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Date:
7/28/2025
Campos v. Arizona Board of Regents (D. Ariz. Jul. 28, 2025)
Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss. Plaintiffs, a group of Arizona State University students, brought suit against the Arizona Board of Regents, the University’s President Michael Crow, several University officials, and law enforcement officers, alleging First Amendment retaliation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and violation of Arizona’s campus free speech statute following plaintiffs’ arrest and suspension for participation in a pro-Palestinian protest on campus. Plaintiffs alleged that the University coordinated with law enforcement to suppress anti-Israel speech and then preemptively suspended student protestors while sparing other students present at the demonstration. In response to the lawsuit, two motions to dismiss were filed: one from the University’s Board of Regents and several other University-affiliated individuals, and the other from the current Maricopa County Sheriff. The court dismissed all claims against the County Sheriff and nearly all individual University officials, citing a lack of specific factual allegations to support a legal claim. However, the court allowed claims to proceed against the University Board of Regents and University President. The court found that plaintiffs plausibly alleged the University’s President retaliated against them based on their political speech, based on the claim that (1) the University President was urged by the Anti-Defamation League to “impose consequences on students protesting Zionism,” and (2) spread misinformation about the protest to justify the University’s actions. The court further found that Arizona had waived sovereign immunity for the state-law claim and declined to apply qualified immunity or issue preclusion due to unresolved factual disputes and outstanding questions in the case
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Student Speech & Campus Unrest | Students
Date:
7/22/2025
Mississippi Association of Educators v. Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning (S.D. Miss. Jul. 22, 2025)
Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Temporary Restraining Order. Plaintiffs, a group of educators, students, parents, the Mississippi Association of Educators, and other civil rights organizations, challenged the constitutionality of Mississippi HB 1993, a state law prohibiting public schools and universities from teaching, promoting, or requiring participation in diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Plaintiffs alleged that the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments by imposing both content and viewpoint-based restrictions on protected speech, infringed students’ right to receive information, and was unconstitutionally vague. Plaintiffs sought both a temporary restraining order (TRO) and a preliminary injunction to enjoin HB 1193 from being enforced. The law at issue, HB 1193, bans educational engagement with “divisive concepts” and prohibits mandatory DEI-related training or programming. Plaintiffs alleged that the law’s vague and broad language fosters an environment where administrators censor their speech out of fear of punishment or canceled programming and claimed that the sweeping language makes it impossible for institutions to ascertain what conduct is permissible. The court granted the temporary restraining order, finding that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits. The court further concluded that HB 1193 violated the Due Process Clause by failing to clearly define what concepts are prohibited and also failed strict scrutiny by restricting protected speech without a compelling or narrowly tailored justification. The court’s reasoning turned on the law’s vagueness, the demonstrated chilling effect on constitutionally protected expression, and the risk of arbitrary enforcement. The TRO will remain in effect through August 17, 2025, pending a ruling on plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Due Process | First Amendment & Free Speech
Date:
7/17/2025
Black Emergency Response Team v. Drummond (Okla. Sup. Ct. Jun 17, 2025) (unpub.)
Order Responding to Certified Questions. Petitioners, a coalition of civil rights organizations and university affiliates, challenged 71 O.S. § 24-157, enacted through Oklahoma House Bill 1775, which “prohibits mandatory gender and sexual diversity training . . . [i]n relation to public colleges or universities, the law states: No enrolled student of an institution of higher education within The Oklahoma State System of Higher Education shall be required to engage in any form of mandatory gender or sexual diversity training or counseling; provided, voluntary counseling shall not be prohibited. Any orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex shall be prohibited.” Petitioners argued that the law violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments by restricting classroom speech and access to ideas related to race and gender. The district court, after issuing a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of key portions of the statute on vagueness grounds, certified six questions of state law to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The court responded to the first three questions: (1) whether the Oklahoma law overstepped the Legislature’s authority to control the internal operations of public universities; (2) defining the term “requirement” in the context of the ban on mandatory content involving race or sex stereotyping; and (3) defining the term “present” as it relates to teaching on race or sex stereotyping and whether it includes all references, discussions or portrayals. The court stated “[w]e answer the first three certified questions by determining that the term ‘requirement’ in § 24-157(A)(1) pertains only to orientation requirements and does not apply to classes, courses, or curricular speech.” After the court concluded that the narrowed scope of the definition does not implicate curricular speech and thus does not infringe upon principles of academic freedom, the court stated that it “has no reason to answer the remaining certified questions” and determined that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the law. The court declined to answer the remaining certified questions related to § 24-157(B)(1), finding that interpretation of those provisions would not avoid the federal constitutional issues raised and would risk rendering an advisory opinion. The court also made note that the federal questions raised could be impacted or rendered moot by Executive order 14190 “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” and declined to make that determination.
