Conservative and Right Wing cancel culture

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“The Lunatics have taken over the asylum” - Fun Boy Three

Two Harvard medical school professors claim in a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration that their research was pulled from a public government website because it referred to the LGBTQ community.

Gordon Schiff and Celeste Royce said removing their work from the website, which focuses on patient safety, violates their First Amendment right to free speech. They claimed the administration unlawfully and dangerously suppressed their information on how to improve patient diagnoses, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S District Court in Boston.

Each year, about 795,000 Americans die or are permanently disabled due to misdiagnosis, according to the suit filed on behalf of Schiff and Royce by the the American Civil Liberties Union and the Yale Law School Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic.

“Allowing the government to censor research regarding patient safety for political reasons will almost assuredly increase that number,” the suit read.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which falls under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, removed the private doctors’ peer-reviewed articles solely because they contained terms such as “LGBTQ” and “transgender,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit names the U.S. Officer of Personnel Management, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality as defendants.

The lawsuit said the articles were removed because it was perceived that they violated an executive order on gender ideology signed by President Donald Trump on Jan. 20.

The site, Patient Safety Network, emailed Schiff and his co-authors on Jan. 31 to inform them an article on suicide risk that included the words "LGBTQ" and "transgender" was being removed, the lawsuit said.

Another article on the medical condition endometriosis was removed because it mentioned the word transgender, it said.

Rachel Davidson, an attorney with the ACLU of Massachusetts, said removing the articles and censoring medical research is a serious constitutional violation.

“It is a fundamental principle of the First Amendment that the government cannot restrict speech just because it disagrees with the viewpoint of that speech,” she said. “We think that is especially important in areas of scientific inquiry and debate and research.”

Schiff and Royce could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Both say in the lawsuit that they refuse to censor their medical conclusions, and they brought the lawsuit to “defend the integrity of medical research and the safety of patients from the government’s dangerous, arbitrary, and unconstitutional censorship.”

Schiff, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, is a founding member of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine and the American Public Health Association’s Quality Improvement Committee.

Royce is an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology. One of her areas of study is the role of clinical reasoning in improving patient safety, according to the lawsuit.

Workers have this week begun the job of erasing Washington, D.C.'s Black Lives Matter mural, after federal threats to the city to remove the words or lose federal funding.

Republican congressman Andrew Clyde's bill last week demanded the removal of the mural, which features the words 'Black Lives Matter' painted across two pedestrian blocks in large yellow letters not far from the White House.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested the repaving of the area, known as Black Lives Matter Plaza, with plans to replace her own commissioned mural with new city-sponsored works.

Clyde's bill further demands the city rename the area Liberty Plaza and remove the phrase 'Black Lives Matter' from all communications.

owser originally said the mural would be permanent, noting it sent a strong message that 'power has always been and always will be with well-meaning people'.

Last week, Bowser wrote on X that while the mural 'inspired millions of people' and 'helped the city through a very painful period', the city is prioritising its economy and residents facing federal job cuts, and cannot 'afford to be distracted by meaningless congressional interference'.

An Idaho teacher is in a standoff with her own school district after officials ordered her to remove classroom signs, including one that reads, “Everyone is welcome here.”

Sarah Inama, a sixth-grade history teacher at Lewis and Clark Middle School in Meridian, Idaho, says she won’t comply with the order, arguing that the message is a fundamental part to ensuring a positive learning environment for her students.

Inama, who has taught at the school for five years, says her commitment to inclusivity isn’t about politics. It’s about her passion for education and students.

“I love the area that I teach,” she says in an interview with TODAY.com. “It’s really a valuable thing for people to know our human history, things that humans have accomplished, our time on this earth, things that they’ve overcome, patterns that exist.”

Five years ago, when she first put up the two signs, it was to make sure students knew they were in an open and welcoming space. Now, she says she is risking her job in the name of those values.

