Tag: Judge

Federal judge declines to block Alabama anti-DEI law
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Dive Brief:
- A federal judge declined to temporarily block the enforcement of a state law that bans public colleges from funding diversity, equity and inclusion programs and from compelling students to affirm certain “divisive concepts.”
- Earlier this year, a group of students and faculty members sued the state’s governor and the University of Alabama’s trustees over the new law, arguing that it violates their free speech rights by placing viewpoint-based restrictions on what can be taught in the classroom. They also contended that the law undermines due process by being so ambiguous that instructors and students don’t know what is prohibited.
- U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor — a George W. Bush appointee — pushed back on those arguments in his 146-page ruling Wednesday. Proctor denied their request for a preliminary injunction, writing that public colleges could reasonably control curricular content and rejecting assertions that the law’s language is impermissibly vague.
Dive Insight:

Last year, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a law known as SB 129, which bans public colleges and K-12 schools from having DEI initiatives. It defined those efforts as programs, training or other events where attendance is based on “race, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin, or sexual orientation.”

PEN America noted last year that while this language doesn’t outright ban all DEI initiatives, the attendance restrictions could bar public colleges from activities like creating programming specifically for international students or recognizing a Black student union.

The law also barred public colleges from requiring students to affirm or adhere to a list of so-called divisive concepts.

Under the law, one of the concepts is that individuals “are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.” Another is that people are “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously” based on their personal characteristics.

The law also contains carve-outs. It says that the language does not bar public colleges from teaching or discussing divisive concepts “in an objective manner and without endorsement as part of a larger course of academic instruction.”

According to court documents, faculty members who sued over the measure said that while they do not require students to affirm or adhere to these concepts, they worry that their instruction on race and gender could be viewed as running afoul of the law — even with the carve-outs for teaching.

“I do not know what it means to discuss a divisive concept ‘in an objective manner’ and ‘without endorsement,’” plaintiff Cassandra Simon, a social work professor at University of Alabama, said in court documents. “There is robust empirical evidence of implicit bias, white privilege, and the absence of a colorblind meritocracy. I am unable to determine whether continuing to present these scholarly findings, and assigning readings on these subjects, would violate SB 129.”

One of Simon’s class assignments — that students select a social issue of their choice and advocate for it — was abruptly canceled due to the law, according to court documents.

Her students chose to hold a sit-in to protest SB 129 for their project. The day of the sit-in, however, the social work dean told Simon to cancel the assignment in part over concerns that it would compel students to agree with one of the banned divisive concepts.

Another plaintiff raised concerns over teaching about topics such as structural racism, employment discrimination and health disparities by race. And another voiced concerns that the law potentially limits his ability to teach about eugenics.

However, Proctor wrote in his ruling that the law doesn’t prohibit the teaching of divisive concepts and pointed to the carve-outs provided.

The judge also cited an appeals court case that found a public college could “reasonably control the content of its curriculum, particularly that content imparted during class time.”

“There is no legal basis for concluding that the First Amendment protects a university professor’s academic freedom in the way the Professors suggest,” Proctor wrote.

Referring to the canceled sit-in, Proctor wrote that it was “a reasonable exercise of control over course curriculum to ensure that students would not feel coerced into advocating for a belief with which they disagreed.”

Proctor also dismissed Ivey as a defendant in the case, ruling that plaintiffs’ alleged injuries aren’t traceable to her.

The plaintiffs in the case slammed the decision on Thursday.

“SB129 created a culture of fear that has severely hindered the ability of professors to provide comprehensive instruction in our areas of expertise,” Dana Patton, a University of Alabama professor and plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “The law infringes on our academic freedom and our duty to students to provide a truthful and comprehensive education.”

Alabama state Sen. Will Barfoot, the sponsor of the legislation, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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August 14, 2025
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 the 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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August 14, 2025
Federal Judge Orders NSF to Reinstate Suspended UCLA Grants

A class action suit led by researchers in the University of California system spurred the ruling.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images | US District Court for the Northern District of California

The National Science Foundation restored grants it recently suspended for researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, following a court order late Tuesday, a spokesperson for the agency said.

