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The U.S. Department of Education’s plans to move core programming to other agencies is illegal and harmful to K-12 and higher education students, educators and families, according to an amended lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Brought forth by a broad coalition of school districts, employee unions and a disability rights organization, the amended complaint seeks to halt the outsourcing of Education Department programs.
“Taking away the services and supports students rely on will irreparably hurt children, families, educators, schools, and communities, in states across the nation,” said a Tuesday statement by Democracy Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case. “The Department of Education offers important support to educators and communities throughout the nation and the unlawful attempts to shut down the Department are nothing less than an abandonment of the future of our country.”
In a statement emailed to K-12 Dive on Wednesday, Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Education Department, said, “It’s no surprise that blue states and unions care more about preserving the DC bureaucracy than about giving parents, students, and teachers more control over education and improving the efficient delivery of funds and services.”
On Nov. 18, the Education Department announced it was developing interagency agreements with other federal agencies to support six programs, including with the U.S. Department of Labor to handle the management of about $28 billion in K-12 funding for low-income school districts, homeless youth, migrant students, academic support, afterschool programs, districts receiving Impact Aid and other activities.
Another interagency agreement places about $3.1 billion in institution-based grants for postsecondary education programming at the Labor Department.
The moves add to a partnership the Education Department created with the Labor Department earlier this year to take over the management of federal career and technical assistance programs. Democratic lawmakers, during a Nov. 19 House Education and Workforce subcommittee hearing, said several state CTE programs ran into funding delays due to a new grant management process at the Labor Department.
While the Education Department does not yet have formal plans to move the management of special education, civil rights enforcement and federal student aid out of the agency, those options are still being explored, a senior department official said during a press call on Nov. 18.
Even when programming shifts under the interagency agreements, the Education Department would still be the agency responsible for these programs, with the partner agencies taking on much of the daily operations.
The Trump administration has said the continual downsizing of the Education Department is meant to reduce federal bureaucracy and give states more autonomy over spending allocations.
During a White House press conference Nov. 20, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said there’s been a “hard reset” of the country’s educational system. “That reset was a campaign promise from President Trump to send education back to the states and end Washington’s micromanagement of education once and for all,” McMahon said.
Critics, however, say the disruptions from shifting agency responsibilities, along with Education Department staff reductions and delays in grant funding, is causing havoc for K-12 and higher education systems.
The updated complaint in Somerville v. Trump, which was consolidated with New York v. McMahon, was brought against the Education Department by groups of states, school districts and teacher unions. The Arc of the United States is now an additional plaintiff in the case.
The cases were heard earlier this year before district and appeals courts, which issued and upheld injunctions blocking the administration’s actions. In July, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request for a stay allowing the changes at the Education Department to take place for now.
Trustees at Nassau Community College are poised to file a lawsuit after the State University of New York’s Board of Trustees denied their presidential pick.
At a special meeting on Sunday, the Nassau Community College Board of Trustees unanimously voted to allow the board chair to file a lawsuit challenging the SUNY board’s decision, with one board member absent, Newsdayreported. Earlier this month, SUNY trustees voted unanimously, with three members absent, to reject Maria Conzatti, who has run the college as interim or acting president for almost four years. A SUNY official told Newsday it was the first time the system’s board disapproved a presidential nominee.
The resolution voted on asked that Conzatti’s appointment by Nassau Community College’s board be “disapproved” with no further explanation.
“SUNY is committed to excellent leadership for all of our campuses and the success of our students, and we will vigorously defend ourselves against any frivolous lawsuit,” a spokesperson for the system said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed.
The college’s Student Government Association also passed a measure on Monday expressing “gratitude and appreciation” for Conzatti while also acknowledging the SUNY board vote and encouraging the college to “conduct an equitable, transparent and expeditious search for a new permanent president.”
The conflict comes amid broader tensions between the college’s faculty union and the administration over the consolidation of academic departments and a union contract that expired in August, among other issues. The union sued the college last year arguing the elimination of 15 department chairs violated state regulations, but a judge dismissed the case. The union has since appealed.