A notice from her school district
Inama says the controversy began in January when her principal and vice principal came to her classroom to inform her that two posters on her walls were controversial and needed to be removed, a detail the district verified in an email to TODAY.com. Inama says other teachers were given similar instruction, but she was caught off guard by the directive.

Photos of the two posters show that one features the phrase “Everyone is welcome here,” with an illustration of hands in different skin tones. The other says that everyone in the classroom is “welcome, important, accepted, respected, encouraged, valued” and “equal.”

“I was just so confused,” she recalls. “I still can’t even wrap my head around what they’re referring to as far as why it’s controversial.”

Inama says the principal cited district policy that classrooms must respect the rights of people to express differing opinions and that decorations are to be “content-neutral.”

“There are only two opinions on this sign: Everyone is welcome here or not everyone is welcome here,” she says. “Since the sign is emphasizing that everyone, in regards to race or skin tone, is welcome here no matter what, immediately, I was like, the only other view of this is racist. And I said, ‘That sounds like racism to me.’”

A change of heart
Feeling pressured, Inama removed the signs, but reconsidered as the decision weighed on her into the following weekend.

“I told my husband, ‘I have to put that sign back up,’” she recalls.

That Saturday, she says her husband accompanied her back to the school where she re-hung the signs and emailed her principal to let him know.

“I just was not interested in taking it down,” she says. “I didn’t agree with why they were asking me to take it down. And for that reason, it was back up.”

According to Inama, the principal warned her that her refusal constituted insubordination and could result in further action.

meeting was soon arranged with district personnel, including West Ada School District’s chief academic officer Marcus Myers and a West Ada Education Association representative.

In its email to TODAY.com, West Ada School District states that the meeting was arranged to “provide further clarification and support” to Inama and to “discuss concerns about the poster and how it violates Policy 401.20.” The policy says that banners in the classroom must be “content-neutral and conducive to a positive learning enviornment.”

TODAY.com reached out to Myers for comment regarding the district’s decision and his role in the discussion with Inama but has not yet received a response.

Inama says the officials offered to purchase any alternative signs for her classroom during the meeting, just as long as they didn’t have the same messages as her current posters. Challenging the request, Inama pointed out that district policy classifies motivational posters as learning aids, which she argued should be allowed under the current rules.

Inama says the conversation escalated when Myers attempted to justify the request to remove her posters saying that “the political environment ebbs and flows, and what might be controversial now might not have been controversial three, six, nine months ago, and we have to follow that.”

The more the discussion continued, Inama says she became increasingly convinced that what the district was asking her to do was wrong.

Legal counsel intervenes
After their meeting, Inama says the district offered to have legal counsel review her position, but that she would have to submit an email explaining why she believed the poster did not violate policy.

“I typed a big, long email and sent it off to them about why it was important for me to keep this poster up and why I don’t find it to be in violation,” Inama explains.

A week later, the district responded, maintaining that the signs violated policy. Inama says she was told she has until the end of the school year to remove them.

In a statement issued to TODAY.com via email, Niki Scheppers, chief of staff for communications at West Ada School District, explains the district’s decision to enforce its policy.

“West Ada School District has been and always will be committed to fostering a welcoming and supportive learning environment for all students while upholding district policies,” the statement reads.

According to the statement, approved classroom displays include the Idaho state flag, instructional materials like the periodic table or U.S. Constitution, student artwork, approved club information and school-sponsored achievements. Other permitted items include temporary displays of world flags for educational purposes, personal family photos of employees and promotional materials from colleges or professional sports teams.

“This policy is designed to maintain consistency across all classrooms while ensuring that no one group is targeted or offended by the display of certain items.”

Fighting for her students, no matter the cost
Despite the district’s ruling, Inama refuses to remove the signs, even if it means risking her job.

“I would feel so sad to like leave my students before the end of the year, and financially, it would be difficult, but I just feel like your job, like your specific workplace, is not like your whole identity,” she explains. “There’s no way I would be able to allow myself to just take it down and roll over to what I feel like they’re asking me to do.”

