“Hate speech” is notoriously hard to define and is usually a subjective characterization of harsh words. Though the term is thrown around by people describing comments they don’t like, it generally refers to expression that might not be nice but is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as well as state speech protections. But that’s not going to stop California lawmakers from trying to hector people into refraining from voicing nasty sentiments.

Training the Hate Away

Existing California law requires employers with five or more employees to provide at least two hours of training regarding sexual harassment to all supervisors, and at least one hour of training to all other employees, repeated every two years. Assembly Bill 1803, introduced by Assemblymembers Josh Lowenthal (D–Long Beach) and Rick Chavez Zbur (D–Los Angeles) and co-authored by Assemblymember Corey Jackson (D–Moreno Valley), “would additionally require that the above-described training and education include, as a component of the training and education, anti-hate speech training.”

In a press release, Lowenthal claims that “AB 1803 is about making our workplaces safer, more respectful, and more inclusive for everyone. Hate speech has no place on the job, just as sexual harassment has no place on the job. By incorporating anti hate speech training into existing sexual harassment prevention programs, we are building on a proven framework to address harmful behavior before it escalates.”

What the world really doesn’t need, it should be noted, is more state-mandated nagging about the allegedly naughty activities we shouldn’t engage in. As PBS’s Rhana Natour reported in 2018, “there’s little evidence that sexual harassment training works.” A 2016 U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission report concluded that “much of the training done over the last 30 years has not worked as a prevention tool—it’s been too focused on simply avoiding legal liability.” Research by Justine Tinkler, a sociologist at the University of Georgia, found that such training mostly reinforces traditional views of sex roles by portraying men as predators and women as victims. But training is an effective time suck.

Hate speech has the added burden of being primarily a political term used to describe expression that somebody doesn’t like. This makes it very difficult to describe in an actionable way in a country that has vigorous speech protections. California’s lawmakers have not risen to the challenge.

Defining ‘Hate Speech’ Eludes Everybody

“As drafted, AB 1803 does not define hate speech,” observes the California Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment analysis of the bill. “Committee staff is not aware of a definition of hate speech in California law. Hate speech itself is not illegal but can violate employment law if it rises to an actionable level of workplace harassment or discrimination. Nevertheless, the author may wish to consider defining hate speech in the bill so as to give guidance to employers and the CRD [Civil Rights Department] since these entities will be developing the anti-hate speech training.”

So, the bill in its current reform would require employers to consume business resources and workers’ time with mandatory admonishments to not do something called “hate speech,” whatever that might be. Which is probably not illegal to begin with.

“‘Hate speech’ includes speech protected by the First Amendment — speech the government has no business trying to snuff out with legal mandates,” point out Adam Goldstein and Greg Gonzalez of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). “But also, it has no clear or consistent definition. Because of that vagueness, efforts to regulate ‘hate speech’ risk giving the government sweeping authority to suppress views it doesn’t like.”

That’s not a hypothetical possibility—it’s reality in countries that have adopted hate speech laws. Robert Habeck, an official in Germany’s last government, was infamous for wielding the country’s restrictive speech laws against his critics. “German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has filed complaints over 730 cases of criminal hate speech since April last year,” Politico‘s Nette Nöstlinger reported in 2024. A few of the cases involved actual threats, but many others were sparked by insults such as referring to Habeck as a “professional idiot.”

Current Chancellor Freidrich Merz continues that tradition; his government pressed charges against a man who called the politician “Pinocchio.” With around 300 such prosecutions underway, a German court recently ordered the government to disclose which prosecutors are handling the cases.

In the majority of these prosecutions, people face fines and prison time for saying unpleasant things that enjoy full legal protection under American law.

Hate Speech Is Legal in the United States

“In the United States, hate speech is protected by the First Amendment,” according to the American Library Association. “Courts extend this protection on the grounds that the First Amendment requires the government to strictly protect robust debate on matters of public concern even when such debate devolves into distasteful, offensive, or hateful speech that causes others to feel grief, anger, or fear.”

“Hate speech can only be criminalized when it directly incites imminent criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence targeted against a person or group,” the group adds.

