Political Scientist Wins Injunction Against University of Oregon Officials Over Social Media Censorship

The US District Court for the District of Oregon has granted a preliminary injunction in the Gilley v Stabin case, involving Portland State University political scientist Bruce Gilley, and the University of Oregon (UO) Division of Equity and Inclusion.

We obtained a copy of the order for you here.

It was Tova Stabin, at that time, June 2022, UO’s communications manager – who is named as a defendant in Gilley’s First Amendment-based lawsuit filed after he was blocked on Twitter by Stabin.

Stabin’s decision to block Gilley and thus have his posts removed from the UO Equity account, came as he responded to her asking Twitter to “interrupt racism.” Gilley’s post read, “All men are created equal.”

The latest decision came after the motion for a preliminary injunction was first denied as moot (because UO Equity lifted the block one day after Gilley filed, and ceased activity on its Twitter account) – but then the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to the lower court.

The decision means that UO Equity can no longer block Gilley, or hide, mute, or delete his posts.

According to Just The News, Stabin retired from UO shortly after Gilley was censored, but returned this year as a consultant for the school, in order to organize “a couple of fighting antisemitism workshops.”

When the blocking incident originally happened, Gilley wanted to know which policy allowed UO to do what it did and filed a request for public records to reveal this. Stabin was then cited in the response to the request as telling a colleague Gilley was “obnoxious” – and not only that but was “bringing obnoxious people to the site.”

The 9th Circuit’s decision back in March noted that UO first said it had no formal policy on social media, but that when Gilley sued, it suddenly changed this position by revealing guidelines that gave it the right to remove any comments it considered racist, hateful, otherwise inappropriate or offensive.

And to make the “rules” as broad as possible – also comments that are “out of context, off-topic or not relevant to the topic at hand.” That would be one way of saying, “obnoxious.”

However the appellate court was not impressed, stating that the case was not moot because of the policy’s “lack of formality and relative novelty, how easily (it) can be reversed, and the lack of procedural safeguards to protect from arbitrary action.”

For that reason, the 9th Circuit found, “Gilley has standing to seek prospective relief for his as-applied challenge,” and now the district court granted an injunction.

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