The NSF and UCLA didn’t tell Inside Higher Ed how much funding had been restored, but the Los Angeles Times reported it’s roughly $81 million.

It’s a blow to the Trump administration, which had multiple agencies cut off more than $500 million in research funds to UCLA earlier this month and, according to the UC system, demanded a $1 billion settlement payment.

UCLA is the latest target of the Trump administration’s use of mass federal research grant suspensions to pressure prominent universities to change policies and pay restitution, ranging from tens of millions of dollars for Brown University to the billion-dollar demand of UCLA. Federal agencies justify cutting off grants by accusing targeted institutions of failing to address pro-Palestine protesters’ alleged antisemitism, and accusing universities of other transgressions, such as letting transgender women compete in women’s sports or promoting racial preferences.

But this is the first known court order blocking one of those blanket funding freezes. Harvard University also challenged the administration’s decision to suspend more than $2.7 billion in funds, but a judge has a yet to rule in that case.

UCLA didn’t sue, though.

Instead, the ruling came from a lawsuit that UC researchers filed in early June against President Trump, the NSF and other federal agencies and officials that challenged previous NSF grant terminations.

On June 23, U.S. District Court judge Rita F. Lin, of the Northern District of California, issued a preliminary injunction restoring grants that the administration terminated en masse via form letters that didn’t provide grant-specific explanations for the terminations. When the NSF recently cut off grants again, specifically to UCLA, the researchers’ attorneys alleged the agency violated the preliminary injunction.

Lin agreed, writing in an opinion Tuesday that the new “suspensions have the same effect, and are based on the same type of deficient explanations, as the original terminations.”

The NSF wrote in a July 30 letter justifying the new suspensions that “NSF understands that [UCLA] continues to engage in race discrimination including in its admissions process, and in other areas of student life, as well as failing to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias.” Two days later, the NSF sent a second letter, alleging that UCLA furthermore “engages in racism” and “endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces.”

According to Lin, the NSF argued that its recent funding cuts “are not within the scope of the preliminary injunction because it suspended, rather than terminated, the grants.” She said the agency argued that suspensions, unlike terminations, “can be lifted once the grantee takes certain corrective actions.”

However, Lin said the NSF had labeled these “suspensions” as “final agency decision[s] not subject to appeal.”

“There is no listed end date for the suspensions, nor is there any path for researchers to restore funding for their project. If any curative action is actually feasible, it would need to be undertaken by UCLA,” the judge wrote. “In other words, researchers have no guarantee that funding will ever be restored and no way to take action to increase the likelihood of restoration.”

She added that “NSF claims that it could simply turn around the day after the preliminary injunction issued, and halt funding on every grant that had been ordered reinstated, so long as that action was labeled as a ‘suspension’ rather than a ‘termination.’ This is not a reasonable interpretation of the scope of the preliminary injunction.”

Researchers told the court that as a result of the latest suspensions, “projects are already losing talented graduate students, staff will soon be laid off, and years of federally funded work will go to waste,” Lin wrote. Researchers also said the defunded projects include “multi-year research into global heat extremes, a project to address environmental challenges in the Southwestern United States, and another to enhance veteran participation and leadership in STEM fields,” the judge added.

A UC system spokesperson said in an email Wednesday that, “while we have not had an opportunity to review the court’s order and were not party to the suit, restoration of National Science Foundation funds is critical to research the University of California performs on behalf of California and the nation.”

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August 14, 2025
District Court Judge Continues to Demand OCR Reinstate Staff

The Office for Civil Rights handles complaints concerning discrimination in federally funded education institutions.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

A federal district court judge refused the Trump administration’s request to vacate a previous ruling that prohibited the Department of Education from laying off nearly half its Office for Civil Rights staff.

