Author Archive | Victoria Ekstrand

Center Student Spotlight: Ashley Fox

By on November 26, 2019 in Center for Media Law and Policy

Editor’s Note: Our media law graduate students are a huge part of the Center’s success. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be featuring the stories of current and past students as we lead up to the tenth anniversary of the UNC MA/JD program in 2020. Stay tuned for more details about that celebration.

by Ashley Fox

UNC MA/JD student (’21) and CITAP Fellow

This summer, I interned for the Office of Information Policy (OIP) at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington D.C. OIP oversees federal agency compliance with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). To further this mission, the Office holds regular FOIA trainings for federal employees who are tasked with completing initial requests from the public, publishes and updates government-wide guidance on the FOIA, adjudicates administrative appeals for initial requests originating within the DOJ, and reviews annual reports from all federal agencies detailing their compliance with the FOIA. OIP is organized into four teams related to initial requests, appeals, litigation, and compliance.

During my internship, I primarily worked with the Appeals Team within OIP. There, I gained first-hand experience working within the administrative process by adjudicating administrative appeals on various FOIA issues, ranging from a DOJ component’s failure to respond to an initial request to a requester’s claim that FOIA exemptions were applied incorrectly. Moreover, I learned how some FOIA related disputes move beyond the administrative appeals process by conducting legal research for an ongoing FOIA litigation. Throughout these experiences, I really enjoyed seeing how attorneys within OIP carefully weigh the government’s desire to protect certain information against the public’s interest in disclosure while applying the language of the FOIA itself.

To support OIP’s goal of ensuring FOIA compliance by providing educational resources, I also attended multiple FOIA training sessions, assisted in publishing recent FOIA related court decisions on the office’s webpage, and assisted in updating OIP’s FOIA guidance to reflect changes in the law. Additionally, I reviewed proposed congressional legislation’s potential impacts on the FOIA and recommended comment from OIP to Congress when needed.

The summer internship program at OIP was wonderfully supportive. Each summer, OIP typically hires three to four legal interns through the DOJ’s larger Summer Law Intern Program (SLIP), which recruits law students for internships in various DOJ components. Although interns primarily work with one team within OIP, we had numerous opportunities to work with each team and collaborate with each other. The attorneys within OIP were enthusiastically invested in helping interns develop professionally, and they happily shared their own career journeys. I thoroughly enjoyed working with everyone within OIP, and I would highly recommend this internship to students interested in administrative law, access to information, and government transparency.

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Pedro X. Molina Speaking on The Art of Resistance

By on October 8, 2019 in Center for Media Law and Policy, First Amendment

In the midst of turbulent political times in the United States, it’s easy to forget that pressures on press freedom are everywhere these days. Tonight’s talk by Pedro X. Molina, which was co-sponsored by our Center, was a stark reminder of that.

In 2017 Pedro X. Molina was a prolific participant in the #FreeNseRamon campaign demanding freedom for fellow illustrator and political cartoonist, Ramón Nsé Esono Ebalé, who was imprisoned for his work criticizing his country’s government, Equatorial Guinea.

Pedro X. Molina, also known as ‘PxMolinA,’ is an internationally acclaimed political cartoonist, illustrator and journalist from Nicaragua. In December 2018, when the offices of news media outlet Confidencial were taken over by government forces and during a national crackdown on journalists and government critics, Molina fled his country. He and his colleagues continue to publish daily in Confidencial.com.ni, either from exile or from other locations in Nicaragua. In summer 2019, Molina won the prestigious Maria Moors Cabot Award in international journalism from Columbia’s School of Journalism. In 2018, Molina won the Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award from Cartoonists Rights Network International, as well as the Excellence in Journalism award from the Inter American Press Association.

Esono Ebalé’s work and Molina’s contributions to the #FreeNseRamon campaign are both featured in  ‘The Art of Resistance’ exhibition on display throughout the FedEx Global Education Center until December 13, 2019. Come hear/see Molina share his work in Nicaragua and his efforts to support freedom of expression everywhere.

Molina reminded those of us who attended his talk that fanaticism is rampant across the globe, and that citizens must advocate for human decency over ideology.

This event was sponsored by the Humanities for the Public Good Initiative, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Global Relations, the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy, Institute for the Study of the Americas, Department of Romance Studies and UNC Global.

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What Germany May Teach Us About Platform Regulation

By on August 16, 2019 in Center for Media Law and Policy

I recently returned from three weeks as the Distinguished Visiting Professor in Media Studies at the University of Tübingen in Germany, where I taught a seminar on international platform regulation to a small group of German undergraduates.

In theory, I taught them. In reality, they taught me as much if not more about the current state of global platform regulation. And that’s not surprising, given how fast the discussions about regulation are moving and how immersed German students are in their online and offline communities.

The invitation to spend time with students at Tübingen’s Institute of Media Studies is part of the UNC Center for Media Law & Policy’s expanding efforts to understand and include global perspectives in media law at a time of rapid and increasing change. (It was also thanks to our growing relationship with UNC Global and their work to support the UNC – Tübingen partnership and to our terrific host, Dr. Guido Zurstiege.) Traditional libertarian perspectives that underlie the First Amendment and much of U.S. case law are on the defensive thanks to growing political polarization and online forces that are manipulating the speech environment.

As the United States debates whether to revise the part of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) known as Sec. 230, (the provision of federal law that was adopted in 1996 to incentivize good faith efforts by media platforms to address online harms and in return receive protections from liability), the European Union (EU) and Germany, in particular, are not waiting.

My conversations with students and scholars in Tübingen repeatedly focused on what holds the U.S. back from moving forward with Sec. 230 reform and what countries like Germany are already doing to demand more accountability from platforms like Facebook and Twitter. With Germany’s hate speech regulation history, it is not surprising to find the discussion there focused on “why” and “how” – not “if” and “when,” as it is here in the States.

