Tag: Judge

  • Federal judge declines to restore $1B in grants cut by NSF

    Federal judge declines to restore $1B in grants cut by NSF

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    Dive Brief:

    • A federal judge on Wednesday declined to restore more than $1 billion in research grants cut by the National Science Foundation over research related to diversity, equity and inclusion while a lawsuit against the agency goes forward.
    • In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded that the court didn’t have the jurisdiction to temporarily restore the grants and that plaintiffs failed to show they would experience “irreparable harm” from the agency’s new anti-DEI policies while the case proceeds.
    • Cobb cited in part a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that universities and researchers facing mass federal agency cuts must pursue their monetary claims in a separate federal court that handles economic and contractual disputes with the U.S. government.

    Dive Insight:

    In April, NSF issued a new statement of priorities asserting that grant awards “should not preference some groups at the expense of others, or directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups.”

    “Research projects with more narrow impact limited to subgroups of people based on protected class or characteristics do not effectuate NSF priorities,” the agency added. NSF also noted grants related to environmental justice and the study of disinformation would also fall short of the agency’s objectives under the Trump administration. 

    Mass cancellations of previously awarded grants followed. In June, a group of unions and higher education associations — including the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the American Association of University Professors — sued NSF. 

    They counted 1,600 canceled grants amounting to over $1 billion funding, including many that aimed at broadening participation of women, underrepresented groups and those with disabilities in scientific and technical fields. Commonly appearing typos and boilerplate language in many of the termination notices to researchers showed the mass, automatic nature of the cancellations. 

    “NSF afforded recipients of terminated grants no advance notice, and indeed no process whatsoever, before the terminations,” the complaint stated.

    Plaintiffs argued that NSF’s anti-DEI directive and cancellations violated the law as well as the constitutional principles of separation of powers and due process. Among other things, plaintiffs said the grants carried out NSF’s “statutory directive to support an increase in the participation of underrepresented populations in STEM fields, including women, minorities, and people with disabilities.”

    In her ruling Wednesday, Cobb, a Biden appointee, wrote that her court likely had jurisdiction to decide if NSF’s anti-DEI policies could be applied to future grants. But retroactively restoring the grants that had been canceled, as the plaintiffs had requested, would likely need to be handled by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

    Among other precedents, she cited last month’s Supreme Court ruling in a case against the National Institutes of Health over similar DEI-related grant cancellations at that agency. While the top court declined to block a district court’s order that struck down the NIH’s anti-DEI guidance, it said the plaintiffs must seek relief for the canceled grants in federal claims court.

    Critics of the decision — including justices in the liberal minority — said that the ruling would add new complications and delays while research projects and laboratories suffer. 

    Cobb further concluded that plaintiffs’ argument that their constitutional rights were violated was unlikely to succeed, finding that their claims were instead statutory in nature. There again Cobb cited a recent case against the Trump administration, this one brought by the Global Health Council over mass cuts at the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

    Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit, called Cobb’s decision not to block NSF’s terminations disappointing and “a loss for American innovation and excellence.”

    “This case is not over and we are eager to defend the important role the NSF plays in the daily lives of Americans,” the group said in a statement.

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  • Judge rules White House unlawfully blocked Harvard’s research grants (PBS News Hour)

    Judge rules White House unlawfully blocked Harvard’s research grants (PBS News Hour)







    Higher Education Inquirer : Judge rules White House unlawfully blocked Harvard’s research grants (PBS News Hour)




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  • Federal judge strikes down Trump administration’s $2.2B funding freeze at Harvard

    Federal judge strikes down Trump administration’s $2.2B funding freeze at Harvard

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    Dive Brief:

    • The Trump administration violated Harvard University’s First Amendment rights and didn’t follow proper procedures when it froze $2.2 billion of the university’s federal funding earlier this year, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

    • U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs also ruled that the federal government acted arbitrarily and capriciously when halting the funds. The judicial branch must ensure important research isn’t improperly terminated, she wrote, “even if doing so risks the wrath of a government committed to its agenda no matter the cost.”