The decision was made by Massachusetts judge Myong Joun on Wednesday and involved the case Victim Rights Law Center v. Department of Education. It comes just a month after the Supreme Court reversed a preliminary injunction in a similar case, New York v. McMahon, which Joun also oversaw.

In the new order, the district court judge argues that the cases, and therefore their related rulings, are separate.

The New York case, which was filed by multiple state attorneys general, addressed the reduction in force more broadly, Joun said. By comparison, the Victim Rights Law Center case more specifically addresses the RIF at OCR and how it may hold the office back from completing its statutory mandate of protecting students from discrimination.

So, although the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to continue with the reduction in force broadly, Joun argues, it does not mean the enjoinment of layoffs within OCR is no longer applicable.

Trump officials “present two arguments for why vacatur or a stay are appropriate: first, that the Supreme Court granted the stay in a related case, and second, that the two related cases are ‘indistinguishable in all pertinent respects.’ I am unconvinced by either argument,” Joun wrote. “Although this case and New York are related, I issued a separate Preliminary Injunction Order to address the unique harms that Plaintiffs alleged arose from their reliance on the OCR.”

He also noted that even though the high court judges reversed one preliminary injunction, that does not mean they have made a final ruling on the merit of the RIF.

Finally, Joun went on to say that the defendants’ motion for stay has little standing, as “they have not substantially complied with the preliminary injunction order” in the first place. Reporting from The 74 backs this up, showing that none of the 276 fired OCR employees have been reinstated.

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August 14, 2025
Judge orders NSF to restore cut funding to UCLA
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Dive Brief:
- A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the National Science Foundation to restore potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research grants to the University of California.
- Researchers at the university system in June brought a class-action lawsuit against NSF and other federal agencies over their termination of $324 million in funding, and quickly won a temporary injunction restoring the grants.
- This week, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin concluded NSF violated that order by cutting funding to the University of California, Los Angeles in late July over allegations related to antisemitism and other concerns. An NSF spokesperson said in an email Wednesday the agency has reinstated UCLA’s funding in response to the order.
Dive Insight:

On June 4, several University of California researchers sued President Donald Trump and his administration over mass cuts to research funding spearheaded by the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.

Plaintiffs argued that the funding cuts violated key constitutional principles, including separation of powers, freedom of speech and right to due process, in addition to multiple federal statutes.

“Before President Trump took office, federal agency grant making proceeded under the authority of Congress, which created agencies through its constitutionally assigned exclusive legislative power, and appropriated taxpayer funds for specific public purposes that the agencies were tasked to execute,” the researchers said in their complaint.

They added that after taking office, Trump “attempted to seize direct control of federal agencies by bypassing Congress and upending the statutory and regulatory system under which federal agencies have historically and legally operated.”

Later that month, Lin concluded that the researchers would likely win their case on its merits and issued a preliminary injunction directing the Trump administration to restore terminated funding to University of California institutions and barring agencies from cutting their funding without grant-specific explanations.

But in late July, NSF “indefinitely suspended” numerous grants to UCLA, as attorneys for the plaintiffs noted in court filings. In the suspension notices, the agency cited allegations of widespread campus antisemitism and “illegal race-based preferences in admissions” — claims now common in the administration’s attacks on higher education.

The University of California system last week entered negotiations with the Trump administration in an effort to restore more than half a billion dollars in total research funding. When announcing the talks, UC President James Milliken called the UCLA cuts “a death knell for innovative work” that “do nothing to address antisemitism.”

The funding cuts came shortly after the U.S. Department of Justice alleged UCLA had violated civil rights law by failing to adequately address antisemitism.

The Los Angeles Times put the figure of NSF’s cut funding to UCLA specifically at $300 million. As one UCLA professor recounted in court papers filed Monday, the indefinite suspension orders had immediate and permanent effects, including stalled research and the loss of a potential graduate student worker to another project.

