Tag: President

No president gets to decide who deserves a lawyer
“The first thing we do, let’s chill all the lawyers.”

The original line from Shakespeare’s “Henry VI, Part 2” is often wheeled out to take a swipe at the legal profession. But in the play, it’s uttered by a violent rebel intent on dismantling civil society. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens interpreted it as a warning: “Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”

Lawyers make easy targets. But freedom and protection of individual rights depend on their efforts to uphold the rule of law, check government overreach, and defend the unpopular. If you’re being prosecuted, suing the government for violating your rights, or challenging an unconstitutional law, you need a lawyer. And you shouldn’t have to worry about whether intimidation from the federal government will prevent you from getting one.

That’s why President Trump’s ongoing retaliation against law firms for representing clients or causes he opposes should concern all Americans, regardless of their political beliefs. It not only violates the First Amendment but also undermines access to vigorous legal representation, especially for anyone up against those in power.

This moment is bigger than one firm or one case. It’s about preserving the integrity of our legal system and the fundamental principles it upholds.

What did these firms do to draw the president’s ire? Here’s a sample from his executive orders targeting them:
- Perkins Coie represented “failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton,” hired a company that produced “false” opposition research on Trump’s campaign, and “worked with activist donors” to challenge voter ID laws in court.
- A Paul, Weiss partner brought a lawsuit against protesters at the Capitol on January 6.
- Jenner & Block conducted pro bono work challenging Trump’s executive orders restricting immigration and withholding federal funding for medical institutions that perform gender transition procedures for minors.
- WilmerHale pursued pro bono litigation related to immigration, voting, and race-based college admissions policies.
The executive orders Trump issued in response to these actions are transparent about his intention to crack down on the firms as a result of their First Amendment-protected activities.

The orders slap the firms with a range of sanctions — revoking security clearances, canceling government contracts, and denying access to federal buildings and employees when such access would, among other things, “be inconsistent with the interests of the United States” (whatever that means).

For firms representing clients who advocate before, contract with, or are in disputes with the federal government, these sanctions are a gut punch, cutting off access and/or critical information they need to effectively do their jobs.

Not only that, the orders direct federal agencies to require federal contractors to disclose any business they have with the blacklisted firms, pressuring anyone who has (or might in the future have) business with the government to dissociate from those firms.

You don’t need to feel sympathy for large law firms — or support the clients or causes they represent — to see the danger in a president abusing his authority to bend the legal system to his will. Trump isn’t just punishing these firms — he’s chilling legitimate advocacy and eroding the core principle that everyone has a right to legal representation. That’s bad news for the rule of law and protection of individual rights.

Lawyers are not their clients, and they don’t have to adopt their clients’ views to zealously advocate for them. But Trump’s reprisals are making lawyers think twice about representing anyone who challenges him or the policies he supports.

It’s also far from clear this crackdown will stop with big firms. Could small and/or public interest firms be next?

Some may note the administration has also accused the targeted firms of violating employment discrimination laws. But there are established legal processes for fairly and transparently investigating and adjudicating those allegations. The president doesn’t get to decide by fiat that a company or person broke the law and impose whatever penalties he wants. That’s a flagrant violation of due process. And the administration’s concerns about civil rights violations don’t erase its primary stated reason for punishing the firms — their advocacy and potential viewpoints.

FIRE and coalition partners file brief rebuking the U.S. government for attempting to deport Mahmoud Khalil for his protected speech

Press Release

Khalil’s arrest is an affront to the First Amendment and the cherished American principle that the government may not punish people based on their opinions.

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Even if you share the president’s dim view of Big Law, consider that his actions set a dangerous precedent that will outlast his administration. A future president might not share Trump’s view of what constitutes “destructive causes” or what activities “limit constitutional freedoms, degrade the quality of American elections, or undermine bedrock American principles.” In the future, perhaps lawyers who represented Republican politicians, challenged mail-in voting procedures, or defended abortion restrictions will face retribution instead.

