New Suit Alleges U.S. Government Censorship of People Claiming Vaccine-Related Injuries

The New Civil Liberties Alliance is a non-profit civil rights group. On May 22, 2023, it filed a lawsuit

challenging the federal government’s ongoing efforts to work in concert with social media companies and the Stanford Internet Observatory’s Virality Project to monitor and censor online support groups catering to those injured by Covid vaccines. This sprawling censorship enterprise has combined the efforts of numerous federal agencies and government actors—including within the White House—to coerce and induce social media platforms to censor, suppress, and label as “misinformation” speech expressed by those who have suffered vaccine-related injuries. In Brianne Dressen, et al. v. Rob Flaherty, et al., NCLA urges the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to enjoin this government-sponsored censorship and declare this state action unlawful to prevent these Defendants from further censoring such free speech and free association.

NCLA represents Brianne Dressen, Shaun Barcavage, Kristi Dobbs, Nikki Holland, Suzanna Newell, and Ernest Ramirez. All but Mr. Ramirez have suffered vaccine-related injuries. To be clear, these Plaintiffs are not anti-vaxxers. Ms. Dressen, for example, was injured by the AstraZeneca vaccine after she volunteered to participate in vaccine trials for that vaccine. Mr. Ramirez received a Moderna vaccine himself without incident but then lost his 16-year-old son to vaccine-induced cardiac arrest five days after Ernest, Jr. received the Pfizer vaccine. While such vaccine injuries may be rare, further research is necessary to establish the incidence of serious, even fatal, side effects for these still-new vaccines. Meanwhile, the First Amendment forbids Defendants from suppressing the speech and association rights of innocent victims who are just seeking to commiserate with other sufferers.

The suit alleges:

This case challenges the government’s mass-censorship program and the shocking role that it has played (and still plays) in ensuring that disfavored viewpoints deemed a threat to its agenda are suppressed. This sprawling censorship enterprise has involved the efforts of myriad federal agencies and government actors (including within the White House itself) to direct, coerce, and, ultimately, work in concert with social media platforms to censor, muffle, and flag as “misinformation” speech that conflicts with the government’s preferred narrative—including speech that the government explicitly acknowledges to be true.

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Montana Bans TikTok; FIRE Responds

Bob Corn-Revere, newly appointed Chief Counsel of FIRE and author of an excellent book, The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder.

This is yet another flare up of what is easier to see from the 10,000 foot view: Many governments crave complete control over what its citizens think and say, but a wide-open Internet threatens that obsession.

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DEI as the Antithesis of Free Speech

Randy Wayne, a biology professor at Cornell University has written an op-ed at the New York Post: "Cornell wants to ‘express itself’ but ‘diversity, equity, inclusion’ are in the way."

The goal of DEI activism, however, is the antithesis of free expression. Activists tend to believe they already know what is true and demonstrate little need for discussions that can change hearts and minds. They readily say so themselves.

Ibram X. Kendi, the most prominent leader in the DEI movement, for instance, concedes in his seminal book “How to be an Antiracist” — “An activist produces power and policy change, not mental change . . . [and the] Educational and moral suasion is not only a failed strategy. It is a suicidal strategy.”

Unlike the civil- and gay-rights movements, which required free speech to change legislation, the DEI movement requires the cancellation of free speech to influence power and policy. This is because the DEI bureaucrats are activists-in-disguise, at once unable and unwilling to defend their ideology with reasoned arguments based on truth.

This was demonstrated last month in a debate at MIT on a resolution that academic DEI programs should be abolished. None of the approximately 90 people in DEI positions at MIT chose to defend their ideology by participating in the debate.

Wayne's concerns remind me that the gurus of antiracism (Robin DiAngelo, Ibram Kendi) refuse to debate their ideas in public. You won't find them fielding questions and objections to their ideas on the Internet. They are preachers, not teachers. For years, I have used this as my rule of thumb: If someone refuses to debate their ideas, it is because they are afraid of scrutiny because they know don't have good ideas. Apparently, this is also the case at Cornell, where none of the 90 DEI administrators was willing to show up to discuss the merits of DEI.