    • Burroughs struck down the Trump administration’s freeze orders and grant termination letters, opening the door for Harvard’s funding to be reinstated. But a White House spokesperson said the Trump administration will immediately move to appeal the decision and keep Harvard “ineligible for grants in the future,” in apparent defiance of the ruling.

    Dive Insight:

    In April, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contracts to Harvard, hours after the university’s leadership rebuked its demands for changes to its admissions, hiring, governance and campus policies.

    The federal government carried out the freeze under the auspices of the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which has alleged that the Ivy League institution has not done enough to fight antisemitism on its campus.  Subsequent grant termination letters from multiple federal agencies repeated those claims. 

    But Burroughs questioned that rationale in her decision Wednesday, saying a connection between the federal government’s stated motivations and actions was “wholly lacking.”

    The evidence does not “reflect that fighting antisemitism was Defendants’ true aim in acting against Harvard,” the judge wrote in her 84-page ruling. “Even if it were, combatting antisemitism cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment.”

    U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon also told Harvard in a May 5 letter that it would cut the university off from all future research grants — an order that Burroughs also permanently blocked.

    Burroughs also cast doubt on the Trump administration’s argument that its revocation of Harvard’s funding had nothing to do with university President Alan Garber’s refusal to comply with extensive federal ultimatums. 

    Among several wide-ranging requirements, the Trump administration sought to have Harvard hire a third party to audit programs and departments that it described as fueling “antisemitic harassment” or reflecting “ideological capture.” It also called for “meaningful governance reform” within the university, such as reducing the power of faculty engaged in activism.

    The ultimatums and cut-off funds prompted Harvard to sue the federal government in April. It argued that the Trump administration violated its free speech by pulling funding for refusing to comply with viewpoint-based demands and that the government didn’t follow the proper procedures for terminating the grants. 

    Despite the Trump administration assertions that Harvard’s pulled funding was unrelated, Burroughs said its own members undercut its argument.

    “Numerous government officials spoke publicly and contemporaneously on these issues, including about their motivations, and those statements are flatly inconsistent with what Defendants now contend,” the judge wrote. 

    Burroughs cited social media posts from President Donald Trump two days after the task force announced the funding freeze.

    “Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds,” he wrote on April 16.

    That post and others like it demonstrated that Trump’s ongoing concern was “untethered from antisemitism,” Burroughs said.

    But a White House spokesperson doubled down on Wednesday, saying the federal government’s actions against the university are intended to “hold Harvard accountable.”

    “To any fair-minded observer, it is clear that Harvard University failed to protect their students from harassment and allowed discrimination to plague their campus for years,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Liz Huston said in an email. Burroughs was “always going to rule in Harvard’s favor, regardless of the facts,” she added.

    In late April, Harvard published two long-awaited reports about the climate of its Massachusetts campus — one on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias and another on anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian bias.

    The reports found that Jewish, Israeli and Zionist students and employees at Harvard — along with their Muslim, Arab and Palestinian peers — at times felt shunned or harassed while at the university during the 2023-24 academic year.

    “Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did,” Burroughs wrote before noting that the university is “currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be.”

    But the federal government failed to consider this, the judge wrote.

    “The agencies considered little, if any, data regarding the antisemitism problem at Harvard” and disregarded “substantial policy and other changes” the university enacted to address the issue, Burroughs said.

    They also “failed to weigh the importance of any particular grant or to evaluate whether a particular grant recipient had engaged in antisemitic behavior before cutting off critical research,” she said.

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  • Judge Rules Harvard Funding Freeze Illegal

    Judge Rules Harvard Funding Freeze Illegal

    A federal judge in Boston ruled in favor of Harvard University Wednesday.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Mandel Ngan and Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images

    A judge ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration illegally froze more than $2 billion in research funding at Harvard University over how officials handled alleged campus antisemitism.

    Judge Allison Burroughs of the U.S. District Court in Boston found that the federal government violated Harvard’s First Amendment rights and the U.S. Civil Rights Act in her 84-page opinion, writing, “We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other.” She added that Harvard is “currently, even if belatedly” taking action against antisemitism.

