Tag: Dismisses

  • VICTORY! Federal district court dismisses class-action suit against pollster J. Ann Selzer

    VICTORY! Federal district court dismisses class-action suit against pollster J. Ann Selzer

    DES MOINES, Iowa, Nov. 6, 2025 — A federal district court today dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit against renowned Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer, holding that the First Amendment bars the claims against her related to her October 2024 general election poll. As the court explained, “there is no free pass around the First Amendment.”

    FIRE’s defense of pollster J. Ann Selzer against Donald Trump’s lawsuit is First Amendment 101

    A polling miss isn’t ‘consumer fraud’ or ‘election interference’ — it’s just a prediction and is protected by the First Amendment.


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    The lawsuit, brought by a subscriber to The Des Moines Register and styled as a class action, stemmed from a poll Selzer published before the 2024 presidential election that predicted Vice President Kamala Harris leading by three points in Iowa. The suit asserted claims, including under Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act, alleging that Selzer’s poll, which missed the final result by a wide margin, constituted “fake news” and “fraud.”

    Selzer, represented pro bono by FIRE, pushed back. FIRE explained that commentary about a political election is core protected speech. “Fake news” is a political buzzword, not a legal cause of action. And “fraud” is a defined legal concept: intentionally lying to convince someone to part with something of value. 

    The court explained, “polls are a mere snapshot of a dynamic and changing electorate” and “the results of an opinion poll are not an actionable false representation merely because the anticipated results differ from what eventually occurred.” As the Supreme Court has said, a party cannot evade First Amendment scrutiny by “simply labeling an action one for fraud.”

    The court held the plaintiff had “no factual allegations” to support his fraud claim, instead “invok[ing] mere buzzwords and speculation” to support his claims. And not only did the court find the First Amendment barred the claims, it similarly held each claim defective under Iowa law even without the First Amendment’s protection.

    Selzer is pleased with the result:

    I am pleased to see this lawsuit has been dismissed. The First Amendment’s protection for free speech and a free press held strong. I know that I did nothing wrong and I am glad the court also concluded that there was never a valid legal claim.

    FIRE’s Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere, who led Selzer’s defense, responded to the ruling: 

    This decision shows where petty politics ends and the rule of law begins. The court’s strongly worded opinion confirms that a legal claim cannot be concocted with political slogans and partisan hyperbole, and that there is no hiding from the First Amendment. This is a good day for freedom of speech.

    This lawsuit was a copycat of a still-pending suit filed by President Donald Trump against Selzer in December 2024 in which FIRE also represents her. FIRE Supervising Senior Attorney Conor Fitzpatrick remarked, “President Trump’s suit makes the same frivolous arguments against the same defendants. We are confident it will meet the same fate.”

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.

    CONTACT:
    Karl de Vries, director of media relations, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]

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  • Federal judge dismisses legal challenge to gainful employment rule

    Federal judge dismisses legal challenge to gainful employment rule

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    Dive Brief: 

    • A federal judge dismissed a case Thursday that challenged the legality of the Biden administration’s gainful employment rule, which aims to ensure that graduates of career education programs earn enough to pay off their student loan debt. 
    • U.S. District Judge Reed O’Conner — a George W. Bush appointee — rejected arguments from cosmetology school groups that the gainful employment rule overstepped the U.S. Department of Education’s authority and violated their constitutional rights. 
    • Although the Biden-era rule survived the legal challenge, the Trump administration is considering potential changes to the gainful employment regulations in the coming months. 

    Dive Insight: 

    The Biden administration finalized the gainful employment rule in 2023. Under the rule, career education programs must prove that they provide graduates with an earnings bump and don’t leave borrowers with more debt than they can manage. 

    To do so, the gainful employment rule establishes two separate tests. Under one, the median program graduate must pay no more than 8% of their annual earnings or 20% of their discretionary income toward their debt. Under the other, at least half of a program’s graduates must outearn workers in their state with only a high school diploma. 

    College programs that fail either of these metrics in two out of three consecutive years risk losing access to federal financial aid. The rule primarily impacts programs at for-profit colleges, but also applies to certificates at all institutions. 

    Thursday’s ruling addresses two consolidated lawsuits against the rule. The cosmetology school groups had argued that the Education Department had overstepped its authority when issuing the regulations, as the Higher Education Act doesn’t define gainful employment.

    However, O’Connor wrote that the Education Department’s rule follows the plain meaning of the statute. 

    “Although the 2023 Rule is in the form of an equation, it no less does the same work as the words ‘gainful employment,’ by ensuring the programs lead to profitable jobs, instead of loan deficits,” O’Connor wrote. 

    The plaintiffs had also alleged that they would be unfairly penalized by the rule, arguing that a large share of income in the cosmetology industry goes unreported because it is earned through cash tips. Because of that, they said, the Education Department’s calculations would fail to accurately capture how much their graduates earn. 

    O’Connor rejected those arguments, noting that the Education Department had cited studies showing that underreporting is not widespread. 

    National Student Legal Defense Network, an advocacy and legal group for students, praised the ruling Thursday. 

    “Higher education is supposed to offer students a path to a better life, not a debt-filled dead end,” Student Defense Vice President and Chief Counsel Dan Zibel said in a statement. “The 2023 Gainful Employment Rule reflects a common-sense policy to ensure that students are not wasting time and money on career programs that provide little value.”

    Jason Altmire, president and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities, an association that represents the for-profit college sector, decried Thursday’s ruling but sounded optimistic about forthcoming regulatory changes under the Trump administration. 

    “Although we strongly disagree with the ruling today, we look forward to this issue being revisited by the current Department of Education,” Altmire said in a statement that day. “We are confident the Biden Gainful Employment Rule will be revised to incorporate a fairer accountability measure that will apply equally to all schools, ensuring all students can benefit.”

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  • Judge Dismisses Tuition Price-Fixing Lawsuit

    Judge Dismisses Tuition Price-Fixing Lawsuit

    A federal judge in Illinois has dismissed a lawsuit accusing the College Board and 40 highly selective private colleges and universities of conspiring in a price-fixing scheme to inflate tuition costs.

    In a decision released last week, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis determined that the plaintiffs, a Boston University student and an alum of Cornell University, “have not plausibly alleged that Defendants entered into an agreement” demonstrating collusion on pricing.

    The class action lawsuit, filed just shy of a year ago, alleged that the defendants overcharged tuition for students of divorced or separated parents by considering the financial information of the noncustodial parent, as well as the custodial one, in calculating financial aid awards. The plaintiffs claimed that the formula increased their tuition by an average of $6,200.

    The lawsuit alleged that the price-fixing arrangement among the 40 institutions began in 2006, when the College Board began requiring both parents to submit financial information for its College Scholarship Service profiles, regardless of the student’’ custody arrangements. While last week’s decision acknowledged the practice inflated tuition prices at the institutions named, Ellis found no evidence that they had conspired.

    “Nothing in Plaintiffs’ complaint suggests that the University Defendants exchanged their own internal financial aid decisionmaking processes or guidelines or otherwise shared with the other University Defendants the amount of financial aid they planned to offer a particular student,” she wrote. “Nor does the complaint allege that the University Defendants all agreed on the same exact formula for calculating financial aid based on the [noncustodial parent’s] financial information.”

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