E-Pluribus | June 26, 2026
MLB's pride month hypocrisy. Pro-life student gets no day in court. Academic freedom for me, not for thee.
A round-up of the latest and best insight on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Simon Tam: MLB’s pride controversy exposes free speech double standard
During a recent San Francisco Giants “Pride Night” game, several pitchers wrote Bible verses on their rainbow-themed caps, prompting MLB to issue a warning for violating uniform rules against any writing on apparel.
Simon Tam argues the controversy exposes a broader free speech double standard: people (and organizations) defend expression when it aligns with their views rather than consistently upholding principles of open discourse.
A few San Francisco Giants pitchers wrote a Bible verse on their Pride Night caps this month. The MLB warned them that the modification violated uniform rules, insisting it had nothing to do with the message itself. Vice President J.D. Vance − who I happened to live near years before either of us had any reason to think about Major League Baseball’s uniform policy − posted on social media: “Trump won, we don’t have to do this anymore.”
That’s a remarkable thing to say. Not because it’s shocking (versions of it get said constantly, by people across the political spectrum) but because it states plainly what usually stays unspoken: that the principle was never really the point. It was really about the power to stop pretending it was.
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A few years ago, Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem. It wasn't disruptive, it wasn't violent. It was a symbolic expression of the kind that has shaped American civic life since the country's founding. Many of the same people now defending the Giants pitchers' right to write Scripture on their own caps were, not long ago, demanding Kaepernick be benched, fined, or run out of the league for kneeling.
The reverse holds too. Plenty of people who defended Kaepernick passionately have gone noticeably quiet now that the protected expression cuts against their own politics instead of toward it.
LifeNews: Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Pro-Life Student’s Free Speech Case, Alito Disagrees
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of a former Indiana student, whose school blocked her from posting flyers advertising her Students for Life club because they featured political messages such as “Defund Planned Parenthood.” Details on the case here:
The nation’s highest court will not hear a pro-life free speech case regarding in Indiana high school student whose school denied her First Amendment rights.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to take up the appeal of former Noblesville High School student E.D., a pro-life teenager whose school blocked her from posting flyers promoting her Students for Life club.
The decision leaves in place lower court rulings that upheld the Noblesville school district’s policy.
E.D., then a freshman, founded the student-run Noblesville Students For Life club and sought approval to display flyers advertising club meetups. The flyers used a template from the national organization and featured photos of students holding signs that read “Defund Planned Parenthood” and “I Am the Pro-Life Generation.”
School administrators, including Principal Craig McCaffrey, rejected the flyers under the district’s content-neutral policy that barred political content on school walls.
After E.D.’s mother met with school leaders, administrators raised concerns that the club was not entirely student-run, describing it as “an attempt at insubordination led by an outside adult advocating with the student.” The club was temporarily suspended before being reinstated.
E.D. and her parents sued the school district, alleging violations of the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act. They argued that the school’s actions were “driven by hostility to her pro-life views.”
Paul du Quenoy: The Radical Left AAUP Beclowns Itself
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP)—established in 1915 to defend academic freedom—has been exposed for pursuing an aggressive campaign to “name and shame” and “knock out” classical education initiatives.
At Chronicles, Paul du Quenoy criticizes the AAUP’s ideological shift, including defending DEI in faculty evaluations and making dismissive statements about conservative scholars, arguing that it has abandoned its founding mission.
“I would really love to see kind of a robust research project on these right-wing centers and individuals—like, naming and shaming,” announced Isaac Kamola, a Trinity College political science professor who heads the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF) at the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
In an audio recording obtained by Manhattan Institute senior fellow John Sailer, who also obtained supporting public documents, Kamola lets us know that he wants “to strategically map who these f—ers are, and figure out what the weaknesses are, and design a research agenda that just goes through them and tries to knock them out.”
So much for competing in the marketplace of ideas.
Created in 2024, according to Sailer’s analysis for City Journal, CDAF receives $1.5 million in funds from the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest donor to the arts and humanities. In 2020, Mellon decided to embark on a “major strategic evolution for its organization, prioritizing social justice in all of its grantmaking.”
In recent years, the study centers and associated people Kamola hopes to “knock out” have stood in the institutional vanguard of the higher education reform movement, emphasizing non-ideological approaches to such traditional subjects as civics, great books, American government, military and diplomatic history, free enterprise, and other areas that the legacy professoriate prefers to ignore or deride. Many are proven academic successes.
The same day Kamola’s recording leaked, the University of Florida’s Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education announced that three of its affiliates had just received Fulbright fellowships.
Founded in 1915 “to advance academic freedom,” one might expect that the AAUP—and its center specifically named for academic freedom—would at least pretend to defend that concept.
Not so fast. According to CDAF’s website, the organization only touts the sort of “freedom” that supports its narrow assessment of policies consistent with the notion that “teaching, learning, and the pursuit of knowledge are essential to creating and sustaining multi-racial and plurinational societies.”
Around X
And now, Greg Lukianoff with today’s edition of “We’ve seen this movie before.”
Say it with us: It’s not free speech if it only applies to people you agree with.
This meme is making the rounds. We’re confident this is the best iteration so far.
