Daily Caller
Freedom Of Speech Versus Preferred Pronouns? It May Go To The Supreme Court
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Frank Ricci
In the United States, where freedom of speech is not just a privilege but rather the cornerstone of our constitutional democracy, our First Amendment rights are at stake in Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School District Board of Education.
In July, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that an Ohio school district could enact a code of conduct requiring students to refer to one another based on self-defined gender identity –– i.e., mandating the use of “preferred pronouns.” The ruling effectively compels speech from school-aged children that may contradict deeply held beliefs about biological sex. The Olentangy Local School District’s policy must be struck down.
Thankfully, not all bad decisions stick. Two weeks ago, the Sixth Circuit agreed to rehear the case en banc, a signal that a majority of the circuit’s judges may wish to reconsider the panel’s earlier July ruling. Regardless of the outcome, the loser is likely to file for review before the Supreme Court in the 2026 Term.
The stakes are high as the Sixth Circuit prepares to rule on a case that tees up yet another hot-button debate about pronoun policies, parental rights, religious liberty, and free speech in public schools.
This case is about more than policy. It encompasses the very essence of what it means to be free in thought and expression, particularly in our educational institutions.
The Olentangy Local School District has enacted rules seeking to dictate how students refer to one another based on self-defined gender identity, effectively compelling speech that may contradict deeply held beliefs about biological sex.
This is more than administrative overreach; it is an assault on students’ First Amendment rights to express their views on sex and gender without fear of coercion or reprisal.
That is why Yankee Institute has joined an amicus brief filed by Advancing American Freedom (AAF) to challenge this unconstitutional intrusion on free speech.
Those imposing such policies often argue that they create a psychologically “safe” environment for all students. But perceived “safety” for some should not come at the expense of freedom for all. The policy at issue does not limit itself to the constitutionally permissible goal of preventing harassment; instead, it imposes a new linguistic (and social) orthodoxy to which students must conform or else be punished.
As George Orwell warned, those who can control language can manipulate thought. The left understands this principle well, as demonstrated in Orwell’s novel “1984,” where Newspeak was enforced to narrow the population’s range of thought.
Such manipulation is not the role of public schools. Schools are supposed to be forums for debate, not indoctrination centers where only one viewpoint is tolerated. Unfortunately, all too often, they have become ground zero for identity politics, with teachers’ unions imposing their ideological agendas rather than providing the real skills our children need.
When a district like Olentangy decides to punish students for expressing beliefs about the immutability of sex, viewpoint discrimination is clearly at play. This is antithetical to the principles laid out by the Supreme Court in cases like Tinker v. Des Moines, where it affirmed that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
What is more, the policy’s enforcement could lead to a chilling effect on speech, where students would self-censor rather than risk punishment for using language that aligns with their personal beliefs.
This is not just about pronouns; it is about the broader implications for educating youth on tolerance, diversity and the respectful expression of differing opinions.
Olentangy’s policy fails to meet the stringent requirements set forth by the Supreme Court’s precedent on content-based restrictions. The evidence cited by the school district to justify these restrictions — newspaper stories, law review articles and therapist quotes — lacks the substantial proof of disruption necessary to override First Amendment protections.
As seen in Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L., discomfort or upset among students, without more, does not constitute the “substantial disorder” needed to justify speech restrictions.
If school administrators are handed the power to regulate speech, we are teaching our children — and society at large — that we value conformity over individual conscience. This case isn’t about protecting a minority from perceived offense; it is about safeguarding the rights of all students to freedom of speech and conscience, even (or especially!) when it is unpopular or contravenes current cultural trends.
It is time to remind our schools that they exist to maintain the spirit of free inquiry, not to enforce a singular, forced narrative on identity. Let’s ensure that American schools remain places where students can debate, learn and grow into informed citizens who cherish liberty over compelled conformity.
As Emily Dickenson stated: “Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.”
For the sake of our nation’s future, we must protect each individual’s freedom to speak truth as he or she sees it.
Frank Ricci is a Fellow at Yankee Institute and was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Ricci v Destefano. He retired as a Battalion Chief in New Haven CT. He has testified before Congress and is the author of the book, Command Presence.
Daily Caller
Musk Completely Derails UK Political Establishment, Accuses PM’s Party Of Covering Up Muslim Rape Gangs
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Thomas English
Elon Musk ignited a political firestorm in Britain after accusing Prime Minister Keir Starmer of complicity in the “rape of Britain” Friday, reanimating a years-old debate over organized child sexual exploitation by predominately Pakistani men.
Musk has ravaged Starmer and other U.K. officials in a barrage of tweets over the past week, primarily accusing Starmer of inadequately prosecuting rape gangs during his tenure as director of public prosecutions (DPP) from 2008 to 2013. The SpaceX founder also attacked Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips, who he said “deserves to be in prison,” for blocking a government-led inquiry into child sexual exploitation by gangs in Oldham, a northern England town.
“Starmer was complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN when he was head of Crown Prosecution for 6 years,” Musk wrote. “Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain.”
The recent flurry of attacks mark the world’s richest man’s latest incursion into international political affairs, with Musk now focusing in particular on the United Kingdom’s decades-long struggle to curb the proliferation of “grooming gangs” primarily comprised of Pakistani-descended men who mainly target native Briton girls for sexual exploitation, The Telegraph reported in an analysis of the persistent issue.