Trump’s plan to cow firms into submission is paying off — in part. Multiple firms have made deals with the administration to avoid sanctions. Paul, Weiss was the first to cave, making commitments that included $40 million in pro bono legal services for causes the president supports. Other firms are preemptively falling in line. Skadden and Willkie Farr each pledged $100 million for the same.

Two days ago, Milbank followed suit. In response, Trump posted on Truth Social, “The President continues to build an unrivaled network of Lawyers, who will put a stop to Partisan Lawfare in America, and restore Liberty and Justice FOR ALL.” He’s not just trying to stop firms from doing work he doesn’t like — he’s pressuring them to do work that advances his political agenda.

Fortunately, not every firm is willing to be shaken down. Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale are challenging Trump’s unconstitutional executive orders in court, and have all secured temporary restraining orders blocking enforcement of the executive orders.

Yesterday, FIRE joined a broad coalition led by the ACLU to file an amicus curiae — “friend of the court” — brief supporting Perkins Coie’s lawsuit.

Our brief explains that the First Amendment prohibits the government from retaliating against lawyers for the clients they represent or the arguments they make. What’s more, the administration’s actions strike directly at the independence of the legal profession and threaten to unravel America’s deeply rooted commitment to individual rights.

As we said in our brief, “If allowed to stand, these pressure tactics will have broad and lasting impacts on Americans’ ability to retain legal counsel in important matters, to arrange their business and personal affairs as they like, and to speak their minds.”

Today, the chorus grew louder as more than 500 law firms signed onto a separate amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie’s legal battle. That type of collective defense of America’s core values is exactly what’s needed.

This moment is bigger than one firm or one case. It’s about preserving the integrity of our legal system and the fundamental principles it upholds.
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April 4, 2025
Former Harvard President Looks Back on Decades of Protests

In 1967, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Harvard University English professor Neil Rudenstine intervened in a protest on campus, where a recruiter from Dow Chemical Company, which made napalm, had been surrounded by students upset about U.S. attacks on Vietnamese civilians. He helped defuse the tension by negotiating with students to release the recruiter.

That foray into conflict resolution prompted an unexpected shift from a budding literary career to academic administration. Rudenstine would then go on to serve as dean of students at Princeton University and in other roles before making his way back to Harvard as president, a job he held from 1991 to 2001.

Now 90, Rudenstine released a book last month titled Our Contentious Universities: A Personal History (The American Philosophical Society Press) that is partly a memoir and partly an exploration of campus protests movements across multiple decades and causes.

Rudenstine discussed the book with Inside Higher Ed, sharing his personal experiences of protests in years past and his thoughts on the latest wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Excerpts of the conversation have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What motivated you to write this book?

A: From my point of view, increasing student protests starting in the ’90s seemed to be different from those of the ’60s, and more complicated to deal with. So I began to try to find out what the differences were and what the results might be of the new movement, so to speak. That got me immersed to look again at the 1960s, and after that, events began to take over.

Q: What differences do you see in protests of the past versus today?

A: In the ’60s, student protests were quite violent at times, but they were all mainly concerned with the Vietnam War. Of course, there were other things, like student protests over apartheid in South Africa [in the 1980s]. But the main issue in the 1960s was the war, and students were essentially united in their feelings against the war. There was virtually no sense of students in any way protesting against one another, or student groups disagreeing with other student groups. It was a united feeling.

It was also a feeling that if the war were to come to an end, the protests would probably also come to an end. In the ’90s and afterward, students were far more diverse. There were more Black students, Jewish students, Asian American students, first-generation students and so on. These groups did not necessarily agree with one another in terms of what was important to protest against, and they sometimes protested against one another. So the situation was very different; there was no single overriding issue like the war.

Q: Tell me about your own protest experiences, starting when you were a professor at Harvard in 1967 and helped bring an end to a protest organized by Students for a Democratic Society.