NSF argued in court that its indefinite suspensions did not violate Lin’s earlier injunction, which the agency said applied to grant terminations. But in Tuesday’s order, Lin concluded that the two terms were equivalent in practice.

“NSF may have re-labeled its action a ‘suspension,’ but it is a distinction without a difference in this case,” Lin wrote. “After all, a terminated grant can be reinstated, just as a suspension can be ‘lifted.’ And a suspension, if it is of indefinite length, is functionally identical to a termination from the researcher’s perspective.”
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August 13, 2025
Judge pauses Mississippi’s DEI ban at public colleges and schools
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Dive Brief:
- A federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked enforcement of major parts of a new Mississippi law that bars diversity, equity and inclusion in the state’s public colleges and K-12 schools.
- The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and other organizations filed a lawsuit in June on behalf of students and educators, arguing the new law imposes the state government’s views on race, gender and sexuality on public colleges and schools and censors opposing views.
- In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate pointed to accounts of educators having their programs shut down or censoring their own speech to ensure they don’t run afoul of the law. The accounts signal “possible widespread suppression of speech, programming, and institutional function,” Wingate wrote.
Dive Insight:

Educator and student groups sued over the law just two months after it took effect in April, arguing the legislation violates their First Amendment right to free speech and is unconstitutionally vague.

“It is difficult for administrators, teachers, and students to distinguish prohibited actions from permissible ones, making the law particularly susceptible to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement,” the lawsuit said.

One contested aspect of the law is a provision that bans public colleges and K-12 schools from either engaging in or requiring diversity training, which it defines as any formal or informal education meant to increase “awareness or understanding of issues related to race, sex, color, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion or national origin.”

This edict applies to both elective or required courses, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs warn of dire consequences from the legislation, arguing its provisions would prohibit constitutional law professors from discussing discrimination and history teachers from teaching about the Civil War and slavery.

Under the bill, colleges and K-12 schools also can’t “engage in” eight “divisive concepts” — a provision the lawsuit calls “extremely broad.” One divisive concept, for instance, is that an individual “by virtue of his or her race, sex, color, national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

The lawsuit argues that could block discussions of implicit bias in sociology, psychology and other classes.

Public colleges and K-12 schools that don’t follow the law face a steep penalty if they rack up two violations — the potential loss of state funding. Colleges and schools must “cure” their violations to avoid this punishment, though the legislation doesn’t explain how that can be accomplished, sparking concerns that educators will be fired and students will be expelled, according to the lawsuit.

The legislation also carves out exceptions for “scholarly research or creative work” by students and employees. But the lawsuit argues those carve-outs are unclear and raise questions about whether students could discuss work on one of the banned concepts during class.

“Like other provisions of the act, this exception is vague and further confuses what is and what is not prohibited by the law,” the plaintiffs argued.

The defendants include Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, as well as the chairs of the state community college system’s coordinating board and education board, among others. They filed a motion to dismiss earlier this month, arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue and that the attorney general was shielded by sovereign immunity.

However, Wingate wrote that U.S. Supreme Court precedent allows plaintiffs to seek injunctive relief against state officials to prevent constitutional violations.

The temporary restraining order is in effect until further court order. Wingate is holding a hearing Wednesday over whether to grant a preliminary injunction, which would last until he issues a final ruling on the case.

In his ruling, the judge pointed to accounts from educators and students. One plaintiff, a librarian at Hinds Community College, expressed uncertainty about whether she can recommend books on race, gender or identity or curate material for events like Black History Month.

And the director of student development at Tougaloo College said she has suspended programs meant to support LGBTQ+ students out of concern that discussion of gender identity could risk her institution’s funding.

Since the law took effect in April, institutions have been attempting to follow the legislation, often “erring on the side of caution” by canceling programming that could now be prohibited, Wingate noted.