    Harvard sued the Trump administration in April after the federal government froze $2.2 billion in funding when the Ivy League university rejected demands to enact a far-reaching slate of changes that would have overhauled admissions, governance, hiring and much more.

    Burroughs, an Obama appointee, appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s claims in a July hearing, telling government lawyers that they failed to back up claims Harvard did not appropriately address antisemitism. She also ruled against the administration in another case in June, temporarily blocking the government from halting Harvard’s ability to host international students.

    Burroughs wrote Wednesday that “Harvard was wrong to tolerate hateful behavior for as long as it did,” but “the record … does not reflect that fighting antisemitism” was the “true aim” of the defendants and such efforts “cannot be accomplished on the back of the First Amendment.”

    The ruling comes as rumors of a Harvard settlement with the federal government continue to swirl. The Trump administration has demanded a $500 million settlement that would force other changes to admissions and discipline policies, similar to agreements made by its Ivy League peers Columbia University and Brown University.

    Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement Wednesday that “the ruling affirms Harvard’s First Amendment and procedural rights, and validates our arguments in defense of the University’s academic freedom, critical scientific research, and the core principles of American higher education.”

    Wednesday’s legal ruling also prompted celebration from free speech groups and others.

    “Today, a federal court echoed what [the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression] has said all along: The Trump administration trampled Harvard University’s First Amendment rights and broke civil rights law when it yanked billions in federal grants and contracts over alleged Title VI violations,” FIRE wrote in a statement.

    “This is a huge win for all of American higher education, for science, and for free and critical thought in this country,” said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors. “Time and again, Trump has tried to restrict speech and cripple lifesaving university research. As today’s victory shows, Trump’s war on higher education is unconstitutional. We will continue to stand up and fight back against these attempts to dismantle our universities, terrify students and faculty, and punish hospitals and scientists for not bowing to authoritarianism. And we will win.”

    The American Council on Education praised Burroughs’s ruling.

    “We are pleased to see a federal court affirm what we always knew to be true: The Trump administration has ignored the law in pursuing politically motivated attacks on Harvard and other institutions,” said Peter McDonough, general counsel for ACE. “We urge the administration to abandon these harmful attacks and instead work to restore the partnership that has made colleges and universities the engine of American innovation for decades.”

    Judging from the Department of Education’s response to the ruling, that seems unlikely.

    “In an unsurprising turn of events, the same Obama-appointed judge that ruled in favor of Harvard’s illegal race-based admissions practices—which was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court—just ruled against the Trump Administration’s efforts to hold Harvard accountable for rampant discrimination on campus,” spokesperson Madi Biedermann wrote in an emailed statement. “Cleaning up our nation’s universities will be a long road, but worth it.”

    In a post on X, Education Secretary Linda McMahon added, “The Trump Administration is fully committed to appealing this erroneous decision and will ensure that new taxpayer funding is not invested at any university that steadfastly refuses to uphold civil rights for all students.”

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  • Judge strikes down Minnesota dual enrollment program’s ban on faith statements

    Judge strikes down Minnesota dual enrollment program’s ban on faith statements

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     Dive Brief:

    • A federal judge on Friday struck down a Minnesota law prohibiting colleges that require high school students to sign statements of faith from participating in a state dual enrollment program.
    • The University of Northwestern and Crown College, two conservative Christian institutions in Minnesota, sued the state in 2023 over the law which rendered them ineligible to participate in the Postsecondary Enrollment Options program. Both colleges require on-campus students to sign religious conduct agreements.
    • Siding with the colleges, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel ruled that Minnesota’s law infringed on their constitutional rights by making them choose between participating in the PSEO program and practicing their religion.

    Dive Insight:

    Since 1985, Minnesota’s PSEO program has allowed local high school students to earn college credit for nonsectarian coursework at participating colleges. The program is free for eligible students and reimburses colleges with fixed payments per credit hour.

    But a 2023 law, passed by the state’s Democrat-controlled Legislature, prohibited colleges from participating in the program if they require faith statements or make admission decisions based on “race, creed, ethnicity, disability, gender, or sexual orientation or religious beliefs or affiliations.”