Topics:
Academic Freedom & Employee Speech | Constitutional Issues | Faculty & Staff | First Amendment & Free Speech
Date:
7/1/2025
Krasno v. Mnookin (7th Cir. Aug. 1, 2025)
Opinion Reversing and Remanding. Plaintiff, a former student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison brought First Amendment claims against the University after it had hidden several of her comments online. Plaintiff, while a student at the University, worked as a primate caretaker through the University’s research center and went on to become an animal rights advocate, using social media to highlight her experiences as a researcher. In 2020, plaintiff began commenting on the University’s social media posts, writing things such as “stop exploiting animals. Get with the future and the future is consistent anti-oppression. Shut down the labs and eat plants!” Plaintiff also responded to other comments, explaining that she used to work in one of the University’s labs. The University restricted plaintiff’s Instagram account, which hid all of her comments on the University’s posts and explained that it had noticed “a consistent pattern of off-topic comments.” The restriction was later removed, though her hidden comments were never unhidden. In 2021, the district court denied summary judgment for plaintiff and found in favor of the University, “finding nonpublic and limited public forums substantively equivalent . . . [and] the comment threads attached to the University’s posts were nonpublic forums, such that any restrictions to speech were required to be reasonable and viewpoint neutral.” On appeal, the Seventh Circuit agreed with the district court that the interactive comment threads attached to the University’s posts are limited public forums but disagreed that the University’s reasoning for hiding plaintiff’s comments was reasonable. The Court concluded that the comments made by plaintiff were private speech and “the University’s minimal involvement in shaping the comments on its comment threads weighs against finding that the comments constitute the University’s speech.” Further, the Court found that “the University’s ill-defined off-topic comment rule is neither reasonable nor viewpoint neutral” and found it to be unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Social Media
Date:
6/27/2025
Doc Society v. Rubio (D.C.C. Jun. 27, 2025)
Memorandum Opinion Reversing the District Court’s Determination of Standing. Plaintiffs, Doc Society and International Documentary Association, filed suit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department in 2023 to challenge the State Department’s 2019 policy imposing social media vetting for visa applicants. Plaintiffs asserted that the policy exceeded the Secretary’s statutory authority, was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and violated First Amendment rights to speech and association. The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice for failure to state a claim under the First Amendment or APA, but found that plaintiffs sufficiently alleged organizational standing. Plaintiffs’ standing claim relied on hypothetical scenarios in which third parties may be deterred from using social media or traveling to the United States due to the policy. However, upon appeal, the court found plaintiffs’ standing argument fell short of demonstrating the concrete and redressable harm that is necessary to sustain a First Amendment claim in this context, and reversed the district court’s ruling. The court reasoned that plaintiffs’ claims did not establish a strong enough “logical inference from traceability to establish redressability” to maintain organizational or associational standing. The court further noted that plaintiffs would need to provide more specific allegations to show that “a favorable outcome would redress their claimed injuries.” The case has been remanded for further proceedings, including a determination of whether plaintiffs should be allowed to amend their complaint.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Immigration | International Students
Date:
6/23/2025
Wax v. University of Pennsylvania (E.D. Pa June 23, 2025)
Memorandum Opinion Denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff Amy Wax, a tenured professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, brought claims against the University alleging breach of contract, racial discrimination, and false light invasion of privacy. Plaintiff brought this suit after undergoing the University’s disciplinary process where it found that she had engaged in “flagrant unprofessional conduct” and was sanctioned to a one-year suspension, removal of her chair title, a public reprimand, and a limited decrease in salary. Plaintiff alleged that the University failed to adhere to its own disciplinary process and sought to enjoin the University from enforcing the proscribed disciplinary sanctions. The sanctions stem from a series of public remarks concerning race, gender and sexuality that the University determined violated professional expectations and norms, further noting that “she was in dereliction of her scholarly responsibilities, violated privacy policies, and had not treated students with equitable due respect.” Plaintiff alleged that the sanctions cause irreparable reputational and professional harm and have a “chilling” effect on her right to free speech. However, the court found that plaintiff’s First Amendment arguments are ill-fit for the case at hand, as she alleged claims for breach of contract, not First Amendment claims. Further finding that plaintiff failed to demonstrate imminent, irreparable non-monetary harm, and her example of a cancelled scheduled radio appearance as unconvincing, the court denied plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, calling her claimed harm “speculative” and stating that “an injunction will not erase [her] record.”