California lawmakers have tried to clarify their proposed legislation—mostly by adding scare words. That doesn’t make supposedly hateful speech itself illegal because it can’t.

“Recent amendments to AB 1803, citing speech that ‘vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred’ based on protected characteristics, do little to resolve this problem,” comment FIRE’s Goldstein and Gonzalez. “Terms like ‘vilify,’ ‘humiliate,’ and ‘incite hatred’ lack clear legal meaning, so you end up with a vague mandate that fails to distinguish between protected speech and unprotected conduct.”

They warn that if forced to implement hate speech training, private employers will probably restrict perfectly lawful speech just to avoid hassles with state regulators.

A.B. 1803 was introduced as part of a package with A.B. 1578, which mandates hate speech training for state and local elected officials, and A.B. 2347, which mandates hate crime training for police officers.

It will be interesting to see if California lawmakers succeed more at consuming workplace time or at inviting First Amendment lawsuits.

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5/1/1871: Knox v. Lee decided.

 

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Netflix’s Bridgerton is a Regency-era drama known for its lavish balls and magnificently over-the-top dresses. In the show’s fourth season, released on Netflix in January and February, the show circles timely themes of journalistic freedom and personal autonomy amid all the pomp and pretension.

Set in an alternate-history version of early 19th century London, Bridgerton follows young men and women navigating the “marriage mart” under the watchful eyes of several judgmental aristocratic families, Queen Charlotte, and an ever-present gossip column written by the mysterious Lady Whistledown.

The identity of the author of those pseudonymous missives was outed in Season 3 as Penelope Featherington. Operating outside of polite society’s rules, Penelope becomes the show’s quiet radical. Her anonymous gossip pamphlet is an enormous success, so much so that she earns an income. Of course, the state attempts to control it.

In the newest season, Penelope is summoned to the queen’s palace, where she is told who and what she must write about. Coverage of the “maid wars,” a shortage of domestic help that causes havoc and forces households to raise wages, is not interesting enough for the queen. The queen demands gossip!

When the gossip writer seeks permission to give up her column entirely, Queen Charlotte refuses. Penelope is forced to choose between having her thoughts and words censored by the queen or risking everything—social standing, financial security, and more—to defy the bullying head of state.

For all its romantic escapism, Bridgerton quietly reminds viewers that the fight for freedom to write freely and earn a living has always been a radical act—especially for women.

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With its iconic blocky visual style, intuitive crafting system, rewarding resource acquisition, and many multiplayer game modes to explore, Minecraft revolutionized the sandbox survival genre. Fifteen years later, it’s still going strong.

The game was created by the Swedish programmer Markus “Notch” Persson over a single weekend in May 2009. A month later, Notch founded the Stockholm-based Mojang Studios to develop Minecraft 1.0.0, the official version released for Mac and PC in November 2011. Microsoft announced its acquisition of Minecraft and Mojang Studios in September 2014, after the game had sold 54 million copies and boasted 100 million registered users.

Contrary to the concerns of big-is-bad types, Minecraft‘s charm has only grown since its Big Tech acquisition. Minecraft 26.1—the newest version of the game, released in March—features myriad new blocks, mechanics, mobs, and challenges that preacquisition Minecraft lacked.

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In Minnesota, Anthony Stephen Israelson was found guilty of two misdemeanors for driving a school bus drunk. The case stemmed from a 2024 incident when he drove a school bus containing more than a dozen children, between kindergarten and 10th grade, with a blood alcohol level of 0.161, more than four times the legal limit for commercial drivers. Israelson was sentenced to 364 days in jail on each count, with all but one day suspended. He must also complete two years of supervised probation and will be subject to random drug and alcohol tests.

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On Wednesday, the Supreme Court decided Callais. The last paragraph of the opinion stated:

The judgment of the District Court is affirmed, and thesecases are remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Well, it is not ordered right away. Under the Court’s rules, the remand does not happen immediately. In this 2020 post, I described the process by which judgments are actually entered. Conflicts over the timing of the judgments have arisen in high profile cases, including Bush v. Gore, Boumediene, Trump v. Vance, Trump v. Mazars, DHS v. Regents, Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, and others. Of course, after Obergefell was decided, jurisdictions outside the Sixth Circuit immediately issued marriage licenses to gay couples, even though they were bound by injunctions. Whatever, love won!

