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By Brad Polumbo, Washington Examiner
Apparently, "Liberty" is just a name for the small, conservative college run by Jerry Falwell Jr. in Lynchburg, Virginia — not any kind of statement of its values. At least, that’s what the school’s latest stunt suggests.
Falwell is actively seeking to throw two reporters in jail: The university’s police department issued arrest warrants for trespassing against two journalists whose coverage Falwell disliked. Specifically, he didn’t like how they reported on his decision to endanger students by partially reopening Liberty’s campus amid a pandemic. This is an apparent attack on press freedom and just the latest addition to Falwell’s long record of hypocrisy.
Falwell claims the pair of journalists criminally “trespassed” on “private property.” While Liberty’s campus is indeed private property, this is an extremely thin excuse. People frequently walk, jog, or visit open private university campuses without explicit permission. Trespassing charges are usually reserved for those who have already been asked to leave and refuse or who are barred from campus for specific reasons and then sneak on anyway. The New York Times journalist in question was invited to campus by students whom she interviewed and quoted in her story.
This is a transparent act of selective retribution — clearly using the law with the intent to punish journalists with whom Falwell disagrees. When I contacted Liberty University Police Department, they refused to answer any questions. In the absence of any valid explanation and in light of Falwell’s ongoing self-victimization crusade against the media, this seems like a blatant attack on the free press.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Legal Director Katie Townsend said the arrest warrants “appear to be intended to harass journalists who were simply, and rightly, doing their jobs — and to intimidate other reporters from doing the same type of reporting.”
I spoke with several law enforcement experts and lawyers who share this concern.
"While campus police officers at Liberty University enjoy the same arrest powers afforded any recognized police agency in the Commonwealth of Virginia, if they were specifically instructed to target journalists, that is problematic,” CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI agent James Gagliano told me. “Standardization of enforcement, unbiased and impartial, is a hallmark of justice. If there exists selective targeting on the grounds that journalists were ‘trespassing,’ the university better be able to show equal application of the campus policy."
“In the middle of a public health crisis, we need the access to information that both freedom of speech and press ensure,” Charles Koch Institute Senior Fellow for Free Speech Casey Mattox told the Washington Examiner. “Though the First Amendment only applies to public universities, private schools who value open inquiry should think hard about whether they can long preserve the rights they enjoy while sending the police after journalists they dislike.”
Falwell has also threatened the New York Times and other outlets that reported on his dubious coronavirus decision-making with defamation lawsuits. In order to sue for defamation successfully, he would have to prove not only that reporters got the story wrong (not the case here, it seems) but that they knowingly published falsehoods with malice.
“Seeking the arrest of journalists for merely taking pictures of the subject of an article would be transparent by itself,” First Amendment attorney and former Director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Ari Cohn told me. “But the accompanying threat of a defamation lawsuit makes it especially clear that Falwell is less concerned with trespassing than he is with exacting retribution upon journalists that write unfavorable coverage.”
See more at Washington Examiner
Apparently, "Liberty" is just a name for the small, conservative college run by Jerry Falwell Jr. in Lynchburg, Virginia — not any kind of statement of its values. At least, that’s what the school’s latest stunt suggests.
Falwell is actively seeking to throw two reporters in jail: The university’s police department issued arrest warrants for trespassing against two journalists whose coverage Falwell disliked. Specifically, he didn’t like how they reported on his decision to endanger students by partially reopening Liberty’s campus amid a pandemic. This is an apparent attack on press freedom and just the latest addition to Falwell’s long record of hypocrisy.
Falwell claims the pair of journalists criminally “trespassed” on “private property.” While Liberty’s campus is indeed private property, this is an extremely thin excuse. People frequently walk, jog, or visit open private university campuses without explicit permission. Trespassing charges are usually reserved for those who have already been asked to leave and refuse or who are barred from campus for specific reasons and then sneak on anyway. The New York Times journalist in question was invited to campus by students whom she interviewed and quoted in her story.
This is a transparent act of selective retribution — clearly using the law with the intent to punish journalists with whom Falwell disagrees. When I contacted Liberty University Police Department, they refused to answer any questions. In the absence of any valid explanation and in light of Falwell’s ongoing self-victimization crusade against the media, this seems like a blatant attack on the free press.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Legal Director Katie Townsend said the arrest warrants “appear to be intended to harass journalists who were simply, and rightly, doing their jobs — and to intimidate other reporters from doing the same type of reporting.”
I spoke with several law enforcement experts and lawyers who share this concern.
"While campus police officers at Liberty University enjoy the same arrest powers afforded any recognized police agency in the Commonwealth of Virginia, if they were specifically instructed to target journalists, that is problematic,” CNN law enforcement analyst and former FBI agent James Gagliano told me. “Standardization of enforcement, unbiased and impartial, is a hallmark of justice. If there exists selective targeting on the grounds that journalists were ‘trespassing,’ the university better be able to show equal application of the campus policy."
“In the middle of a public health crisis, we need the access to information that both freedom of speech and press ensure,” Charles Koch Institute Senior Fellow for Free Speech Casey Mattox told the Washington Examiner. “Though the First Amendment only applies to public universities, private schools who value open inquiry should think hard about whether they can long preserve the rights they enjoy while sending the police after journalists they dislike.”
Falwell has also threatened the New York Times and other outlets that reported on his dubious coronavirus decision-making with defamation lawsuits. In order to sue for defamation successfully, he would have to prove not only that reporters got the story wrong (not the case here, it seems) but that they knowingly published falsehoods with malice.
“Seeking the arrest of journalists for merely taking pictures of the subject of an article would be transparent by itself,” First Amendment attorney and former Director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Ari Cohn told me. “But the accompanying threat of a defamation lawsuit makes it especially clear that Falwell is less concerned with trespassing than he is with exacting retribution upon journalists that write unfavorable coverage.”
See more at Washington Examiner