A: I was, at the time, an assistant professor of English literature, and totally absorbed by that job at Harvard. One day I was walking across campus outside of Harvard Yard, and I heard shouting and cheering going on around [Mallinckrodt Laboratory], which was a chemistry building. It turned out that Students for a Democratic Society had organized a protest that imprisoned a recruiter for the Dow Chemical Company who wanted to interview students for jobs. And since Dow was making some products [such as napalm] that were used in the war, the SDS students decided to imprison this recruiter.

Purely by chance, I stopped by, and I thought it was not proper of the university to imprison a recruiter who’d come to interview students and told the students that by using their megaphone. After several hours of discussion and debate, the students released the recruiter and gave up the protest. I was somehow identified as the person who had helped to bring this about, and that led to me being asked to be dean of students at Princeton University to help with their protest movements. A very considerable accident got in the way of my literary career and deflected me from literature to student protests in a way that I had never imagined. It was purely the result of chance and serendipity.

Q: Near the end of your career, students staged a sit-in to demand a living wage at Harvard. How were you able to wind that protest down without police intervention?

A: That was a very complicated situation. Students sat in my office building, Massachusetts Hall, because they wanted to change the way in which many people at the university were reimbursed for their services. The living wage protest was not very rational. If they had wanted a minimum wage change, we might have been able to discuss it, but the method they chose was not rational, and they sat in the building for more than two weeks. So we had a very complicated and delicate situation.

I decided at the beginning that whatever we would do, we would not call the police, because calling the police in earlier days at Columbia, Harvard, Kent State and other places had led to terrible situations of riots and police beating students. So the question was, how can we not call the police but also bring the situation to a conclusion? It took many, many days of discussion and waiting in order to try to find this conclusion.

What happened was that the next president [Larry Summers] said, “Why don’t you put together a committee to look into the issue, and that will give the students a way out, and it’ll give you a way out? It’s not likely that this committee will embrace the solution that the students have chosen at all, but it’ll bring an end to the protests.” And that’s what happened. We appointed a committee, the students were able to claim the victory and walk out of the building, and we were able go back into our offices and basically say that we were happy nobody had been hurt, and that we would trust the new committee to make very good recommendations about what should be done in the future.

Q: You wrote that you were “taken aback” by how quickly presidents brought in police to break up protest encampments last spring. What other tactics do you believe they should have considered first?

A: Obviously, every situation is different, so there’s no one general thing you can do. But there is a way which you can call for the judiciary to step in. If students are identified as being in the protest, if the [judiciary] tells them to evacuate whatever building they happen to be occupying or whatever they’re doing wrong, they can be held in contempt of court if they don’t obey those admonitions. That’s a very good substitute for bringing in the police; if you’re held in contempt of court, it’s a very serious crime, and very few students want to do that, so they tend to leave right away. We had tried that at Princeton, and that seemed to be a good substitute for actually calling the police, which led, of course, to terrible things at Columbia and elsewhere, when the police tended to just brutalize the students when they were called in.

Another alternative, of course, is to wait out the students in the hope that sooner or later, their academic needs will force them to go back out and get to their studies. That was a tactic we also used at Princeton.

Q: What do you think about the institutional neutrality movement?

A: I’m a little bit skeptical about the conception and certainly the term of neutrality. I understand why people would embrace the idea at the University of Chicago, for example, and other places. I think that’s a very interesting point of view, and I think at times it’s definitely the thing to do. You don’t want to go around commenting all the time on what has happened internationally or nationally. At the same time, it’s a very difficult row to hoe, because there simply are some events that require, if not an actual stance by the university, certainly some kind of an analysis with a possible outcome. I do think that there are times when it’s important for a leader to speak out, and it has to be done very thoughtfully, and one has to choose those moments carefully.

Q: Any advice for today’s college presidents on how to handle campus protests?

A: That’s a tough one. I think what they’re doing is about as good as can be done, and that’s clarifying what is legitimate as a protest or what is not legitimate and being willing to discipline students if they really cross the line of what’s permissible in an obstructive way that harms other people’s capacity to do their jobs. I hope the universities are open to discussing in a more collaborative way things that need to be ironed out, other than simply responding with police force. The more they can discuss and analyze and find ways to reason with the students and even some faculty … the more they are able to possibly defuse protest or the threat of protest.

