BIG STATE, BIG MISTAKE: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been signing a lot of bills into law that are good news for fans of limited government (like re-legalizing lemonade stands), but he made a big mistake signing these campus sexual harassment bills. In Texas, not only is sexual harassment now officially up to the most sensitive person on campus (no “reasonable person” requirement), but if you are a professor who doesn’t report this defective form of “harassment” to the campus Title IX apparatchiks, you can actually go to jail (Class B misdemeanor, up to 180 days in the slammer). Texas can, and must, do a lot better, because this just enshrined unconstitutional speech codes into state law.

TERMINATED HARVARD FACULTY DEAN WHO REPRESENTED WEINSTEIN SPEAKS OUT: Harvard prof and well-known attorney Ronald Sullivan, who (along with his wife) was defenestrated as faculty dean of Harvard’s Winthrop House after students complained that his decision to represent Harvey Weinstein made them “unsafe,” has released a video making it clear that Harvard has betrayed both its and America’s principles and that he’s not done with this situation. Harvard administrators have provided their own explanation, as per usual.

ARE WE A BAD INFLUENCE ON WORLD HIGHER ED, OR VICE VERSA? As a pro-America chauvinist when it comes to law and philosophy, I generally see Europe, Canada, etc. as a bad influence on our commercial republic of yeoman farmers. But when it comes to clamping down on academic freedom in higher ed, the influence really looks to be going the other way.

BLACKFACE STILL EMBARRASSING IN NEBRASKA: Unlike some other states. But one Nebraska university engaged in its own embarrassing behavior by suspending a librarian simply for posting pictures of students in blackface at a 1926(!) campus party. Lesson learned: Never make the “wrong” decision about what goes down the memory hole.

NYT ENDS POLITICAL CARTOONS: Regardless of what you think of the Netanyahu cartoon that seems to have spurred this decision, there is no way to make the case that the nation’s most prominent paper giving up on this historically powerful medium says anything good about the current free speech environment. My advice to anyone who cares about free speech:

TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT HAS A CHANCE TO AVOID A BIG MISTAKE: Two bills awaiting his signature would not only give Texas colleges an unconstitutional (and incorrect) definition of sexual harassment, but promise to send professors to jail for failing to report said non-harassment. Crazy.

YOUTUBE TO REMOVE THOUSANDS OF “EXTREMIST” VIDEOS, CHANNELS: I am sure Google will stun us all with its competent, considered, and nonpartisan decisions on such matters, in keeping with its traditions.

SOMEONE “DEMONIZED” ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ! DESTROY THAT DEMON’S LIFE! A Washington Post sportspolitics column written with a wild lack of self-awareness – or maybe a brilliant parody. Hiding blatant power politics behind transparent protestations of principle is setting Americans at one another’s throats. If it doesn’t stop, something’s going to give.

DOUBLE (x85) STANDARDS AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE: Williams College’s student government has recognized around 170 student groups. But in a blatant example of viewpoint discrimination, it has refused to recognize the Williams Initiative for Israel. (Student for Justice in Palestine is recognized, along with many other interest-based clubs.) President Maud Mandel has ensured the club can  meet on campus, but has stopped short of ensuring they are actually treated equally in terms of funding, etc. Today, you can join FIRE in calling on President Mandel to step up and put an end to this separate but unequal treatment.

UPDATE: We’re hearing that Williams may have found a way around the student government. That was quick!

ARE YOU A FED-UP FACULTY MEMBER? Given the shameful business over Ronald Sullivan (my take for FIRE here), you probably should be. Why not do something about it? Submit a paper proposal to FIRE’s faculty conference at Boston University this October and you could get a $3,000 honorarium for doing the research work necessary to advance academic freedom.

OBVIOUS SYNERGIES: Why not pair the “knife missile” in Stephen Green’s post below with the chainsaw-wielding, carbon-based-lifeform-eating EATR robot from a few years back for maximum medieval-style terror? I suggest this only so Skynet will kill me last.

FIRST HE CAME FOR THE FRATERNITIES… Now Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana shows up to a sit-in protesting African-American law professor Ronald Sullivan. Sullivan is allegedly unfit to be “faculty dean” of Harvard’s Winthrop House because he, a defense lawyer, agreed to defend Harvey Weinstein in court. And this is after Khurana had already commissioned a “climate review” of the dorm “asking students to rate the house on a variety of metrics like homophobia, elitism, and friendliness.” At Dean WormerKhurana’s Harvard, everyone who crosses political correctness is on Double Secret Probation, forever.