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About “Book Banning” and Young Children.

Deciding what is age-appropriate is not "book banning." This is not a difficult distinction except for those who seek headlines based on half-truths.

I've seen images of many of the pages of many of the books that have purportedly been "banned" from grade school students. As a parent, I would have been aghast had my young children had access to most of these books without my specific knowledge or consent. BTW, I know "Elizabeth Bennett" personally and I have no doubt that what she has written is true.

The following is an excerpt from the Court's Aug 5, 2022 Order in the case of C.K.-W v Wentzville R-IV School District Order Denying Preliminary Injunction, US District Court, Eastern District of Missouri Case No. 4:22-cv-00191. We are facing some real problems with conservatives going crazy banning valuable and age-appropriate books in school libraries. Before you fall prey to the claim that ALL of "book banning" cases are the same, however, consider the court's description of the books being "banned" in this case:

'Fun Home,' for example, has entire illustrated pages showing characters engaging in oral sex along with accompanying ribald language. Doc. [2] at 214; see also id. at 80–81 (showing various detailed illustrations of two undressed individuals in bed together with the narrator explaining that she “spent very little of the remaining semester outside her bed”). 'All Boys Aren’t Blue' vividly describes multiple sexual encounters of the author. See Doc. [3]. “He reached his hand down and pulled out my dick. He quickly went to giving me head. . . . [W]e dry humped and grinded. . . . I put some lube on and got him up on his knees, and I began to slide into him from behind. . . . I eased in, slowly, until I heard him moan. . . . I finally came and let out a loud moan—to the point where he asked me to quiet down for the neighbors. I pulled out of him and kissed him while he masturbated. Then, he also came.” Id. at 266–268. All Boys Aren’t Blue details another encounter. “[H]e told me to lie down on the bed. He asked me to ‘turn over’ while he slipped a condom on himself. . . . [T]his was my ass, and I was struggling to imagine someone inside me. And he was . . . large. But I was gonna try.” Id. at 270–71 (second ellipsis in original).

In keeping with the pattern, 'Heavy: An American Memoir' likewise has detailed accounts of sexual encounters. The book does not attempt to hide its contents. As the back cover explains, the book discusses the author’s “complex relationship with his family, weight, sex, gambling and writing.” Doc. [4]. The author writes that “Renata pulled up her shirt, unhooked her bra, and filled my mouth with her left breast. . . . Choking on Renata’s breasts made me feel lighter than I’d ever felt. After a few minutes, Renata grabbed my penis and kept saying, ‘Keep it straight, Kie. Can you keep it straight?’” Id. at 22–23. And elsewhere, “I got close enough to the door to see Delaney was standing in the middle of the room with his soggy maroon swim trunks around his calves. Dougie was on his knees in front of Delaney with his hands behind his back. His tongue was out, licking the tip of Delaney’s penis.” Id. at 40.

Could a librarian or, ultimately, a school board official conclude that these books were age suitable for some older students and that the books merited inclusion based on their content overall? Sure. But can this Court conclude that the librarian’s determination that these books were not age appropriate was a pretense, absent some actual evidence, and that the real decisive reason for the removal was to deny access to students of certain ideas? Not at all. But Plaintiffs make the sweeping and, frankly, disconcerting request to have this Court require that the District “restore access” to these three books and “any books that were removed from school libraries during this school year and for which access has not been restored.” Doc. [19] at 17 (emphasis added). Meaning Plaintiffs would have this Court force the District to provide access to these, or any other books, that the District’s librarians concluded were appropriate for removal no matter the reason. Even if one of these books, or another that was even more sexually explicit, had been available to a library that served third graders, either inadvertently or because the librarian was unaware of the content, Plaintiffs would have this Court order the District to return the book for the third graders to read.

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