Nassau has also reported less-than-optimal student outcomes in recent years. It has the lowest two-year graduation rate and second lowest three-year graduation rate among community colleges in the SUNY system, 9.4 percent and 23.6 percent respectively.
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Dive Brief:
The U.S. Department of Justice has sued six states over laws that allow in-state tuition rates and scholarships for students regardless of their immigration status. The latest legal challenge was filed Thursday against California for its “California Dream Act.”
The lawsuit seeks to enjoin California laws that allow state residents to receive in-state tuition regardless of immigration status. The lawsuits — also filed against Minnesota, Texas, Kentucky, Illinois and Oklahoma — could impact tuition for dual enrollment, adult education, and career and technical education training programs.
“Federal law prohibits aliens illegally present in the United States from receiving in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state U.S. citizens,” the Justice Department said in its lawsuit, which is challenging the states under the supremacy clause. “There are no exceptions.”
Dive Insight:
The lawsuits come in light of a February executive order prohibiting federal resources for undocumented immigrants and as the U.S. Department of Education has implemented the order to restrict education-related programs.
As part of those restrictions, which were part of a coordinated effort across agencies, students could be required to undergo a citizenship and immigration status check to qualify for tuition for dual enrollment and similar early college programs for high-schoolers.
According to the Trump administration, that’s “because those programs provide individualized payments or assistance beyond that of a basic public education.”
The administration’s implementation of the executive order also restricted Head Start, the federal early childhood education program meant to level the playing field for low-income families, to “American citizens.” That policy change was successfully challenged in court in multiple lawsuits and is currently on pause in states that sued the government.
However, other program areas impacted by the Education Department’s enforcement of the order are still in effect in some places, including high school students’ eligibility for college-level and career courses.
“California is illegally discriminating against American students and families by offering exclusive tuition benefits for non-citizens,” said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a Thursday statement, adding that her department “will continue bringing litigation against California until the state ceases its flagrant disregard for federal law.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, however, called the DOJ’s efforts “meritless, politically motivated lawsuits.”
“Good luck, Trump,” said Marissa Saldivar, Newsom’s spokesperson, in an email to K-12 Dive. “We’ll see you in court.”
The office maintains that its tuition exemption applies to all residents who meet the criteria, regardless of where they were born, and it is not discriminating against U.S. citizens.
Out of the states sued so far, Texas and Oklahoma have complied, with Texas suddenly ending a 24-year-old law within hours of the Justice Department filing a lawsuit in June.
Prior to the Justice Department’s lawsuits, 25 states and the District of Columbia allowed in-state tuition for undocumented students, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, which tracks the issue. That number has fallen to 22 in addition to Washington, D.C.
There are an estimated 620,000 undocumented K-12 students in the United States, with most states home to thousands of such students, according to 2021 data from Fwd.us.
According to federal data, nearly 2.5 million high school students were enrolled in at least one dual enrollment course from a college or university in 2022-23.
ALLOWAY TOWNSHIP, N.J., Nov. 20, 2025 — A local school board member’s Facebook post to community members about a tax hike should have started a conversation — instead, it led to censorship.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is suingthe commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Education and members of the state’s School Ethics Commission to stop them from abusing a law to chill the speech of an elected school board member who used social media to seek her constituents’ input.
“I didn’t join the school board to be told to shut up,” said Gail Nazarene, an elected school board member, Navy veteran, and grandma in Alloway Township. “New Jersey officials claim the authority to punish me simply for asking folks questions about important issues, particularly when it affects their wallets. I should be free to communicate with constituents and get their views without being censored by state officials.”
In April, Gail used Facebook to discuss tax increases and other school issues with constituents. In one post, she asked, “As a resident of Alloway, I am wondering what other residents think about a 9-15% school tax increase?” She clarified in her later posts that she was asking in her personal capacity. But another school board member saw the posts and filed a complaint against her, claiming Gail had violated New Jersey’s School Ethics Act because she allegedly had spoken on the board’s behalf. The complaint is pending before the state’s School Ethics Commission.
“Americans deserve to know what their elected officials think about important issues,” said FIRE attorney Daniel Zahn. “New Jersey is muzzling elected officials and preventing them from talking with their community, the very people they were elected to represent.”