The private plaintiffs in Trump v. Callais have asked the Supreme Court to issue the judgment forthwith. Louisiana has taken no position on the request, because the issuance of the judgment is irrelevant:

The State notes that the Court’s May 15, 2024 Order also states that, “[i]n the event jurisdiction is noted or postponed, this order will remain in effect pending the sending down of the judgment of this Court.” That language can be read to conflict with the cited language above, which requires automatic termination of the Order if the lower court’s judgment is affirmed. That potential conflict, however, has no bearing here because, whether the Order is already terminated or will be terminated when this Court sends down the judgment, nothing prevents Louisiana from adopting a constitutional map and process consistent with this Court’s decision right now.

Louisiana is correct. The District Court did not issue an injunction. The Supreme Court affirmed the District Court’s judgment. Nothing prohibits Louisiana from following the Supreme Court’s decision as a precedent, even if there is no issued judgment. Moreover, once Louisiana adopts new maps in the next week or so, this entire dispute will be mooted.

The Supreme Court can safely do nothing here.

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Some excerpts from the long Complaint in Harpole v. Owens (M.D. Tenn.), just filed today (of course, recall that these are all just accusations, not court findings):

Plaintiff Brian Harpole is a citizen and resident of Texas. He is the founder and head of Integrity Security Solutions, a private security firm. In or around 2018, Harpole began working for the late Charlie Kirk, with Integrity Solutions providing security for Turning Point USA and protective services for Kirk from 2022 to 2025. Integrity Solutions provided these services for Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, where Kirk was fatally shot….

Shortly after the assassination, Owens began disseminating content asserting that Kirk was betrayed by individuals close to him, that the government orchestrated a cover-up of the assassination, that Turning Point USA was implicated in the event, and advancing numerous additional conspiracy theories suggesting that somebody other than Tyler Robinson was involved in the murder….

Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Owens has intentionally proliferated a campaign intended to impugn the reputation of Harpole. Without even a modicum of substantiated evidence, she has publicly accused Harpole and Integrity Solutions of foreknowledge, participation in, and cover-up of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, as well as professional unfitness and criminal negligence. Despite Owens admitting that she had viewed Harpole’s flight records, she continued to accuse him of attending a meeting at Fort Huachuca—based solely on unsubstantiated testimony from Defendant Snow. Furthermore, without any evidence that Harpole acted negligently or intentionally with regard to the assassination of Kirk, Owens spread conspiracy theories that he somehow and for some reason intended Kirk to die….

Between December 9, 2025, and December 28, 2025, Owens, through at least eight separate statements published on X and disseminated via her podcast, falsely and negligently, if not intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth, alleged that Harpole attended a conspiracy meeting at Fort Huachuca on the day preceding Kirk’s assassination and colluded with the government in connection with that assassination. She therefore also accused him of conspiracy to commit murder, a criminal offense. These statements include, but are not limited to:

1. Owens’s December 9, 2025, podcast in which she falsely claimed that Mitch Snow, who she describes as “credible,” saw Plaintiff at Fort Huachuca on September 9, 2025, the day before the assassination and that “[w]hen an operation is being confirmed, you have these final meetings, and they involve all the higher-ups and you are trying to do this in a very isolated location where you know people are not going to accidentally happen upon you[.]”
2. Owen’s description of her December 9, 2025, podcast, reading, “After today, I do not know how this leads to anything other than a full confession from the government about their [sic] involvement in Charlie Kirk’s assassination”
3. Owens’s December 18, 2025, X post stating, “We bring you an EXPLOSIVE interview with what may be the lone eyewitness to a mysterious, top brass meeting which occurred on Fort Huachuca the day before Charlie’s assassination….”
4. Owens’s December 18, 2025, podcast in which she published Mitch Snow’s false account of seeing Plaintiff at Fort Huachuca and claimed to have evidence confirming his narrative.
5. Owens’s December 19, 2025, podcast in which she stated that she finds Defendant’s Snow’s narrative to be “compelling” because she was “given travel logs for Brian Harpole and it is entirely possible that Brian Harpole could have made it to that meeting.”
6. Owens’s December 22, 2025, X post in which she stated she viewed Plaintiff’s flight records and confirmed that they did not provide an alibi.
7. Owens’s December 23, 2025, X post “”Fort Huachuca Confirmed” which contains an unsubstantiated incident report.
8. Owens’s December 28, 2025, X post claiming that the Fort Huachuca story was legitimized by Plaintiff’s estranged son.

