I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower court ruling upholding the editorial practices of Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) in a directory they publish listing companies and individuals who can help applicants for unemployment benefits.
The plaintiffs in the case, Andrew and Glenda Grosjean, wanted to include biblical quotations in their profile in the directory of of people who represent applicants for benefits who need to appeal their denials, but the UIA removed those references.
The Grosjeans filed a lawsuit claiming that this denial violated their rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion. The federal district court granted summary judgment for the state and the appeals court has now upheld that ruling.
Prior to December 2006, the UIA allowed each person listed in the directory to include a short narrative, essentially an advertisement for their services. Both of the Grosjeans had profiles that included bible verses related to the pursuit of justice and mercy.
Once informed of the content of those profiles, the agency decided not to allow such narratives and subsequently changed the template for the directory to allow only specific biographical information that was directly relevant to the provision of services to unemployment claimants. The Grosjeans then filed suit.
The courts ruled that the directory listings constituted government speech rather than private speech and that the directory was a non-public forum, which means that any government limitations on what may be said in such a forum “must not be based on the speaker’s viewpoint and must otherwise be reasonable in light of the purpose of the property.”
Based on that standard, the appeals court ruled that because the UIA’s restrictions censored all information aside from biographical data that is directly relevant to their performance as advocates, without regard to the content of that non-biographical data, the restriction was reasonable and non-discriminatory.
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