Students Banned from Handing Out Flyers Critical of Obama, Bush, Che Guevara

First Amendment rights violated at Dixie State University

BY: Mary Lou Byrd
March 6, 2015 11:45 am

Three students have filed a lawsuit against Dixie State University in St. George, Utah, claiming their First Amendment rights were violated when flyers they made promoting their student club were censored by school officials.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is assisting with the lawsuit, which was filed this week against the university. Dixie State disapproved of promotional flyers by the student group Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), which negatively portrayed Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

The flyers were not approved because the school policy does not permit students to “disparage” or “mock individuals.”

Three students from YAL—William Jergins, Joey Gillespie, and Forrest Gee—are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and the eight defendants are school officials including the president of Dixie and the Dean of Students.

Jergins, the president of YAL, told the Washington Free Beacon by email he was “extremely taken back by the denial of the posters,” and he “never expected that posting a flyer that was critical of Che Guevara, an internationally recognized war criminal and mass murderer, would be a problem.”

“I was extremely disappointed by the decision to deny our flyers advertising our club meetings and events. This was especially hard because we were getting such a late start to the semester,” said Jergins. He said YAL is new on campus and it took a month for the club to get approval to operate on campus.

“We’re a politically oriented club that doesn’t hold the same beliefs of either major party,” Jergins said. “As such, people often have very little clue who we are or what we believe in. Everyone knows what Bush and Obama believe. Saying we disagree with both Bush and Obama is then often the quickest way to couch what we do believe into terms that everyone will immediately grasp.”

The denial of the flyers “represented a blanket denial of the expression of our beliefs in the way that we felt would be most readily understood and accepted by our fellow students,” Jergins said.

The lawsuit claims Dixie State has “adopted and enforced excessive restrictions on the rights of students organizations, and limited student speech in open areas of the campus.” The university refused to allow the plaintiffs to post the flyers with the unflattering depictions of Bush, Obama and Guevara because Dixie State “does not allow students to ‘disparage’ others,” the lawsuit states.

“Dixie State is a public university bound by the First Amendment, and the First Amendment is quite clear that you have the unequivocal right to criticize or mock political figures,” said FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff in a prepared statement.

“One has to wonder how Dixie State students can engage in serious political discussions—or any discussion at all—when they are forced to follow the university’s ridiculous policies, which go so far as to forbid any poster in a residence hall that students or administrators can claim creates an ‘uncomfortable’ environment,” Lukianoff said.

Aside from the censorship of the flyers, Dixie State also restricts free speech to a certain small area of campus, the lawsuit alleges.

“Dixie State unconstitutionally restricts access to open areas on campus for expressive activities by requiring that students request permission to speak several weeks in advance. And once approved, plaintiffs were relegated to a previously unknown “free speech zone” that comprises only around 0.1 percent of Dixie State University’s 100-acre campus,” states the lawsuit.

Dixie has specific guidelines for students’ materials, and indicates the university has the right to remove any materials that do not adhere to the its guidelines.

“Materials must be in good taste (FCC guidelines), adhere to campus policy, look professional, and not detract from the campus appearance. Dixie State University reserves the right to remove any posted materials that do not meet our posting guidelines,” Dixie’s policy states. It also says that “materials may not single out any individual group or entities in a derogatory manner.”

“As far as Dixie State’s policy of not disparaging specific individuals with flyers or advertising materials, I would ask the administration to look at the principles this nation was founded on,” Jergins said. “The First Amendment doesn’t include an exception for our political leaders for a reason. Our leaders should be subject to scrutiny.

“It is every American’s right to look at the most powerful office in the nation and say firmly that they disagree with the persons in that office or their policies. The University should celebrating these acts of free and open inquiry that promote discussion and learning, not banning them, and not threatening punishment to those who are brave enough to stand up and say they disagree with the status quo.”

The students’ federal lawsuit seeks the elimination of Dixie State’s speech codes.

According to FIRE, Dixie State’s YAL chapter is not the first group of students subjected to Dixie State’s “restrictive” speech codes. In 2013, the university made headlines for refusing to recognize any non-academic student group that used the Greek alphabet in its name—in spite of FIRE’s multiple warnings that this policy violated the First Amendment.

Judge Who Voted To Censor “Innocence of Muslims” is a Barnyard Porn Pervert

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals got in trouble for putting up “a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal” on his website, but the moral judge drew the line at videos that offend Muslims writing an absurd opinion that has no basis in copyright law.

When the morally superior Judge “Cow” Kozinki isn’t taking a wrecking ball to our freedoms by ordering Google to take down videos, he’s posting photos of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal on his website.

Chief Judge Alex KozinskiThe dhimmi Judge who ordered Google to take down the YouTube video that set off  our now constant companion, the hair-trigger violence of the Muslim world, is a pervert who won’t offend Muslims but thinks nothing of degrading women and sharing his predilection for bestiality. Selective censorship, Judge Moo.

The craven cowardice of the 9th Circuit’s ruling was a craven capitulation to the dictates of the sharia was based on technical copyright law. Imagine if every actor and actress sued to remove a film where the  producer changed the story or their lines were dubbed: we’d have very little cinema (with the crap Hollywood produces these days, not an altogether bad thing). The ruling was an affront to every freedom-loving American. Did Cindy Lee Garcia sign a release or did she not? And if she didn’t, why not just blur out her craggy face out and give us all a break?

Mark Nakoula, the filmmaker behind the controversial film, “Innocence of Muslims,” and William J. Becker, Jr., president and CEO of FreedomX, a nonprofit public interest law firm supporting conservative and Christian freedom of expression, counsel for Nakoula, are available to the media to respond to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling yesterday requiring YouTube to remove the video.