The state broadly interprets the School Ethics Act to bar elected officials from discussing issues relating to schools on social media. And this isn’t the first time it’s done so. The School Ethics Commission has previously warned elected officials against engaging with constituents on social media and previously interpreted the act to prevent elected school board members from discussing matters of public concern on social media and in op-eds.
But the First Amendment protects Gail’s right to speak freely on such issues.
Gail has stopped soliciting constituent feedback online. She fears any posts about school board issues will lead to punishment, including reprimand, censure, suspension, or removal. But she also is concerned about the loss of First Amendment freedoms for her and her constituents.
“When the state silences school board members, parents and taxpayers are kept in the dark,” said FIRE attorney Greg Greubel. “The School Ethics Act can’t be turned into an unconstitutional gag rule.”
Today’s federal lawsuit asks the court to declare New Jersey’s School Ethics Act unconstitutional as interpreted by the state and stop its use against elected officials speaking out about public issues.
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 educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.
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Dive Brief:
A federal judge on Friday issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from freezing the University of California system’s research funding as part of civil rights investigations.
In a scathing ruling, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin found the administration’s actions unconstitutional, describing “a playbook of initiating civil rights investigations of preeminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding,” with the aim of “forcing them to change their ideological tune.”
While a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s actions is ongoing, Lin barred the federal government from using civil rights investigations to freeze UC grant money, condition its grants on any measure that would violate recipients’ speech rights, or seek fines and other money from the system.
Dive Insight:
In her ruling, Lin described a “three-stage playbook” that the Trump administration uses to target universities. First, an agency involved with the administration’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announces civil rights investigations or planned enforcement actions. Then, the administration issues mass grants cancellations without following legally mandated administrative procedures, Lin wrote.
In the third stage, Lin said, the U.S. Department of Justice demands payment of millions or billions of dollars in addition to other policy changes in return for restored funding. A DOJ spokesperson on Monday declined to comment on the lawsuit.
In the case of UC, the judge ruled that plaintiffs — a coalition of faculty groups and unions, including the American Association of University Professors — provided “overwhelming evidence” of the administration’s “concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left,’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities.”
“It is undisputed that this precise playbook is now being executed at the University of California,” wrote Lin, citing public statements by Leo Terrell, senior counsel in the DOJ’s civil rights wing and the head of administration’s antisemitism task force. Terrell alleged that the UC system had been “hijacked by the left” and vowed to open investigations.
The Trump administration did just that. In August, it froze $584 million in research funding at the University of California, Los Angeles after concluding that the institution violated civil rights law. It primarily cited UCLA’s decision to allow a 2024 pro-Palestinian protest encampment to remain on campus for almost a week before calling in the police.
The administration has sought a $1.2 billion penalty from UCLA to release the funds and settle the allegations. “The costs associated with this demand, if left to stand, would have far-reaching consequences,” Chancellor Julio Frenk said in a public message in August.
Lin noted in her Friday ruling that the administration also sought settlement terms “that had nothing to do with antisemitism,” including policy changes to how UCLA handles student protests, an adoption of the administration’s views on gender, and a review of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The administration’s campaign resulted in a significant and ongoing chilling of faculty’s actions, both in and out of the classroom, Lin said.
In addition to teaching and conducting research differently, members of the plaintiff groups have also changed how they engage in public discourse and limited their participation in protest, Lin said. Faculty have self-censored on topics such as structural racism and scrubbed their websites of references to DEI out of fear of reprisal.
“These are classic, predictable First Amendment harms, and exactly what Defendants publicly said that they intended,” Lin concluded.
While acknowledging the importance of combating antisemitism, Lin said the government was “silent on what actions UCLA took to address” antisemitism issues on its campus between May of 2024, when pro-Palestinian protesters established an encampment, and July 2025, when the DOJ concluded UCLA had violated civil rights law by not doing enough to protect Jewish students from harassment.
As part of a separate lawsuit, Lin in September ordered the National Institutes of Health and other agencies to restore suspended grants to UCLA.
