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  • Date:

    Christensen v. Carter (S.D. Oh. Jan. 14, 2026)

    Opinion and Order Granting Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, a student at Ohio State University, sued the president of the university and several senior administrators alleging violation of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, after the university disenrolled him based on controversial social media videos he posted on his personal TikTok account. The court held that plaintiff demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on his First Amendment retaliation claim, reasoning that while plaintiff’s speech was controversial, it did not “explicitly encourage violence or lawlessness and [was] unlikely to be an implicit endorsement of such action.” Further, the court determined that the facts “[did] not support the conclusion that [d]efendants’ forecast of substantial disruption was reasonable” given the lack of evidence that plaintiff’s speech disrupted any classwork and the fact that the semester was over and plaintiff was not on campus, let alone in the state of Ohio. The court also held that plaintiff was likely to succeed on the merits of his Fourteenth Amendment claim because he did not receive notice and the university failed to show that emergency circumstances justified its failure to hold a hearing prior to disenrolling him. Finally, the court determined that the disenrollment notation on plaintiff’s transcript constituted ongoing irreparable harm and ordered the university to expunge the notation.

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | Due Process | First Amendment & Free Speech | Social Media | Student Speech & Campus Unrest

  • Date:

    Damsky v. Summerlin (11th Cir. Jan. 8, 2026)

    Opinion Granting Stay of a Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, a law student at the University of Florida, sued the university for violating his First Amendment rights when it expelled him based on his concerning behavior on campus and social media posts, including a post that stated, “Jews must be abolished by any means necessary.” After the district court granted a preliminary injunction requiring the university to reinstate the plaintiff, the university appealed.  The Eleventh Circuit stayed the district court’s injunction, holding that the university is likely to succeed on the merits because the plaintiff’s speech “was likely not protected by the First Amendment” and constituted a true threat. The court reasoned that the plaintiff’s statements were reasonably interpreted as calling for extralegal violence and that, despite occurring off campus, the speech was sufficiently connected to the university through the plaintiff’s awareness of a campus audience and his engagement with a UF law professor. When read within the context of plaintiff’s other posts and behavior, as well as reports of concern and fear from students and faculty, the court found there to be evidence of serious disruption that justified intervention from the university to maintain a safe educational environment. The court concluded that “absent a stay, [the university] will need to take immediate and substantial security precautions to protect its students, faculty, and others on campus, burdens which weigh heavily in favor of granting a stay.”

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Social Media

  • Date:

    Peace v. Carter (S.D. Oh. Dec. 30, 2025)

    Opinion and Order Granting in Part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former student at Ohio State University, sued the president of the university and several university police officers asserting claims for false arrest and malicious prosecution under Ohio law and the Fourth Amendment, First Amendment retaliatory arrest, and a First Amendment claim challenging the University Space Rules (USR), after he was arrested on campus for criminal trespass while filming during a protest. The court dismissed the majority of plaintiff’s claims including (1) any claims to the extent they sought injunctive or declaratory relief, holding plaintiff failed to allege an ongoing or threat of future injury sufficient for Article III standing; (2) claims against the defendants in their official capacities; (3) state law claims for false arrest and malicious prosecution against defendants, holding the court lacked jurisdiction; and (4) § 1983 claims against the university president in his individual capacity, holding he lacked the requisite personal involvement in the alleged unconstitutional conduct necessary to be held liable. However, the court denied the motion to dismiss with respect to three claims against three university police officers, including plaintiff’s as-applied First Amendment challenge to the USR, noting, in part, that defendants provided no basis to find that plaintiff’s filming of the university police did not enjoy First Amendment protection.

    Topics:

    Campus Police & Relationships with Local Law Enforcement | Campus Police, Safety, & Crisis Management | Constitutional Issues | Fourth Amendment & Search and Seizure | Student Speech & Campus Unrest

  • Date:

    Reges v. Cauce (9th Cir. Dec. 19, 2025)

    Plaintiff, a professor at the University of Washington, sued the university for First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, and brought a facial challenge against the university’s nondiscrimination policy as overbroad and vague after the university investigated and reprimanded him following plaintiff’s statement on his syllabus mocking the university’s recommended land acknowledgement statement. The district court granted summary judgment for the university on plaintiff’s retaliation and viewpoint discrimination claims, finding the university had a legitimate interest in preventing disruption caused by plaintiff’s statement; and dismissed plaintiff’s challenge to the nondiscrimination policy, construing the policy to be limited in its reach and therefore neither overbroad nor vague. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed, directing that summary judgment be entered for the plaintiff on his First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination claims. The court found that (1) the university had taken adverse action against the plaintiff based on the views he expressed in his syllabus statement including subjecting him to a lengthy investigation, reprimanding him, and warning of possible future discipline; (2) plaintiff’s speech was protected because he “spoke in his own capacity as a professor, not on behalf of his employer” and he “unquestionably spoke on a matter of public concern”; and (3) the university failed to meet its burden under the Pickering test of demonstrating that its legitimate interests in mitigating the disruption outweighed plaintiff’s interest in speaking on a matter of public concern. Finally, on plaintiff’s facial challenge to the nondiscrimination policy, the court held that because the district court’s “limiting construction” of the policy conflicted with the policy’s plain text, the district court erred in dismissing the claim and remanded for further consideration.