Between October 27, 2025, and the filing of this Complaint, Owens has also falsely and intentionally made at least five separate statements suggesting that Harpole had foreknowledge of the assassination and actively assisted in bringing it out. Owens is falsely accusing Harpole of criminal activity, up to and including murder. These statements include, but are not limited to:

1. Owens’s November 18, 2025, podcast in which she accuses Plaintiff of lying about drone availability, asking is “this how these assassinations happen?”, accuses Harpole of failing to secure the UVU rooftops, and statements that Harpole should be fired.
2. Owens’s November 19, 2025, podcast in which she again accuses Harpole of lying about drone availability.
3. Owens’s December 12, 2025, post to X where she states, “Brian Harpole has already been caught lying about what transpired on that day. Did he also lie about having placed a 911 call? Did no one from their team call 911 after Charlie was shot?”
4. Owens’s December 16, 2025, X post where she says Brian Harpole did not pack Kirk’s wound.
5. Owens’s January 8, 2026, statements that (i) “we have to revisit Brian Harpole’s story about how far in advance they typically plan security because someone has leaked me another glaring oddity in this security protocol; (ii) there was “no security plan in place” at Charis Bible College, claiming it odd that Harpole’s team planned Kirk’s security strategy for Utah Valley University two weeks in advance, but failed to contact the Chief of Police for Woodland, Colorado, to plan security for the Charis Bible College event (iii) “[t]hat’s what I mean when you lie a lot and when you’re planning things you’re not supposed to be planning. Yeah, as in the next day if you expected Charlie to make it to September 11th you would have been communicating about what he was doing um up at the Charis Bible College.” (iv) “Why didn’t Dan Flood and Brian Harpole and Turning Point USA’s security have any coordination with the police departments up in Colorado if this is what they normally do[?]; …

All of Owens’s statements are either false on their face or create a false meaning reasonably conveyed by the published words. They are not protected opinions, rhetorical hyperbole, or questions without defamatory implication. It is simply false that Harpole knew Charlie Kirk was going to die or was involved in the planning, commission, or alleged cover-up of the assassination…. In addition, or in the alternative, Owens acted with actual malice, in that Defendant knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth or falsity. This is because, Owens, inter alia,:

1. Knew Harpole’s plane tickets squarely placed him in Texas at the time of the alleged meeting at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.
2. Acknowledged that Mitch Snow, and only Mitch Snow, claimed Harpole attending the alleged Fort Huachuca meeting.
3. Treated limited evidence, much of which is of questionable veracity, that Snow was at Fort Huachuca as evidence that Harpole was also there.
4. Knew, based on official reports, that the investigation had revealed that Tyler Robinson alone was responsible for the assassination, but insisted that Harpole was involved.
5. Ignored the thousands of comments pointing out gaps in her theory alleging Harpole’s involvement.
6. Ignored the blatant credibility issues with the “incident report,” and proliferated the narrative that Harpole was at Fort Huachuca while conceding that she could not verify whether the meeting happened, let alone whether Harpole was there, because she was not in attendance.
7. Was aware that even if security was not planned two weeks in advance, this does not translate to foreknowledge or complicity in assassination.
8. Knew and conceded that Harpole ran over to Kirk with Harpole’s medical bag to provide care after he was shot.

Owens intentionally ignored all documents and evidence contradicting her narrative and nevertheless chose to publish such statements. She additionally failed to investigate obvious doubts such as the authenticity of the incidence report….