“This Court finds that each day the statute remains unclarified, undefined, and under a threat of open interpretation, exacerbates the suppression of protected speech,” Wingate wrote.
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July 22, 2025
Judge Says Harvard Can Enroll International Students for Now

A federal judge granted Harvard an injunction on Friday that temporarily blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to revoke its ability to enroll international students.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | greenleaf123/iStock/Getty Images | APCortizasJr/iStock/Getty Images

District Judge Allison Burroughs granted a preliminary injunction to Harvard University on Friday in its case challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent the university from enrolling international students. It’s the latest development in a tit-for-tat legal battle over the ability of more than a quarter of Harvard’s students to remain enrolled.

The injunction prevents the Department of Homeland Security from stripping Harvard of its Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification until Burroughs issues a final ruling in the lawsuit. It does not address President Donald Trump’s executive proclamation from earlier this month banning the State Department from issuing visas to international students and researchers attending Harvard; a temporary restriction on that ban expired June 20.

Burroughs has not issued an injunction on the Trump administration’s second attempt to revoke Harvard’s SEVP certification, which could take effect Wednesday if she declines to take further action, as Harvard has requested.

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June 20, 2025
Judge Orders Mahmoud Khalil to Be Released

A federal judge ordered that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate and student protest leader who was detained by ICE agents in March, be released from a detention center in Louisiana. News outlets reported that he walked out of the detention center around 6:40 Central time Friday evening.

U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ruled on Friday that Khalil, a legal permanent resident who has not been accused of any crime, should be released on bail and that continuing to hold him was highly unusual and could constitute “unconstitutional” punishment for his political beliefs. The Trump administration had sought to keep Khalil imprisoned based on a minor alleged immigration infraction after another judge ruled earlier this month that it could not continue to hold him purely based on the State Department’s claim that his continued presence in the U.S. posed a foreign policy threat.

Khalil’s arrest made national headlines and kicked off the Trump administration’s months-long campaign of detentions, visa revocations and threats of deportation against international students.

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June 20, 2025
Universities Sue, Judge Blocks DOD’s Indirect Costs Cap

Johns Hopkins, Arizona State and Cornell Universities are among a coalition of 12 higher education institutions and three trade groups that filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense on Monday over the agency’s plan to cap universities’ indirect research cost rates at 15 percent.

While DOD secretary Pete Hegseth said in a memo last month that the policy is aimed at “accountability” and rooting out “waste,” the lawsuit argues that slashing indirect costs rates “will stop critical research in its tracks, lead to layoffs and cutbacks at universities across the country, badly undermine scientific research at United States universities, and erode our nation’s enviable status as a global leader in scientific research and innovation.”

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Boston issued a temporary restraining order, prohibiting the DOD from enacting the cap. A hearing in the case is set for July 2.

The litigation filed this week is the latest legal challenge universities and their advocates have mounted against the federal government’s attempts to cap the amount of money it gives universities for the indirect costs of conducting federally funded research. The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy have all attempted to unilaterally enact similar caps, and federal judges have blocked those efforts for now.

For decades, universities have periodically negotiated with the federal government to calculate bespoke indirect cost reimbursement rates to pay for research costs that support multiple grant-funded projects, such as facilities maintenance, specialized equipment and administrative personnel. Universities factor those rates into their institutional budgets.

For example, Johns Hopkins and the DOD currently have in place a negotiated indirect cost rate of 55 percent. In 2024 JHU received $32 million from the DOD to cover indirect costs, according to the lawsuit. If the DOD’s plan moves forward, however, the university would lose $22 million.

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June 20, 2025
In Quran burning conviction, UK judge uses violence against defendant as evidence of his guilt
Last year, FIRE launched the Free Speech Dispatch, a regular series covering new and continuing censorship trends and challenges around the world. Our goal is to help readers better understand the global context of free expression. Want to make sure you don’t miss an update? Sign up for our newsletter.