Inama says what helps her now is knowing that she is not alone in her resistance. She says hundreds of people — including teachers across the district — have reached out to extend their support since her story became public.

“I’d say at least half of them are from other teachers in this district and in some of the other districts in Idaho and in other states,” she says.

Above all, Inama says she will prioritize the students seated in her classroom and stand by what she believes to be right

Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner is pushing to evict an independent theater from its city-owned space and cut its funding after it screened “No Other Land,” an Oscar-winning documentary about Palestinian displacement in the West Bank.

Meiner, who is Jewish, is introducing legislation to revoke O Cinema’s lease and withdraw more than $40,000 in city grant funding, describing the film, which has faced criticism from both pro-Israel and pro-Palestian advocates, as antisemitic. The proposal will go before the city commission at its next meeting on Wednesday.

“No Other Land” premiered last Friday at O Cinema, which operates out of the Miami Beach Historic City Hall. Several days before the screening, Meiner contacted O Cinema CEO Vivian Marthell, urging her not to show the film.

“The City of Miami Beach has one of the highest concentrations of Jewish residents in the United States,” Meiner said in his letter to Marthell. “The ‘No Other Land’ film is a one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our City and residents.”

Marthell initially accepted Meiner’s request, citing “concerns of antisemitic rhetoric,” but reversed course, stating that the decision to screen the documentary was about upholding free speech.

“My initial reaction to Mayor Meiner’s threats was made under duress,” Marthell said in an email to the Associated Press on Thursday. “After reflecting on the broader implications for free speech and O Cinema’s mission, I (along with the O Cinema board and staff members) agreed it was critical to screen this acclaimed film.”

Meiner has responded to backlash against his pressure campaign from critics who accuse him of censorship by saying that the movie’s content conflicts with his city’s values.

“I am a staunch believer in free speech,” Meiner said in his newsletter. “But normalizing hate and then disseminating antisemitism in a facility owned by the taxpayers of Miami Beach, after O Cinema conceded the ‘concerns of antisemitic rhetoric,’ is unjust to the values of our city and residents and should not be tolerated.”

“No Other Land” follows the destruction of Palestinian villages in the West Bank and the friendship between Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who co-directed the film. After it won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature earlier this month, an increasing number of theaters have sought to show it, even though it did not have a U.S. distributor.

Abraham has pushed back against Meiner’s criticism, writing in an email to the AP, “When the mayor uses the word antisemitism to silence Palestinians and Israelis who proudly oppose occupation and apartheid together, fighting for justice and equality, he is emptying it out of meaning. I find that to be very dangerous.”

Israeli officials have strongly criticized the film with Israel’s culture minister, Miki Zohar, calling it “sabotage” against the country, particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza.

The Miami Beach controversy comes amid heightened tensions around free speech and pro-Palestinian activism nationwide following the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia student activist and green card holder who has played a leading role in pro-Palestinian protests on the campus. The case has divided Jewish groups and is facing high-profile litigation.

In Miami Beach, City Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez rejected Meiner’s actions as “knee-jerk reactions” likely to lead to “costly legal battles” in a newsletter to her constituents, even as she said she agrees with Meiner’s assessment of the film.

“The Mayor cannot send a letter condemning a film and then cancel O Cinema’s contract days later,” Rosen Gonzalez wrote. “Doing so would result in an expensive lawsuit we will lose.”

Miami Beach City Commissioner David Suarez, known for his past vocal support of Israel, expressed backing for Meiner’s proposed legislation in a text message to the Miami Herald but stopped short of revealing how he would vote.

“A religious Jew was voted as Mayor, along with a Zionist city council. Unlike other cities, we have zero tolerance for pro-Hamas/ terrorist propaganda,” Suarez wrote. “The City of Miami Beach will continue to stand up for our Jewish population, home to holocaust survivors, and while most people use ‘Never Again’ as a platitude, we mean it.”

Andrew Clyde's bill sounds like the Black Lives Don't Matter Act.