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Faculty & Staff | First Amendment & Free Speech
Date:
6/16/2025
American Association of University Professors v. United States Department of Justice (S.D.N.Y. Jun. 16, 2025)
Opinion & Order denying Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Dismissing for Lack of Standing. Plaintiffs, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) sought a preliminary injunction against defendants, several United States government agencies and cabinet-level or high-ranking officials. Plaintiffs sought to require immediate reinstatement and restoration of all grants and contracts to Columbia University and plaintiffs’ members that were unlawfully terminated, canceled, or paused. Additionally, plaintiffs sought to prohibit defendants from enforcing the demands made in their March 13th letter, as well as engaging in unlawful investigations under the purported guise of Title VI involving grants or contracts. The Court held that plaintiffs, as labor unions, lacked standing to challenge defendants’ decision to suspend or terminate grants and contracts with Columbia University. The Court reasoned that plaintiffs could not seek reinstatement of the federal funds in question because they had no legal entitlement to them, as they were awarded directly to Columbia University—an entity not party to the lawsuit—and because plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a legally cognizable injury-in-fact. Even in their capacity as representative organizations, the Court found that plaintiffs failed to establish representative standing, noting a lack of traceable injury, as Columbia University’s non-involvement severed the “causal chain between [defendants] and any alleged injury.” Further, the Court found plaintiffs’ claim that Title VI is the exclusive legal basis for terminating federal funding in response to alleged religious discrimination, unpersuasive, and noted that the Executive Branch may properly act through lawful means to address such concerns on college campuses. As such, the Court denied the plaintiffs’ motion and dismissed the case without prejudice.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Contracts | First Amendment & Free Speech | Grants, Contracts, & Sponsored Research
Date:
6/13/2025
Qaddumi v. Hartzell (W. D. Tex. Jun. 13, 2025)
Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a student at the University of Texas at Austin alleged violation of the First Amendment by way of content and viewpoint discrimination and First Amendment retaliation against defendants, several administrators at the University. Plaintiff was suspended from the University following his involvement in planning a protest about the ongoing violence in Gaza as a member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC). Plaintiff maintains that the planned protest activities were peaceful in nature, however defendants counter that the protests held by aligned groups at other higher education institutions were “creating campus encampments” and feared that similar disruption would occur on the University’s campus, and subsequently issued a directive ordering students not to hold the event, or to face discipline under the University rules. Simultaneously, the Governor of Texas issued an Executive Order that instructed the University to ensure that its policies were being enforced, and student groups such as PSC were disciplined as needed for violating the policies. Plaintiff and other students proceeded with the protest despite the directive to cancel it. Plaintiff was then arrested for alleged trespass and suspended for one year after the conclusion of disciplinary proceedings. The court dismissed plaintiff’s claim for damages against University administrators in their individual capacity based on qualified immunity and his request for declaratory relief as to the cancellation of the April 2024 protest. In allowing plaintiff’s claim for injunctive relief on his suspension to proceed, the court reasoned that the University’s application of its policies in the instant case constituted viewpoint discrimination. The court highlighted the following alleged facts that could give rise to the inference of animus or discriminatory motive by the defendants: (1) defendants’ motive for suspension was derived in part by the Governor’s order, which the court previously found likely constituted viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment; (2) plaintiff was suspended “at least in part because of the prior actions of a student group of which he is a not a member but only shares similar views”; and (3) “other students on the scene of the protest, who did not have the same views as [plaintiff], were not similarly disciplined, nor have other similar protests on different topics historically resulted in [the University] forbidding protests and subsequently suspending students.”