Return of blasphemy prosecutions feared in the UK

On June 2, four months after West London resident Moussa Kadri attacked Kurdish-Armenian asylum seeker Hamit Coskun for burning a Quran, Westminster Magistrates’ Court found Coskun guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence and fined him £240 ($323).

Coskun ignited a new round of debate over blasphemy in the UK after burning a Quran outside London’s Turkish consulate and yelling “Fuck Islam” and “Islam is a religion of terrorism,” which he has since repeatedly claimed was a protest against “the Islamist government of Erdoğan,” Turkey’s president. In response, Kadri attacked him with a knife, knocked him to the ground, and kicked him while he was down.

But there’s a particularly disturbing element to this case. Namely, the judge’s justification for the conviction. The “disorderly” nature of Coskun’s protest, the judge said, “is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by two different people.”

That’s right, a man’s violent attack on another was cited as evidence of the victim’s guilt.

The UK was not alone in making blasphemy news in recent weeks. In Bangladesh, a 23-year-old was arrested under the country’s Cyber Security Act for “insulting” the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook. An Iranian court upheld a death sentence on blasphemy charges for the musician Tataloo. And Sweden may be facing yet another Quran burning controversy, but appears to be allowing it to proceed — for now.

Political speech in the crosshairs around the world
- Mayor Gilles Platret of French city Chalon-sur-Saone banned display of Palestine’s flag in the city this month as well as “all pro-Palestine demonstrations.”
- Hungary delayed a vote on a bill that would allow punishment including bans on organizations judged to “threaten the sovereignty of Hungary by using foreign funding to influence public life.”
- Istanbul prosecutors — continuing Turkey’s crusade against imprisoned Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — banned use of Imamoglu’s image and audio recordings.
- Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch threatened to revoke funding to universities where students have held Nakba rallies. “Academia is not a platform for incitement under the guise of freedom of expression,” he wrote.
- Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh has been charged with a terrorism offense by the UK Metropolitan Police for displaying a flag supporting Hezbollah at a concert in London last year.
- The lese-majeste case against American academic Paul Chambers, accused of insulting Thailand’s monarchy, has officially been dropped. Chambers will return to the U.S.
- Malaysian police are investigating a queer sexual health workshop for “causing disharmony, disunity, or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will, or prejudicing the maintenance of harmony or unity, on grounds of religion.”
- Georgian Dream, the ruling party of Georgia, says it’s taking action against “the filthiest phrases and insults” made against its party members from a so-called “externally funded hate speech campaign.”
- Ashoka University professor Ali Khan Mahmudabad was arrested for social media posts about India’s tensions with Pakistan, including one about “those who are mindlessly advocating for war.”
Eight year sentence for Brazilian comedian

A São Paulo state criminal court sentenced comedian Leo Lins to a whopping eight years and three months in prison for “practicing” or “inciting” racism and religious prejudice as well as for his comments about disabilities. The charges stemmed from a viral 2022 set in which Lins mocked “Black and Indigenous people, obese people, elderly people, gay people, Jews, northeastern Brazilians, evangelicals, disabled people and those with HIV.”

“When there is a confrontation between the fundamental precept of liberty of expression and the principles of human dignity and judicial equality, the latter should win out,” the judge said of Lins’ sentencing. Lins intends to appeal.

Free press under attack from Saudi Arabia to El Salvador to Samoa
- On June 14, Saudi Arabia executed journalist Turki Al-Jasser on treason and terrorism charges. Al-Jasser’s supporters claim the charges were in retaliation for the journalist’s criticism of Saudi royals. The Committee to Protect Journalists says the international community’s failure to act after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder “emboldened de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to continue his persecution of the press.”
  
  Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancé Hatice Cengiz looks at his photo as Nihad Awad of CAIR speaks about the murder during a demonstration at the Saudi Embassy, Washington DC, October 2021
- Staff of an investigative news outlet in El Salvador, El Faro, fled the country in expectation of criminal charges after reporting that President Nayib Bukele’s party “paid gangs a quarter of a million dollars during his 2014 mayoral race for their help getting him votes in communities they controlled.”
- An Argentinian investigative journalist is accusing the country’s intelligence services of approving a plan that would “allow agents to gather intelligence on journalists, economists, academics and other critics of President Javier Milei and his government.” The government denied the allegation “but acknowledged the existence of the document.”
- A Kenyan author was arrested after President William Ruto’s daughter accused him of impersonation for writing a book about her without her permission.
- Samoan journalist Lagi Keresoma was charged under a criminal defamation law over her article about a former police officer’s legal challenges. Press freedom advocates are pushing for the repeal of the criminal defamation statute, rightfully warning of its limits on journalists’ rights.
- London BBC staff are raising the alarm over the Iranian government’s efforts to intimidate them within the UK, citing a “sharp and deeply troubling escalation” in Iran’s years-long campaign against them. Metropolitan Police said at least 20 people in London have been the target of violence and threats by Iran in recent years.
The latest news in tech: Porn, bans, and Telegram
- Six of Brazil’s 11 Supreme Court justices voted in favor of holding tech companies responsible for “illegal” third party content posted to their platforms but specifics on the enforcement and other details are still forthcoming. “We must, as a court, move in the direction of freedom with responsibility and regulated freedom, which is the only true freedom,” one judge said.
- President Emmanuel Macron has committed to banning social media for children under 15, citing a recent murder in the country. “Platforms have the ability to verify age. Let’s do it,” he said.
- And Pornhub warned it will no longer be available in France over recent age verification legislation.
- Porn is a focus of government action in Tanzania, too. Information minister Jerry Silaa announced a block on the platform X over the presence of porn on the site, material he said is contrary to Tanzania’s “laws, culture, customs, and traditions.”
- Vietnam ordered a block on Telegram, citing “anti-state” material available on the app and legal authority prohibiting “taking advantage of telecommunications activities to oppose the state.”
- Transparency reports show that in the early months of 2025, Telegram handed law enforcement data on 22,777 users, a major jump from previous disclosures.
China’s censorship looks to the past — and abroad

Unsurprisingly, the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre brought another wave of censorship in Hong Kong, which in previous years was home to mass demonstrations commemorating the date. But now even silent protests are criminalized, and self-censorship has soared. Police made some arrests, including “a man holding an electric candle, a man standing silently in the rain, and two women, including a girl holding flowers and dressed in a school uniform.”

Censorship of the Tiananmen anniversary is widespread online, too. Media outlet ABC obtained authorities’ 230-page Tiananmen censorship guide “used by frontline content censors to train artificial intelligence tools to moderate vast amounts of content.” A similar memo warned, “Delete first. Review later.”

A candlelight vigil outside the Chinese consulate general in Los Angeles to mark the 36th anniversary of the crackdown on the pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, June 2025

Amidst the censorship surrounding June 4, other national security-related threats emerged in Hong Kong. Joshua Wong, a pro-democracy activist already serving a nearly five-year prison sentence, was hit with new charges — while beyond bars. This month, he was charged with “conspiring to collude with foreign forces” for allegedly encouraging other nations to impose sanctions on Hong Kong in 2020. And the city’s police are warning residents that they too may face national security charges if they download “secessionist” mobile game Reversed Front: Bonfire, which allows users to play as targeted groups rising against the Chinese Communist Party. Even just recommending the game could qualify as “incitement to secession.”

Censorship of disfavored political speech isn’t just a problem within China and Hong Kong — critics of the Chinese government face repression on a global scale. At Book World Prague, a Czech book fair, Chinese officials unsuccessfully pressured organizers to remove the Taiwanese flag from a publisher’s booth as well as censor a catalog that mentioned involvement by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture. And here in the United States, two men, one from China and the other from the UK, are accused of stalking a U.S.-based man in an effort to prevent him from protesting Xi Jinping’s 2023 visit to California.
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June 18, 2025