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The ImmigrationProf Blog site has been hosting a symposium on the birthright citizenship case oral argument, which took place before the Supreme Court earlier this month. They now have a post compiling links to the different posts, including one of my own. The other contributors are all prominent immigration law and constitutional law scholars. I include the links below:

Jack Chin on Lessons from the Oral Arguments

Ilya Somin, Justice Barrett, Slavery, and Birthright Citizenship

Bearing the Sins of the Father…. by Ediberto Roman

Rachel E. Rosenbloom, The Solicitor General Crossed a Line in Trump v. Barbara

The Citizenship Clause is Part of an Anti-Aristocracy Constitution by D. Carolina Núñez

My contribution to the symposium was originally posted right here at the VC blog. It builds, in part, on my earlier Lawfare article, “Slavery and Birthright Citizenship.”

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Amid the reshaping of the global economic order, thanks in part to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade policies, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is proposing his own restructuring of Canada’s economy.

On Monday, Carney announced the creation of a new “sovereign wealth fund,” called the Canada Strong Fund. The fund will begin at 25 billion Canadian dollars (about $18.4 billion) and will be used to finance various infrastructure projects.

“The order which Canada helped build…is crumbling,” Carney said on Monday. Canada’s “former strengths built on [its] close ties to the United States have become [its] weakness,” he added.

To rectify this, Carney’s proposed wealth fund would serve as “a national savings and investment account,” and be modeled after Norway’s $2 trillion investment fund. Except, this is not what the Canadian government is proposing.

While the Norwegian investment fund is financed by the country’s oil and gas revenues, only spends the return it makes, and can only make expenditures outside of the country (a measure to prevent corruption and political horse-trading), Carney’s proposal would be funded by borrowing and its money spent on Canadian companies. In his announcement, Carney said that the fund will go toward investments in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, energy, and mining, where “leading Canadian companies” will receive the money.

“It’s not a sovereign wealth fund. It’s a debt-fueled corporate slush fund,” Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, tells Reason. “Carney’s fund is not built on wealth or savings. It’s built on borrowed money, and it’s going to gamble tax dollars on risky corporate handouts.”

The exact details of what projects the government will spend its borrowed money on are yet to be announced, but Canadian public finances will likely take the hit. The government is already predicting a $66.9 billion deficit for FY 2026, and federal debt has climbed to over $1.2 trillion, which is 41.2 percent of Canada’s GDP.

Despite this precarious position, Carney is going full steam ahead with this scheme. According to Terrazzano, “this isn’t the only slush fund the government has.” He points out that the government already has the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Canada Growth Fund, and “billions of dollars in other types of subsidies.” All of these programs have a checkered history of irresponsibly spending public money.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank, for instance, was launched in 2017 with $35 billion of taxpayer money. It committed to funding over 100 projects, of which only 11 were finished. Failed bank projects include the Lake Erie Connector project, which aimed to build a high-voltage power line from Ontario to Pennsylvania. After spending $655 million on the $1.7 billion venture, its developer canceled the project due to “rapid cost escalation.” (The bank’s first CEO, Pierre Lavallée, resigned in April 2020, and despite not completing a single project under his tenure, was given generous six-figure bonuses after his resignation.)

Meanwhile, the Canada Growth Fund, which aimed to finance projects that boost the economy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has effectively been used as a mechanism for corporate welfare. In 2024, the Canadian government announced that Strathcona Resources, one of the nation’s largest oil producers (which recorded over $4 billion in revenue that year), would get $500 million of taxpayer cash (with the potential to receive up to $1 billion) via the fund to begin engineering work for carbon capture projects across its facilities in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The projects are still underway, but the company expects to recoup “substantially all of [its] share of capital costs” through federal tax credits.

“I think it’s the same politics in Canada that you see all around the world,” says Terrazzano. “Politicians like to spend other people’s money, have press conferences, smile for the camera, and cut ribbons.”

Carney believes that the Canada Strong Fund is needed to make Canada prosperous. But given Canada’s existing fiscal problems and the bevy of other wasteful programs, creating another way for the government to spend more taxpayer money seems like a poor way to achieve this objective.

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