UCLA and the UC system are just one of several prominent universities similarly targeted by the federal government. At least five institutions so far have signed deals with the Trump administration to resolve federal civil investigations. The agreements brokered by Columbia, Brown and Cornell universities require each to pay millions of dollars to the federal government, causes favored by the Trump administration or both.
Harvard University, on the other hand, has fought back against the administration’s tactics. After repeated federal attacks, accompanied by unprecedented ultimatums, the university sued the administration and successfully had the government’s $2.2 billion funding freeze against it reversed. The Trump administration has previously stated its intent to appeal.
On the eve of what was expected to be a long and gut-wrenching trial, a small schooldistrict in Santa Barbara County has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit for $7.5 million with two brothers, now 65 and 68 years old, who claimed a long-dead principal molested them in the 1970s.
The brothers had sought $35 million for the harm they said they suffered, an attorney for the youngest brother said.
The settlement equals about 40% of the 350-student district’s 2025-26 budget, although the district did not disclose the terms and timetable for the payment. The district’s superintendent acknowledged in a statement that there would be an impact on the budget.
Board members of the Montecito Union School District announced the settlement over the weekend. The trial was scheduled to start Monday.
The case was brought under a 2019state law, Assembly Bill 218, that removed a statute of limitations for filing claims that employees of public agencies, including school districts and city and county governments, sexually abused children placed in their care.
Estimates suggest settlements and jury awards could cost California school districts as much as $3 billion by one projection, and possibly a lot more. Los Angeles County alone has agreed to pay $4 billion to settle abuse claims with more pending, mostly involving plaintiffs who were once in foster care.
With many larger lawsuits with multiple victims yet to be settled or go to trial, the financial impacts are hard to predict. Small districts are worried that multimillion-dollar verdicts could devastate budgets, if not lead to insolvency. Insurance costs, meanwhile, have soared by more than 200% in five years, according to a survey of districts.
In the Montecito case, the brothers were seeking $35 million in damages combined, John Richards, a lawyer representing one of them, said outside of court Monday.
Montecito is not alone in facing decades-old accusations. The San Francisco Unified School District is embroiled inan ongoing suit involving a teacher who allegedly molested a student in the mid-1960s, records show.
School boards association helps with legal fees
TheMontecito case drew the attention of the California School Boards Association, which gave the district a $50,000 grant to help with legal costs, said spokesman Troy Flint.
Flint said Montecito Union Superintendent Anthony Ranii has “been a staunch advocate for AB 218 reform because he understands how this well-intentioned law carries such significant unintended consequences that compromise the educational experience of current and future students.”
Montecito Union “is just one example of what potentially awaits school districts and county offices of education statewide,” Flint added.
The settlement came just weeks after state Assembly members let a measure that would have restored a statute of limitations to such cases, Senate Bill 577, go without a vote in the final days of the legislative session. Its sponsor, Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said he would bring it back next year.
At a brief hearing Monday, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Anderle called the Montecito matter “a case of real consequence.” He had scheduled 17 days for trial, court records show. The district’s lawyers did not attend the hearing.
The brothers’ lawsuit was filed in 2022 and alleged that Montecito Union’s former superintendent and principal, Stanford Kerr, molested them in the early 1970s, including raping one of them. Kerr died in 2013 at 89. He never faced criminal charges.
A third plaintiff who also claimed Kerr abused him settled earlier with the district for $1 million. He had described a full range of abuse covering many types of conduct, which included rape, court filings state.
Just recompense for years of suffering
The brothers, identified in court documents as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2, pushed forward, Richards said, hoping to be compensated for years of agony. The younger of the two, Richards said, has suffered a lifetime of substance abuse, which is blamed on Kerr’s assaults.
“The money is nice,” Richards said, but the younger brother also seeks “social acknowledgment that what happened to (him) was terrible. He has a long way to go,” in recovering.
The district admitted no liability in making the settlement.
Montecito Union has no insurance coverage going back to the period the brothers said the abuse occurred — 1972 to 1978, Ranii said in a statement.
“We were prepared to mount a vigorous defense,” he said. But the possibility of a jury awarding far more than the district could afford pushed the idea of a settlement after years of pretrial maneuvering.