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation

  • Date:

    Trump Administration Filed a Notice of Appeal Challenging Harvard Funding Order (Dec. 18, 2025)

    The Trump Administration filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, seeking to overturn a September order by federal Judge Allison D. Burroughs that restored $2.7 billion in research funding to Harvard University. The notice covers two lawsuits involving the university, the other brought by the Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Grants, Contracts, & Sponsored Research | Research

  • Date:

    Damsky v. Summerlin (N.D. Fla. Nov. 24, 2025)

    Order Granting Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, a law student at the University of Florida with a history of making provocative statements, sued the university for violating his First Amendment rights when it expelled him for posting on social media that “Jews must be abolished by any means necessary.” The court granted plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction and reinstated him at the law school, finding he was likely to prevail on his First Amendment claims and had established irreparable harm in being denied the ability to attend school because of his protected speech. While the university claimed that plaintiff’s speech constituted a “true threat” and thus was unprotected, the court rejected this argument, concluding instead that plaintiff was “stating a view, even if a hateful and offensive one,” and had not conveyed any serious expression of an intent to harm or commit violence. The court also rejected the university’s claim that plaintiff’s speech “created a material and substantial disruption” to the operation of the law school, reasoning plaintiff’s post “bear[ed] no connection with the school at all” as the post occurred outside the university and did not mention the university, administrators, other students, or professors.

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Social Media | Student Speech & Campus Unrest

  • Date:

    Grossenbach v. Arizona Bd. of Regents (D. Ariz. Nov. 21, 2025)

    Recommendation from Magistrate Judge to District Court Judge to Deny in Part Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former adjunct professor at the University of Arizona, sued the  university for violations of Title VII, the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, and an Arizona public records law, after it declined to renew his teaching contract, which he alleged was due to complaints the university received about his advocacy on behalf of SaveCFSD, an organization he founded to combat “radical gender ideology” in his local school district. The magistrate judge rejected the university’s argument that plaintiff had failed to “timely exhaust his administrative remedies,” finding instead that the filing window was tolled until he received documents in response to his public records request. The magistrate judge also found that plaintiff had successfully pled facts that would allow one to conclude the university took actions to prevent the plaintiff from discovering his claims by “slow-walking his public records request” and falsely telling him that his contract would not be renewed because the university was going to hire a full-time faculty member to teach [his] classes.” The magistrate judge further found that the Eleventh Amendment was not a barrier to plaintiff’s constitutional claims since he was seeking prospective relief in the form of a declaratory judgment and reinstatement to his position. Finally, the magistrate judge agreed with the university that plaintiff’s Arizona public records law claim should be dismissed because plaintiff had failed to comply with “notice of claim” requirements, while noting the plaintiff had voluntarily agreed to withdraw his claim.

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | Employment Separation, RIFs, ERIPs & Retrenchment | Faculty & Staff | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation

  • Date:

    Pesta v. Cleveland State Univ. (6th Cir. Nov. 4, 2025)

    Opinion Affirming Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff-Appellant, a former tenured professor at Cleveland State University, sued the university alleging violation of his First Amendment rights after he was investigated and terminated based on research-misconduct related to a controversial paper he co-authored. The trial court granted the university summary judgment, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that plaintiff was fired because of misconduct associated with his accessing restricted data from the NIH and not because of the content of his Global Ancestry paper. In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that university officials were “reasonably alarmed by [plaintiff’s] cavalier handling of sensitive genomic data, misleading representations to the NIH about the nature of his research, failure to observe basic conflict-of-interest reporting, and the impact that his actions had on [the university] as a research institution reliant on the NIH.”

    Topics:

    Academic Performance and Misconduct | Constitutional Issues | Employment Separation, RIFs, ERIPs & Retrenchment | Faculty & Staff | First Amendment & Free Speech | Research | Research Misconduct | Students

  • Date:

    Elagha v. Northwestern Univ. (N.D. Ill. Nov. 3, 2025)

    Opinion Granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former student at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, brought Title VI harassment and discrimination claims against the university and three law school deans, following doxing from fellow students based on her participation in pro-Palestinian protests and the recission of a job offer. The court dismissed the law school deans from the suit, analogizing to Title IX caselaw which limits Title IX claims to the university as the grant recipient. On plaintiff’s Title VI harassment claim, the court held that while plaintiff had plausibly alleged a hostile environment which deprived her of the benefit of attending class, she had not shown that the university had been deliberately indifferent in its response. While acknowledging the standard was a “stringent” one, the court found plaintiff had failed to clear this bar, finding the university’s response was both “quick and reasonable,” where it excused her class absences, deferred her exams, and sent letters to her future employer and to the State Bar at her request. Finally, the court dismissed plaintiff’s intentional discrimination claim finding she had failed to provide “even a single example of a similarly situated student outside her protected class” that received the response she sought from the university.

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Student Speech & Campus Unrest

  • Date:

    Univ. at Buffalo Young Americans for Freedom v. Univ. at Buffalo Student Ass’n, (2nd Cir. Nov. 3, 2025) (unpub)

    Topics:

    Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech

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