    The University of Northwestern requires students and employees to sign a pledge to abstain from “same sex romantic intimacy.” And Crown’s student conduct policy does not allow involvement or promotion of “any sexual behavior outside the marriage of one man and one woman.”

    Both institutions, joined by three parents of high school students, sued the state the same day Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed the legislation into law.

    The Minnesota Department of Education filed counterclaims, arguing that Crown and the University of Northwestern’s admissions policies for the PSEO program are unconstitutional.

    Early on in the case, Brasel blocked the state from enforcing the new law, allowing the colleges to continue enrolling PSEO students and earning state funds from the program while the case proceeded. Between the 2017-18 and 2022-23 academic year, the University of Northwestern received over $33.2 million from the program, and Crown received roughly $5.8 million.

    In her Friday ruling, Brasel sided with the colleges.

    “If the Schools’ eligibility to participate in PSEO is conditioned on not using faith statements as an admissions requirement, their free exercise in maintaining a campus community of like‐minded believers is burdened,” said Brasel, a Trump appointee. Families also lose their right to free exercise of religion if they can’t use the public benefit at “a school of their choice of like‐minded believers,” she said.

    The judge further wrote that if the state elects to fund private education, officials cannot disqualify private schools solely because they’re religious.

    Brasel also dismissed the state’s counterclaims Friday.

    The Minnesota Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

    The leaders of Crown and the University of Northwestern — Andrew Denton and Corbin Hoornbeek, respectively — celebrated the verdict Saturday.

    “This legislation has given us yet another opportunity to affirm our mission; we remain committed to equipping our students to grow intellectually and spiritually to serve effectively in their professions and give God-honoring leadership in the home, church, community, and world,” Hoornbeek said in a statement.

    The same day, Denton thanked the legislators who originally opposed the ban and said Crown was grateful for the law’s reversal.

    “The court made clear that Minnesota cannot single out high school students who want to attend a faith-centered institution,” he said. 

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  • Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Religious Colleges in Minn.

    Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Religious Colleges in Minn.

    Religious colleges that require students to sign a faith statement cannot be shut out of a Minnesota program that funds the dual enrollment of high school students in the state’s public and private postsecondary institutions, a federal judge ruled Friday.

    U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel’s ruling overturns a Minnesota law prohibiting Christian colleges that participate in the state’s 40-year-old Postsecondary Enrollment Options program from forcing students to pass a religious test. The state Education Department and LGBTQ+ advocates had sought such legislation for years on the grounds that faith statements discriminate against students who are not Christian, straight or cisgender. It finally passed in 2023, under a Democratic State Legislature.

    The families of several high school students seeking to earn credits at two Christian institutions in the state, Crown College and the University of Northwestern, then sued, arguing that the law violated their First Amendment right to religious freedom. The ban on faith statements was suspended while the legal battle played out.

    “This dispute requires the court to venture into the delicate constitutional interplay of religion and publicly-funded education,” Judge Brasel said in her 70-page ruling. “In doing so, the court heeds the Supreme Court’s instruction that the First Amendment gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.”

    Brasel noted in her ruling that the two Christian colleges have received nearly $40 million to cover the costs of the PSEO program since the 2017–18 academic year; she wrote that the University of Northwestern admits about 70 percent of dual-enrollment applicants. Over all, some 60,000 high school students have benefited from PSEO, The Minneapolis Star Tribune noted.

    The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the plaintiffs, applauded the decision.

    “Minnesota tried to cut off educational opportunities to thousands of high schoolers simply for their faith. That’s not just unlawful—it’s shameful,” said Becket senior counsel Diana Thomson, according to the Associated Press. “This ruling is a win for families who won’t be strong-armed into abandoning their beliefs, and a sharp warning to politicians who target them.”

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  • Federal District Judge Rules Against Trump’s Anti-DEI Orders

    Federal District Judge Rules Against Trump’s Anti-DEI Orders

    One of the Trump administration’s attempts to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on college campuses and in K–12 classrooms has been struck down by a federal district court judge who previously put the guidance on hold.