“The Ninth Circuit’s opinion overreaches and pretends to protect the rights of an actress, who claims to have been targeted by death threats, by ordering the removal of an entire movie trailer that has been up since 2012,” said Becker. “The court could have ordered the removal of Garcia’s appearance without having to censor the entire trailer or its message.”

Becker added: “Garcia’s identity is already publicly available to anyone who wants to learn it. Removing the film from YouTube will not alleviate the alleged harm Garcia claims she will suffer. In the end, this ruling amounts to nothing more than censorship of unpopular speech the First Amendment specifically protects.”

Becker stated that a tidal wave of misinformation about Nakoula is circulating online and in the media. “The Obama Administration apologized for our First Amendment rights when it had Nakoula arrested in the middle of the night simply for exercising his constitutional rights.”

Garcia Film of innocence film The great battle against the Innocence of Muslims trailer has finally been won thanks to a ruling by “Cow Sex” Chief Judge Kozinski. By Daniel Greenfield, February 27, 2016

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals got in trouble for putting up “a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal” on his website, but the moral judge drew the line at videos that offend Muslims writing an absurd opinion that has no basis in copyright law.

Joining the “cow sex” judge in his illegal decision was Clinton judge Ronald M. Gould. Judge N.R. Smith, appointed by President Bush, despite Barbara Boxer’s best efforts, however rightly dissented from the decision, by pointing out that, “the plaintiff did not establish a likelihood that she had a copyrightable interest in her acting performance, nor did she clearly show that the performance was not a work made for hire.”

Judge Alex Kozinski claims that Youssef can’t be considered a filmmaker because he shot a single amateur film, but writing a book or filming a movie is exactly how you become a writer or a filmmaker.

“But if shooting a single amateur film amounts to the regular business of filmmaking, every schmuck with a videocamera becomes a movie mogul,” Kozinski writes trying to claim that amateur filmmakers should have different rules than professional ones.

This distinction is both dangerous and wrong.

Garcia auditioned for a role in a particular film, was paid for her performance and had every reason to believe Youssef would eventually release the film. Without an implied license, the performance for which she was paid would be unusable. Therefore, we agree with Google that Garcia granted Youssef an implied license.

Any such license must be construed broadly. If the scope of an implied license was exceeded merely because a film didn’t meet the ex ante expectation of an actor, that license would be virutally meaningless.

Nevertheless, even a broad implied license isn’t unlimited…  Here, the problem isn’t that “Innocence of Muslims” is not an Arabian adventure movie: It’s that the film isn’t intended to entertain at all. The film differs so radically from anything Garcia could have imagined when she was cast that it can’t possibly be authorized by any implied license she

granted Youssef.

If we take the cow sex judge’s argument at face value, then if a movie is marketed in a different way than the actors can sue for copyright violation. This is plainly absurd since movies change dramatically in the process and in the marketing. Comedies can become dramas and vice versa. Plenty of actors have been completely shocked by the film as it was released because it was different from what they thought they were making.

Something a shmuck like Kosinski would know if he had bothered to do the research. Judge Smith quickly takes the cow sex judge to law school.

The majority opinion omits applying the requisite standard of review that is especially pertinent to Garcia’s requested relief. Mandatory preliminary injunctions, similar to the one issued today, are “particularly disfavored.”…

Given this standard, the majority errs in requiring Google to pull the film from YouTube—at this stage of the litigation.

The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the law and facts did not clearly favor Garcia. Instead, the majority makes new law in this circuit in order to reach the result it seeks. We have never held that an actress’s performance could be copyrightable.

The question is whether Google will appeal. Even if it doesn’t, the decision has all sorts of troubling legal implications for the movie industry that will no doubt lead to further review.

Hat Tip DC Clothesline

5th-Grader’s stripped of medal for Religion Speech

TAMPA, Fla. (CBS Tampa) – A 5th grade student won first place after he gave a speech about the history of people using religion to justify murder, but was stripped of his title the same day by a school official.

Zachary Golob-Drake gave the speech to his class at the Patel Partnership School in hopes that he would be chosen to represent the school at the regional 4-H Tropicana Public Speech Contest, WFLA-TV reports. He was to deliver the speech Thursday morning to the entire 4th and 5th grades classes and two winners, one from each grade, were to be chosen to represent the school.

Golob-Drake said the assistant principal told him his speech was inappropriate before school was dismissed.

“She started talking to me about how she thought my speech wasn’t appropriate for 4th and 5th graders and she thought that probably I would have to rewrite my speech, take the religion out or not compete,” Golob-Drake explained to WFLA.

He told her that he would need to think about it at home. There is a brief paragraph on the Crusades, Genghis Khan and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 in his speech. He ends it by encouraging the “Golden Rule,” saying that it would “make the world a better place.”


“She said to me probably the fairest thing to do is to take your ribbon,” Golob-Drake said.

He was crying when his older brother arrived at the school to pick him up. The assistant gave back the ribbon after his brother went and spoke to her, Rhonda Golob-Drake, their mother said. Rhonda Golob-Drake spent four hours on the phone with school officials, district officials and representatives from the Tropicana contest.

The school postponed the contest until Monday. Parents of 4th and 5th grade students will receive permission slips detailing all of the speech titles to let parents decide whether or not they want their children to hear the speeches.

School District Spokeswoman Tanya Arja told WFLA that school officials told her that the controversy wasn’t about the religious aspect.

“The concern was over the topic of mass murders,” Arja said. “Because these are 4th and 5th graders.”

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