TRINITY COLLEGE HITS A NEW LOW: This week, after Trinity’s student government rejected the student Churchill Club because of its focus on Western civilization, allegedly sinister conservative “rhetoric,” etc., administrators recognized the club so it could at least reserve space, even if it would still not be treated equally in terms of funding. Today, the student government went ballistic over the issue, launching a Change.org petition (nearly 700 signatures so far!) demanding that its power to engage in malicious and discriminatory censorship be respected. It even scheduled an actual, physical protest against the ability of students to disagree with the campus political orthodoxy.

FIRE has launched an email campaign aimed at stiffening the spine of Trinity administrators in the face of these nauseating demands for censorship. Please feel free to let Trinity’s president know your opinion – and if you know any Trinity alums, please pass it on!

MIDDLEBURY STUDENT GOVERNMENT DOUBLES DOWN: In the wake of Middlebury’s latest speaker disinvitation, its student government officially demands that those hosting speakers be made to fill out a “due diligence form” issued by the diversity office in order to “remov[e] the burden of researching speakers from the student body.” That’s not even the worst part of what, without a trace of irony, it calls “proposals for community healing.”

POPULATION BOMBED! Ever since Malthus, one environmental panic after another has been driven by the idea that there are just too many people on the Earth. Now comes a book from Profs. Pierre Derochers and Joanna Szurmak, who I had the pleasure of meeting in person, that goes a long way towards explaining why we’re not dead yet – and how the pessimists just keep getting it so wrong.

YOUR KID IS NEXT: Hans Bader breaks down why the criminal charges against an Ohio high school senior for ranking the appearances of female classmates on Twitter are unconstitutional. (The actual tweets, as per usual, have been memory-holed, but a few are listed here.) The level of totalitarianism in public high schools is bad enough already without the police piling on. But after the Internet hate machine gets done with this kid – or yours – will anyone, including the legal system, care?

MIDDLEBURY CANCELS POLISH POLITICIAN’S SPEECH: 55 grand in tuition apparently doesn’t leave enough for Middlebury to keep you safe if you’re a student who wants to hear from a speaker with the “wrong” views. I’d say Middlebury admins should be embarrassed to have this happen after the violence over Charles Murray in 2017, but I see no evidence that they’re capable of embarrassment. (Assuming they’re not just using a fake safety rationale to cancel the speech, of course.)

TIMELINE: HOW A SCHOOL GOES GREEN: Not in the ecological sense, but in terms of eliminating unconstitutional speech codes and getting a green light from FIRE. At N.C. State, it took 10 years – but it got there.

“NAZI-PUNCHING” IS STILL A BAD IDEA EVEN IF CBS IS ENCOURAGING IT: I don’t watch “The Good Fight” on CBS’s online network, so I don’t know the full context of this clip. Maybe the main character monologuing here is shown to have done the wrong thing, or is the bad guy. I can hope, anyway. But apparently the episode aired the very same evening that a protester at the University of Missouri-Kansas City engaged in his own version by spraying chemicals on Daily Wire writer Michael Knowles for giving a speech titled “Men are Not Women.” We’re going to live to regret this cultural moment.

CORNELL HAS A REUNION SPEECH CODE: A FIRE supporter passed this along to us today, saying he found it highly insulting. I can see why. Its threats of “consequences for unacceptable behavior” sound like a parent scolding a child.

Cornell sent this infantilizing pamphlet to alums attending their 55th class reunion. But don’t worry, Big Higher Ed assures us there’s no problem.

EMILY YOFFE: “JOE BIDEN IS NOW LIVING IN THE WORLD OF ACCUSATION HE HELPED TO CREATE:” When it comes to due process, what goes around comes around, and it’s coming around fast, in historical terms. If only someone could have foreseen such an occurrence.

SURVEY ON POLITICAL IMPEDIMENTS TO RESEARCH FREEDOM: If you are a faculty member (of any rank) at an American college or university, and you have a few moments, please help me (and FIRE) out by taking a quick survey on how political or ideological pressure might affect your research. I would greatly value your input. Thanks!

KENTUCKY BANS CAMPUS FREE SPEECH ZONES, DISCRIMINATORY SECURITY FEES: Campus censors hardest hit! The University of Kentucky, Morehead State, and Murray State will all need to rewrite their policies.

WHY COLLEGES LIKE TRUMP’S CAMPUS SPEECH ORDER: That sure isn’t what their lobbyists are saying, but I hope I’m wrong and Bauerlein is right!

COULD ANYTHING BE WORSE THAN DISAGREEMENT? When it comes to learning, lots of things are worse, as the longstanding partnership of Princeton’s Robbie George and Cornel West demonstrates. One of the many overlooked crimes of the campus language and feelings police is that they have conned students into thinking that intelligent disagreement is not only not fun – a lie – but that it’s painful, even harmful. George and West are showing us a way out, if anyone cares to take it.