    Judge Stephanie Gallagher declared in the Thursday ruling that the Department of Education broke the law when it tried to withhold grant funding from institutions that practiced DEI based on one of the president’s executive orders and a related guidance letter. 

    In her opinion, Gallagher focused less on the legality of the attempt to ban DEI itself, but rather the process through which the president and secretary of education tried to do so.

    “This court takes no view as to whether the policies at issue in this case are good or bad, prudent or foolish, fair or unfair. But, at this stage too, it must closely scrutinize whether the government went about creating and implementing them in the manner the law requires. Here, it did not,” the judge wrote. “By leapfrogging important procedural requirements, the government has unwittingly run headfirst into serious constitutional problems.”

    That said, she did explain the ways Trump’s policy violated the Constitution, saying, “The government cannot proclaim that it ‘will no longer tolerate’ speech it dislikes because of its ‘motivating ideology’—that is a ‘blatant’ and ‘egregious’ violation of the First Amendment.”

    Gallagher’s decision followed a motion for summary judgment that was filed by the plaintiffs, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association, after they won a preliminary injunction that blocked parts of Trump’s anti-DEI policy since April. (Gallagher was appointed by Trump during his first presidency in 2018.)

    Since the Education Department’s anti-DEI guidance was enjoined, the Trump administration has made other attempts to block the same academic practices. Most recently, the Department of Justice published a nine-page memo that stated that DEI is unlawful and discriminatory.

    Still, AFT president Randi Weingarten viewed the ruling as a “huge win” against Trump’s “draconian attacks on the essence of public education.”

    “This decision rightly strikes down the government’s attempt to dictate curriculum, and, in so doing, upholds the purpose and promise inherent in our public schools,” Weingarten said in a news release.

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  • Federal judge stands by order requiring OCR be restored

    Federal judge stands by order requiring OCR be restored

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    A federal judge is standing by his June decision requiring the U.S. Department of Education to restore its Office for Civil Rights “to the status-quo” so it can “carry out its statutory functions.” The order, which prevents the department from laying off OCR employees, comes despite a U.S. Supreme Court emergency order in a separate case allowing the agency to move forward with mass layoffs across the department.

    The case challenging the gutting of OCR, which included the shuttering of seven out of 12 regional OCR offices, was brought by two students who “faced severe discrimination and harassment in school and were depending on the OCR to resolve their complaints so that they could attend public school,” said Judge Myong Joun in his Aug. 13 decision. 

    Joun said Victim Rights Law Center v. U.S. Department of Education is separate from New York v. McMahon — the Supreme Court case that allowed the department to proceed with mass layoffs — because the students have “unique harms that they have suffered due to the closure of the OCR.”

    The Education Department appealed Joun’s ruling Thursday to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to allow the department to move forward with its OCR closures. 

    The court battle prolongs the administrative leave of OCR employees that began in March, after the department laid off more than 1,300 staff across the entire Education Department. President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon pushed the layoffs as a way to “end bureaucratic bloat” and downsize the federal government, including its expenses. 

    However, according to American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, the union representing a majority of the laid-off Education Department employees, the federal government has been paying around $7 million a month just for employees to sit idle on administrative leave. 

    The employees’ administrative leave that began in March originally ended with their termination on June 9. However, court cases blocking the department’s gutting have prolonged their employment.

    According to the numbers released by the agency last year, OCR received a record number of complaints against K-12 and higher education institutions in 2023, the most recent year for which numbers are available, surpassing a previous all-time high set in 2022.

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  • Federal judge halts Education Department’s anti-DEI measures

    Federal judge halts Education Department’s anti-DEI measures

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    A federal judge blocked two U.S. Department of Education actions attempting to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion in schools on Thursday. 

    The decision undoes a February “Dear Colleague” letter that threatened to withhold federal funding to schools that didn’t eliminate race-based programming, as well as a subsequent letter requiring school districts to certify that they do not incorporate DEI in their schools. 

    In her 76-page opinion, Judge Stephanie Gallagher of U.S. District Court for Maryland ruled that the administration violated decision-making procedures under the Administrative Procedure Act — a move that violated the constitutional rights of plaintiffs, who are led by the American Federation of Teachers. 