To be sure, Tübingen students did express concerns about collateral censorship and the EU’s adoption of Article 13, a measure that will hold platforms more accountable for infringing content. But in terms of addressing the real and tangible harms of hate and radicalization online, there is no question: Germany and the EU have already moved quite aggressively.

Indeed, while I was in Germany and later, when I traveled to France to present at the World Journalism Educators Conference, both countries made a flurry of announcements.

In Germany, the Bundesamt für Justiz, Germany’s Federal Office of Justice, announced it would fine Facebook €2 million for allegedly failing to comply with how it reports the number of hate speech complaints it gets, part of the obligations set out in Germany’s NetzDG law. France followed Germany’s lead and passed landmark legislation to fight hate speech; it also now requires U.S. tech platforms to remove “hateful” content within 24 hours and create a new button for users to flag abuse.

The message was clear: Germany and others aren’t waiting for the U.S. to figure things out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Winners of the Inaugural James R. Cleary Prize Announced

By on August 2, 2019 in Center for Media Law and Policy

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is thrilled to announce the winners of the inaugural James R. Cleary Prize for students who wrote the best published scholarly articles on media law and policy related topics in 2018.

This year’s first place winner is Austin Vining, a joint JD/Ph.D. student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and College of Journalism and Communications, for his Mississippi Law Review article “Trick or Treat?: Mississippi County Doesn’t Clown Around With Halloween Costumes.” The second place winner is Alexandra Baruch Bachman, who graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law in May 2019. Her article was titled “WTF? First Amendment Implications of Policing Profanity” and was published in the First Amendment Law Review. Vining will receive a $1,000 prize, and Baruch Bachman will receive a $500 prize.

The award honors the legacy of James R. Cleary, an attorney who practiced for 56 years in Huntsville, Ala.  He was particularly interested in the communications field and media law issues.  Cleary’s daughter, Johanna Cleary, is a 2004 Ph.D. graduate of the UNC School of Media and Journalism.

Vining has researched freedom of information laws, shield laws, defamation, fake news, anti-masking laws, and nonconsensual pornography. He teaches media law and is a graduate research fellow at the Brechner First Amendment Project. He is a member of the Florida Law Review, and he serves as Chair of the Board of Directors for the Independent Florida Alligator.

Previously, Vining was a journalist for the Oxford Eagle and the Vicksburg Post, both in Mississippi. He is a former legislative intern for U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and a former legal intern for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Vining has bachelor’s degrees in journalism and psychology from Louisiana Tech University, where he served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper. He earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Mississippi, where he was a graduate assistant at the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association.

Baruch Bachman grew up in Setauket, New York, and completed her undergraduate degree in English and Foreign Language at the University of Delaware in December 2015. At the University of Delaware, she served as staff writer and editor-in-chief of the student publication, DEconstruction.

While at Carolina Law, Baruch Bachman served as a staff writer and notes editor for the First Amendment Law Review (FALR). She now resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.

You can read more about the Cleary Prize competition here. Please check the Center’s blog for an announcement of next year’s deadline.

Congratulations to both winners!

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Freedom of Speech on the UNC Chapel Hill Campus: What Students Understand About First Amendment Issues

By on May 20, 2019 in Center for Media Law and Policy

We’re excited to announce and share the results of our first-ever campus climate survey about freedom of speech and press issues on the UNC campus. The report can be accessed here: UNCCampusFreeExpressionReport2019.

In Fall 2018, the Center, in conjunction with an undergraduate class at the UNC School of Media and Journalism and the UNC Office for Undergraduate Research, conducted a campuswide representative study of undergraduate students. The survey investigated students’ knowledge of First Amendment protections for different types of speech, students’ support for free expression of unpopular opinions on campus, their experiences with controversial speech in the classroom, and their attitudes towards hate speech, invited speakers, and UNC’s Confederate Monument known as Silent Sam.

The impetus for the survey was the passage of the 2017 Restore/Preserve Campus Free Speech Act by the North Carolina State Legislature. The new law, prompted in part by the threat of violence and cancellation of campus speakers at universities nationwide, sought to ensure “free, robust, and uninhibited debate and deliberation by students of constituent institutions” and established freedom of speech as a “fundamental right” across UNC member institutions. Modeled after proposed legislation by the conservative Goldwater Institute, the new law requires those institutions to retain their “viewpoint neutrality” on “the public controversies of the day” and allow for discussion and assembly on campus consistent with constitutional time, place, and manner restrictions “necessary to achieve a significant institutional interest.” The law also carries sanctions for anyone who “substantially disrupts the functioning of the constituent institution or substantially interferes with the protected free expression rights of others.” Those penalties include suspension and dismissal of students in violation of the law.

To investigate the actual state of student understanding of the First Amendment and attitudes toward freedom of expression, this survey of UNC undergraduate students sought to explore their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding First Amendment protected expression on campus.

The survey found that students have a moderate level of knowledge about First Amendment protections for speech at a public university, and that they prefer an open learning environment where students are exposed to a wide range of views and opinions. Students also generally welcome guest speakers whose views might be considered controversial and are willing to express disagreements using counterspeech means. Support for student media is strong, although use of student media is low.

Despite generally strong support for freedom of speech and controversial speakers on campus, students reported feeling less comfort discussing controversial subjects in classroom settings than in non-academic settings with peers. They are also less willing to protect campus speech that is bullying, offensive and hateful. In general, the findings suggest that students have a general understanding of the scope and purpose of the First Amendment and support healthy debate in public university settings, but are hesitant to engage in debate about controversial issues, particularly within classroom settings. The report recommends more education and research regarding how the University can help students grapple with controversial subjects in politically partisan times.

 

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