The superintendent’s statement did not directly address the brothers’ claims. It also did not mention Kerr.
“We are deeply mindful of the enduring pain caused by sexual abuse and feel for any person who has experienced such abuse,” Ranii said in the statement.
A large award in the event of a trial would have “diminished our ability to serve students now and well into the future,” Ranii said. “Continued litigation created exceptional financial vulnerability. Settling now allows us to stabilize operations and remain focused on today’s students.”
Montecito is an unincorporated oceanfront community just south of Santa Barbara in the shadows of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Its residents include Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The district is one of the state’s richest, with more than $40,000 per student in funding due to tax receipts from high-value properties.
The district will manage the costs through a hiring freeze, staff reductions “when natural attrition occurs,” and redirecting “funds previously designated for capital repair,” Ranii said. The settlement allows the district to avoid layoffs, he said.
The brothers’ case was built around the testimony they would have given about Kerr’s abuses, Richards said. There was no physical evidence. At one point, a district employee went to the brothers’ home and forced their parents to sign a document requiring them to make sure the boys came right home after school and avoided Kerr, according to court filings.
Richards said the district did not produce such a document in discovery. It had no records that the boys ever attended the school, he said, although their photos appear in yearbooks. The district also had no records that Kerr ever faced accusations of abuse or sexual misconduct.
Two school board members from Kerr’s time as superintendent said in depositions taken for the brothers’ suit that they would have taken action had they known he was abusing students, Richards said. But with the case settled, the elderly former members won’t be called to testify.
All that remains is a final hearing that the judge scheduled for Nov. 19 to make sure the payment has been received “and that the check’s been cashed,” he said.
Editor-at-Large John Festerwald contributed to this story.
This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter.
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.”
T Caleb Jayden Wilson he parents of Caleb Jayden Wilson have filed a comprehensive civil lawsuit seeking accountability from multiple parties they allege are responsible for their son’s death following a fraternity hazing incident at Southern University.
Urania Brown Wilson and Corey Wilson, Sr., filed the wrongful death and survival damages petition Friday in the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge Parish, seven months after losing their 20-year-old son. The junior mechanical engineering student and member of Southern’s renowned “Human Jukebox” marching band died in February following what authorities describe as a brutal hazing ritual.
The lawsuit casts a wide net of accountability, naming as defendants Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc., its local Beta Sigma and Lambda Alpha chapters, the State of Louisiana through the Board of Supervisors of Southern University and A&M College, and 12 individual fraternity members.
Among the individual defendants are Caleb M. McCray, Kyle M. Thurman, and Isaiah E. Smith—all previously arrested by Baton Rouge police in connection with Wilson’s death. McCray faces the most serious charges, including manslaughter and felony criminal hazing.
The petition alleges multiple levels of negligence, from gross misconduct by individuals to institutional failures by the university and fraternity organizations. According to the filing, Wilson died as a direct result of being repeatedly punched in the chest during an unsanctioned, off-campus ritual at a local warehouse on February 27.
The lawsuit particularly criticizes the response following Wilson’s collapse, alleging that fraternity members delayed calling emergency services and instead transported him to a local hospital where they provided false information about his injuries before abandoning him.
Following an internal investigation that found the Beta Sigma chapter violated the student code of conduct, Southern University expelled the chapter and implemented a temporary moratorium on new member intake activities for all Greek organizations.
The civil action seeks to leverage Louisiana’s strengthened anti-hazing laws, including the Max Gruver Act, which criminalized certain forms of hazing following another high-profile fraternity death. The legislation was named after Louisiana State University student Maxwell Gruver, who died in a 2017 fraternity hazing incident.
The case highlights ongoing concerns about hazing culture in higher education and the challenges institutions face in monitoring and preventing dangerous initiation practices, particularly those occurring off-campus and outside official oversight.
The lawsuit refers to the Times’ historic reputation as the “newspaper of record,” and that’s important for understanding the stakes of the case. The moniker speaks to the Times’ massive readership and prestige but also to an authoritative role — often setting the standards in terms of fact-checking, objectivity and independence that produce a definitive accounting of events for the record books. They’re the standards to which other newspapers are held.
