that I should think that this represents the will of the people when three giant companies colluded to ban my candidate from even appearing on the platforms where I get most of my news?”

How does that conversation end with any kind of agreement or shared sense of legitimacy of the U.S. government? Back away from the brink, folks!

HOSANNA! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. For Christians, Palm Sunday marks Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Yet in only 5 days, he would die in the the most infamous unfair trial in all of history. Lots of lessons in this, of course, but it’s noteworthy how 2000-year-old repression and injustice doesn’t look all that different from today. Even on Palm Sunday itself, those representing the authorities of the time demanded Jesus stop his followers from spreading the word about “the mighty works” they had seen: “And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.'” He refused: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

An example worth following.

6TH CIRCUIT RULES FOR PROF WHO REFUSED TO USE PREFERRED PRONOUNS. I am still reading the opinion, but looks like very good news for free speech on campus. (Judge Thapar, who authored the opinion and has been great on campus speech and due process, went to my high school in Toledo, though a few years before I did. Hometown pride!)

IOWA STATE GIVES THE CORRECT ANSWER TO COMPLAINT ABOUT 3D PRINTED FIREARM EVENT. A few years back, FIRE sued Iowa State over censorship of a marijuana legalization student group; seems (for now) like it got the message. Free speech is for everyone!

AP: FOUR-STORY, 50-TON MARBLE TABLET OF FIRST AMENDMENT FINDS NEW HOME IN PHILLY. Written so big that government bureaucrats can read it without their spectacles. Bonus: right across Independence Mall from FIRE HQ!

MSNBC: HEY, NO BIGGIE, JUST AN ARMED REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT THAT WANTS A BLACK ETHNOSTATE. They keep saying it’s for “defense,” but the leader literally says the end goal is an ethnostate with “our own government, our own country.” I have lots of questions, such as: what happens to any non-black people who happen to live inside the ethnostate’s borders? If MSNBC asked, they sure didn’t show the response. Puts the events of January 6 in some real perspective, doesn’t it?