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April 1, 2025
Columbia University’s Interim President Resigns Amid Trump Administration’s Pressure Over Campus Activism

Columbia University’s interim president, Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong, resigned on Friday, just days after the university made significant concessions to the Trump administration in exchange for the restoration of $400 million in federal research funding. Armstrong’s resignation follows a tumultuous period for the institution, already reeling from the departure of her predecessor, Minouche Shafik, in August 2024.

Armstrong, who had stepped into the role of interim president during a time of political and social unrest, faced mounting pressure over the university’s handling of pro-Palestinian student activism, which sparked national controversy and calls for accountability from political leaders, including former President Donald Trump and his administration. Armstrong’s resignation marks the latest chapter in a series of leadership shifts at Columbia as it navigates the increasingly polarized political environment surrounding campus protests.

Effective immediately, Claire Shipman, co-chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, has been appointed acting president. David J. Greenwald, chair of the Board of Trustees, praised Armstrong for her dedication to the university, acknowledging her hard work during a time of “great uncertainty.” Greenwald’s statement highlighted Armstrong’s contributions to the university, saying, “Katrina has always given her heart and soul to Columbia. We appreciate her service and look forward to her continued contributions to the University.” Armstrong, who will return to lead the Irving Medical Center, had taken on the interim presidency in a period marked by increasing tensions on campus over political activism and its fallout.

Political Pressure and Concessions to the Trump Administration

The resignation comes amid significant political pressure, as the Trump administration imposed a set of demands on Columbia in exchange for the release of crucial federal funding. Earlier this month, the administration presented the university with nine conditions to restore the $400 million in research grants that had been frozen over accusations of antisemitism linked to campus protests.

In an effort to regain the funding, Columbia conceded to these demands, which included a ban on students wearing masks to conceal their identities during protests, except for religious or health reasons. Additionally, Columbia agreed to hire 36 new campus security officers with the authority to arrest students involved in protests. The university also committed to increasing institutional oversight by appointing a new senior vice provost to monitor the university’s Department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies.

Perhaps most notably, Columbia pledged to adopt a stance of “greater institutional neutrality,” a policy that the university said would be implemented after working with a faculty committee. The decision was seen as an attempt to quell political tensions while navigating the contentious issues surrounding student activism.

A Leadership Crisis at Columbia University

Armstrong’s resignation follows the departure of Minouche Shafik, who faced widespread criticism for her handling of campus protests against the war in Gaza. Under Shafik’s leadership, Columbia became a focal point of national debates about free speech, activism, and the role of universities in responding to global conflicts. Shafik ultimately resigned after facing intense scrutiny for her handling of the protests and the occupation of an academic building by students, an incident that ended with NYPD officers forcibly removing the students.

In Armstrong’s case, her tenure was similarly marred by controversies surrounding the university’s response to the growing political activism on campus. The university’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests, particularly those related to the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict, led to calls for stronger action from political figures, especially within the Republican Party. Armstrong’s decision to oversee negotiations with the Trump administration over the university’s federal funding placed her at the center of a storm of political and social unrest, further intensifying the pressure on her leadership.

Columbia’s Future Amidst Political Turmoil

The resignation of Armstrong is a significant moment for Columbia, as the institution grapples with the broader implications of political activism within academia and the increasing role of government in shaping university policies. As the university enters another phase of leadership instability, the question remains: how will the next president balance the competing demands of activism, free speech, and political pressures from outside forces?

Columbia’s decision to adopt a policy of institutional neutrality and increase security measures reflects the complex and polarized environment that universities are navigating in today’s political climate. The growing influence of political figures like Trump and the scrutiny placed on universities over their responses to student protests signal a new era for higher education, one where the lines between campus activism and political power are increasingly blurred.

As the search for a permanent president continues, Columbia University will need to chart a course that both addresses the concerns of its diverse student body and faculty while navigating the external pressures that have shaped the university’s recent trajectory. The role of universities in fostering open dialogue, supporting activism, and protecting the rights of students will likely continue to be a central issue in higher education for years to come.