    Gallagher, a Trump-appointed judge, took no stance, however, on the content of the Education Department’s directives themselves. 

    “Still here, this Court takes no view as to whether the policies at issue in this case are good or bad, prudent or foolish, fair or unfair,” she said. “But, at this stage too, it must closely scrutinize whether the government went about creating and implementing them in the manner the law requires. Here, it did not.” 

    The administration’s anti-DEI measures were already on pause as a result of this court case and at least two other separate but similar federal court cases pending in Washington, D.C., and New Hampshire. Those cases also challenged the Education Department’s anti-DEI policy.

    As a result of previous court action pausing the measures, the department had already withdrawn its certification requirement. 

    However, in an email to chief state school officers in April retracting the certification requirement, the department said, “Please be advised that the Court Order does not preclude the U.S. Department of Education from initiating any enforcement actions that it may otherwise pursue under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and its implementing regulations.” 

    Title VI bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded programs — and has in the past been used especially to protect historically marginalized students from such bias. However, since President Donald Trump reentered the White House, the Education Department has invoked the civil rights statute to protect Asian and White students. The Trump administration’s anti-DEI efforts are a core part of that interpretation. 

    The Education Department echoed its earlier sentiments in a reaction to Thursday’s ruling. 

    “While the Department is disappointed in the judge’s ruling, judicial action enjoining or setting aside this guidance has not stopped our ability to enforce Title VI protections for students at an unprecedented level,” said the department in an email to K-12 Dive on Friday. “The Department remains committed to its responsibility to uphold students’ anti-discrimination protections under the law.”

    However, some public school educators and advocates say the measures would harm decades of equity work meant to level the playing field for Black and brown students. Moreover, the directives would create an environment of fear that impacts other underserved students such as students with disabilities, they say

     “Our district works hard to ensure that every student feels included through thoughtful curriculum and programs,” said Eugene School District 4J school board member Jenny Jonak in a statement on Thursday. The Oregon district was a plaintiff in the lawsuit that led to Thursday’s court decision. 

    “Teachers and schools must be able to provide inclusive, comprehensive education without fear of losing critical federal funding. We should never be forced to choose between supporting our students and securing the resources they need and deserve,” Jonak said.

    The Trump administration, in its court response to the lawsuit, argued that the certification requirement “fails to rise to the level of final agency action,” which would have required the formal rulemaking procedures that the department didn’t undergo. 

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  • Judge Keeps Alabama’s Anti-DEI Law in Place for Now

    Judge Keeps Alabama’s Anti-DEI Law in Place for Now

    The judge denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the anti-DEI law.

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    Ruling in part that professors lack First Amendment protections in the classroom, a federal judge denied an effort from college faculty and students in Alabama to block a 2024 state law that banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well as the teaching of so-called divisive concepts.

    The plaintiffs, who include students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and professors at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, argued in court filings and at hearings that the legislation known as Senate Bill 129 amounted to state-sponsored censorship and infringed on their rights under the First and 14th Amendments. The professors alleged that they had to cancel class projects or events and faced other questions about their classroom conduct from administrators because of the law. They’ve also changed course material as a result.

    R. David Proctor, chief judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, found that while the professors and the Alabama NAACP had standing to sue, they weren’t likely to succeed at this time. For instance, he ruled that the professors aren’t protected by the First Amendment because their “in-class instruction constitutes government speech.”

    Furthermore, Proctor wrote, based on other rulings in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, “when there is a dispute about what is taught in the classroom, the university’s interests outweigh those of a professor, and the professor’s interest in academic freedom and free speech do not displace the university’s interest inside the classroom.”

    The plaintiffs said Proctor’s ruling was disappointing.

    “I feel incredibly dismayed that SB 129 is allowed to continue going into the new school year,” said Sydney Testman, one of the students who sued, in a statement. “As a senior at University of Alabama at Birmingham, I’ve seen firsthand how SB 129 has transformed my college campus for the worst. Voices have been silenced, opportunities have been revoked, and meaningful community engagement has faded. This decision undermines the need for students to properly feel a sense of belonging and inclusion on campus.”

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