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Student Speech & Campus Unrest | Students
Date:
6/5/2025
Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission (Jun. 5, 2025)
Opinion and Order Reversing and Remanding. Petitioners, Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc., and four of its subentities, challenged the decision by respondents, Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, to deny petitioners’ request for a statutorily defined exemption from paying unemployment compensation taxes to the state. The state statute at issue “exempts nonprofit organizations “‘operated primarily for religious purposes’ and ‘operated, supervised, controlled, or principally supported by a church or convention or association of churches’. The Wisconsin Supreme Court held in favor of respondents, “holding that petitioners were not ‘operated primarily for religious purposes’ because they neither engaged in proselytization nor limited their charitable services to Catholics.” The Court considered whether Wisconsin’s statute, as applied to petitioners, violates the First Amendment. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the law does violate the First Amendment. The Court found that “[t]he First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religions and subjects any state-sponsored denominational preference to strict scrutiny.” The Court reasoned that “an exemption that requires proselytization or exclusive service of co-religionists establishes a preference for certain religions based on the commands of their religious doctrine.” The Court found that the law’s application does not survive strict scrutiny because its theological demarcations were not narrowly tailored to further the purported compelling governmental interests of “ensuring unemployment coverage for [Wisconsin] citizens” and “avoiding entanglement with employment decisions based on religious doctrine”. The Court concluded by stating “it is fundamental to our constitutional order that the government maintain ‘neutrality between religion and religion.’”
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Religious Discrimination & Accommodation
Date:
5/14/2025
Speech First, Inc. v. McCall (5th Cir. May 14, 2025)
Opinion vacating the district court and remanding. Plaintiff, a national membership organization that represents students at Texas State University, filed suit against Texas State University, alleging that the University adopted a harassment policy in conflict with the First Amendment. Specifically, plaintiffs take issue with the University prohibiting “unwelcome verbal . . . or written . . . conduct” as the policy does not define what is “unwelcome” or what constitutes “verbal” or “written” “conduct.” Plaintiffs allege the policy will be used to target “politically disfavored speech on sensitive topics like abortion, immigration, racial preferences in educational admissions, and transgender ideology.” The district court declined to issue a preliminary injunction but noted that the University had a “real problem” and “critical First Amendment issues,” and even stated that the policy would create “a communist society.” The University amended its policy upon urging from the district court, which then denied plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction as moot. Plaintiff appealed the district court’s decision, contending its request for preliminary was not moot and asked the Fifth Circuit enjoin the prior policy, arguing that the University (1) only amended its policy because the court insisted that it did so; (2) could easily return to its old policy once the litigation ended; and (3) doggedly defended its policy as consistent with the First Amendment. Meanwhile, the University argued its policy did not prohibit students from saying what they wanted to and that there was no substantial threat of future enforcement. The Fifth Circuit conducted a de novo review and found that the district court erred in denying the motion for preliminary injunction motion as moot. The Circuit reasoned that University’s officials did not voluntarily cease their challenged conduct, but did so owing to pressure from the district court, could not overcome the “stringent” standard set forth in City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle Inc. (1982), and failed to pass the Speech First, Inc. v. Fenves (2020) test, which established that a dispute was not moot based on “(1) the absence of a controlling statement of future intention; (2) the suspicious timing of the change; and (3) the university’s continued defense of the challenged policies.” The Circuit applied the three-factor Fenves test and found the motion for a preliminary injunction was not moot since the record contained no sworn testimony evidencing the University’s commitment to abstain from reverting to its prior policy; the policy amendment was “suspiciously timed” in response to judicial pressure; and the University maintained the legality of its original policies. It remanded to the district court for reconsideration of the request for preliminary relief.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech

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