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Northwestern students face criminal charges for pro-Palestinian newspaper parody
(responsiblestatecraft.org)
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this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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What did they take?
It's phrased as “unauthorized advertisement in a newspaper or periodical."
They had a parody ad for Israel birthright travel services and I think that's what they're being charged for - absurd.
They wrapped the real newspaper with their parody version and left them in the newsstands. The law, as I understand, was created for the purposes of preventing the Klan from doing the same thing with recruiting flyers back in the day.
Now, to charge these students - black students, apparently? - using that same law for this situation is obviously absurd and gross; but that’s what is allowing them to do it since the “problem” isn’t the content, it’s the distribution method.
We all know they were just pissed about the content, but they found a loophole to bring charges outside of content objections (which are 1st amendment protected). Here’s hoping whoever hears their case has some sense.
It’s not an advertisement actually.
Now we're cooking with Goodman, I like this angle.
For anyone wondering there was no money changing hands. No commerce no ability for the government to regulate it. It’s protected under the first amendment.
The law in question bans you from acquiring a paper, putting info you made inside it (literally, like putting a brochure physically inside), and then dispensing the bundle to someone else. The law is framed to claim the newspaper company is the victim when you do this, because you are benefiting from advertising "with" the paper without the paper's consent. This was done to try and stop the KKK from doing this with recruitment paperwork, although it's unclear to me why the law doesn't frame itself as having consumers be the victim of fraud.
So they didn't take anything, they just didn't pay for something they allegedly should have.