In light of that role, and Trump’s continued successful shakedowns of media outlets of lesser prestige, a capitulation would be devastating. Instead, the Times has an opportunity, and an obligation, to rise to its historic role by categorically rejecting the lawsuit — and putting a stop to a particularly insidious legal idea that provides support for Trump’s media war.
The complaint, which First Amendment law professor Don Herzog calls “a press release masquerading as a lawsuit,” is a massive document that leaves ample room to hit familiar Trump beats, finding time to pick at the Times’ “deranged” endorsement of Kamala Harris and to hail Trump’s 2024 win as the “greatest personal and political achievement in American history.”
Why everything Pam Bondi said about ‘hate speech’ is wrong
The nation’s top law enforcement officer doesn’t understand there is no hate-speech exception to the First Amendment — and that’s scary.
The alleged damages center on reporting published in the pages of the Times and in the book “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” written by Times reporters Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner, that suggested Trump’s multimillion-dollar inheritance from his father was largely a product of fraudulent tax evasion schemes and that Trump owes his later fortune to producer Mark Burnett’s “discovery” of him as a host for “The Apprentice.” But Trump alleges that he was already famous and thathis success with “The Apprentice” was “thanks solely to President Trump’s sui generis charisma and unique business acumen.”
Through what Trump alleges are false statements and negligent fact-finding, the lawsuit claims this reporting sought to illegally “damage President Trump’s hard-earned and world-renowned reputation for business success” and “sabotage his 2024 candidacy for President of the United States.”
The lawsuit has been met with universal dismissal by First Amendment scholars. “The complaint is full of bluster,” said Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, but “short on any allegations of specific false statements of fact that would meet the rigorous standards for defamation claims brought by public figures.”
One part of the complaint has been a particular focus of criticism, specifically where it states that the defendants had a “desire for President Trump to fail politically and financially. Each feels actual malice towards President Trump in the colloquial sense.”
As Fallow alluded, to prove defamation Trump must show “actual malice” on the part of the Times — and that’s a tough hill to climb, even assuming that the reporting is proven to be false.
As laid out in the landmark case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, actual malice requires Trump to prove that the defendants actuallyknew their statements were false — or at least entertained actual, serious doubts about their truth. So resting this lawsuit on the idea that the defendants just really, really dislike Trump was met with predictable disbelief by legal experts.
But this section and the broader lawsuit belie something more sinister than a blustery failure to establish its claims’ basic elements. Trump believes it is — or would like it to be — legally actionable to harm his political ambitions when you really, really dislike him. In his view, reporters should be liable for statements that make people not wish to support him.
Beyond being a threat to the media, this idea is a threat to the very speech that makes up the core of our democratic process. No politician is entitled to support or votes, and to commodify them in this way is a perversion of democratic self-governance and a threat to core political speech.
And we’ve already seen Trump advance this idea in his other lawsuits against the media.
The lawsuit has been met with universal dismissal by First Amendment scholars.
When he targeted CBS News last October, he alleged billions of dollars in damages from the impact of what he claimed was “deceptive editing” of a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Harris on campaign fundraising and “support values.” Later that year, he targeted pollster J. Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register, claiming her polling miss was “election interference” that required him to “expend … campaign expenditures.” With legal help from my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Selzer is fighting these bogus claims.
The New York Times must similarly take this lawsuit as an opportunity to reject this idea, full stop. Its unique role in the media industry warrants a strong and defiant message in defense of the First Amendment and the Fourth Estate that depends on it.
Anything less risks a future in which Trump’s lawfare barrels through smaller outlets that don’t have the same resources.
A negotiation and a settlement between Columbia and the Trump administration have led the administration to triumphantly charge at less resourced universities, such as George Mason University and George Washington University. As FIRE counsel Tyler Coward warned, “We said from the beginning it was going to take a big institution like Harvard or Columbia to stand up for its rights, and if they failed to do so — if they capitulated to unlawful demands from the administration — there was little hope for smaller institutions down the line.”
The New York Times, the Harvard of newspapers, should understand its role here accordingly.