The most infamous cases involving these gangs occurred in northern England towns like Oldham, Telford and Rotherham — the severity of which has been whitewashed for fear of accusations of Islamophobia, according to The Telegraph.
“To protect ‘community relations’, the British state has gone to immense lengths to cover it up,” he wrote. “Reports have been blocked and deliberately kept out of the public eye. Any connection with ethnicity, immigration, or Islam was downplayed … the evidence that British Pakistani men were over-represented among the perpetrators was spiked to avoid uncomfortable truths.”
Musk Starmer and the Labour government with operating a two-tiered justice system, suggesting in a meme Thursday that the prime minister prosecutes “rape and violent crime” with leniency while instead focusing on policing online speech. He also said the Labour Party “opposes a national inquiry on the mass rape of little girls in Britain for one reason only: It will show that they were complicit.”
The prime minister defended his prosecutorial record as DPP in a press conference Monday, saying he “brought the first major prosecution of an Asian grooming gang in this particular case” and “changed the whole prosecution approach.” While largely avoiding mentioning Musk by name, Starmer also condemned the spread of what he called “lies and misinformation” from detractors who are “interested in themselves” rather than the victims.
Starmer also defended Phillips in the press conference, insisting she has done “a thousand times more than they’ve even dreamt about when it comes to protecting victims of sexual abuse throughout her entire career.” Phillips blocked a Tory-led motion Thursday to hold a public inquiry into the historic sexual abuse in Oldham because it was for “Oldham council alone” to decide whether one was necessary, according to The Telegraph.
Musk’s attacks are not limited to the Labour Party alone, however. The Tesla CEO also called for Nigel Farage, the architect of Brexit and the leader of the Reform Party, to be replaced as party leader because he “doesn’t have what it takes.”
The comments come hours after Farage referred to Musk as a “friend” in an interview with the BBC’s “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg” program.
“Well, this is a surprise!” Farage wrote in response to Musk. “Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I will never sell out my principles.”
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By David Blackmon
Kish characterized Biden’s move as “a petulant act of a Hard Left Establishment out to punish 340 million Americans who rejected their calls to bow to their Climate Religion and its vows of poverty.”
The Biden White House said early Monday that outgoing President Joe Biden has ordered huge swaths of U.S. federal waters off-limits to future leasing and drilling for oil and natural gas. The ban includes the entire offshore Atlantic, offshore Pacific, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the Northern Bering Sea.
All told, the regions impacted by the ban encompass 625 million acres, an area bigger than the states of Texas and Alaska combined. It is also significantly larger in scope than the Louisiana Purchase, which spanned 530 million acres.
“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said in a statement. “It is not worth the risks.”
Ironically, the Biden ban includes the Atlantic areas where his administration has spent billions of dollars subsidizing the construction of massive industrial wind power facilities. Those developments are currently the source of rising concerns related to impacts on sea mammals, seabirds and the once-thriving commercial fishing industry. All are concerns the administration has refused to adequately address in any real way.
Dan Kish, senior fellow at the D.C.-based Institute for Energy Research think tank, pointed to the “irony of his proposed windfarms in the same waters he is closing to American oil and gas is they are not going to be built. The electricity they produce is so expensive it is deindustrializing Europe and beginning to topple governments. The only question is whether the governments or the windmills will topple first.”
Kish characterized Biden’s move as “a petulant act of a Hard Left Establishment out to punish 340 million Americans who rejected their calls to bow to their Climate Religion and its vows of poverty.” Kish added that Biden and his White House “couldn’t care less about the national security implications, as witnessed by their feckless record that has lit fires around the world while they try to extinguish our gas stoves at home.”
In an interview with Salem Radio national talk show host Hugh Hewitt Monday, incoming President Donald Trump said he would reverse Biden’s order on his first day in office.
“I see that it has just come across that Biden has banned oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of U.S. coastal territory,” Trump began, adding: “It’s ridiculous. I’ll un-ban it immediately. I have the right to un-ban it immediately.”
Trump acknowledge that the same climate-alarm groups behind the Biden ban will challenge any attempt to rescind it in court, saying, “They’ll do everything they can to make it as difficult as possible. They talk about a transition — they always say they want to have a smooth transition from party to party. Well, they’re making it really difficult. They’re throwing everything they can in the way.”
Trump concluded by telling Hewitt that Biden’s order amounts to “the worst abuse of power I’ve ever seen.”
The White House invoked the drilling ban under Section 12 of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). It is a section of that law that previous presidents — including Barack Obama and Trump himself — have used to authorize similar drilling bans.
A reading of that provision makes it clear that Congress intended it to be used solely for reasons of national security and during national emergencies. Unfortunately, for the prospects of a Trump reversal, the law does not include any provision for revoking such bans.
Previous presidential bans have never been challenged all the way up through the Supreme Court, though a challenge by the Trump Justice Department to Obama’s ban in 2017 resulted in the set-aside being upheld by an Obama-appointed district judge in 2019. Trump’s Department of Justice chose not to challenge the decision.
This is clearly a political power move by the Biden White House, another payoff to the Democratic Party’s big climate-alarm funders. Whether Trump and his appointees can come up with an effective strategy to challenge it remains to be seen, but if Trump’s comments to Hewitt are any indication, the incoming president is fully prepared to take on the fight.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
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