Conclusion

The resignation of Katrina Armstrong adds to a growing list of university presidents who have faced intense political pressure and scrutiny over campus activism, particularly surrounding Middle Eastern and global conflicts. Columbia’s next steps will be crucial not only for the future of the institution but also as a bellwether for how universities across the country navigate the increasingly complex landscape of political activism, academic freedom, and government intervention. The institution’s response to these challenges will undoubtedly have long-term implications for the role of higher education in a polarized society.

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March 29, 2025
In Bid to Close Education Department, President Trump Looks to Rehouse Student Loans, Special Education Programs – The 74

President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. Small Business Administration would handle the student loan portfolio for the slated-for-elimination Education Department, and that the Department of Health and Human Services would handle special education services and nutrition programs.

The announcement — which raises myriad questions over the logistics to carry out these transfers of authority — came a day after Trump signed a sweeping executive order that directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department to the extent she is permitted to by law.

“I do want to say that I’ve decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler — terrific person — will handle all of the student loan portfolio,” Trump said Friday morning.

The White House did not provide advance notice of the announcement, which Trump made at the opening of an Oval Office appearance with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Education Department manages student loans for millions of Americans, with a portfolio of more than $1.6 trillion, according to the White House.

In his executive order, Trump said the federal student aid program is “roughly the size of one of the Nation’s largest banks, Wells Fargo,” adding that “although Wells Fargo has more than 200,000 employees, the Department of Education has fewer than 1,500 in its Office of Federal Student Aid.”

‘Everything else’ to HHS

Meanwhile, Trump also said that the Department of Health and Human Services “will be handling special needs and all of the nutrition programs and everything else.”

It is unclear what nutrition programs Trump was referencing, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture manages school meal and other major nutrition programs.

One of the Education Department’s core functions includes supporting students with special needs. The department is also tasked with carrying out the federal guarantee of a free public education for children with disabilities Congress approved in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.

Trump added that the transfers will “work out very well.”

“Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education,” he said Friday. “And then all we have to do is get the students to get guidance from the people that love them and cherish them, including their parents, by the way, who will be totally involved in their education, along with the boards and the governors and the states.”

Trump’s Thursday order also directs McMahon to “return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

SBA, HHS heads welcome extra programs

Asked for clarification on the announcement, a White House spokesperson on Friday referred States Newsroom to comments from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and heads of the Small Business Administration and Health and Human Services Department.

Leavitt noted the move was consistent with Trump’s promise to return education policy decisions to states.

“President Trump is doing everything within his executive authority to dismantle the Department of Education and return education back to the states while safeguarding critical functions for students and families such as student loans, special needs programs, and nutrition programs,” Leavitt said. “The President has always said Congress has a role to play in this effort, and we expect them to help the President deliver.”

Loeffler and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said their agencies were prepared to take on the Education Department programs.

“As the government’s largest guarantor of business loans, the SBA stands ready to deploy its resources and expertise on behalf of America’s taxpayers and students,” Loeffler said.

Kennedy, on the social media platform X, said his department was “fully prepared to take on the responsibility of supporting individuals with special needs and overseeing nutrition programs that were run by @usedgov.”

The Education Department directed States Newsroom to McMahon’s remarks on Fox News on Friday, where she said the department was discussing with other federal agencies where its programs may end up, noting she had a “good conversation” with Loeffler and that the two are “going to work on the strategic plan together.”

Maine Morning Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maine Morning Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lauren McCauley for questions: info@mainemorningstar.com.

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March 22, 2025
Dr. Marlene Tromp Named University of Vermont’s 28th President

Dr. Marlene TrompThe University of Vermont (UVM) Board of Trustees has selected Dr. Marlene Tromp as the institution’s 28th president.

Tromp, who is currently serving as president of Boise State University, will assume her new role later this summer.

“Dr. Tromp brings with her the experience and ability for great success that will benefit the university, community, and state,” said Cynthia Barnhart, Board of Trustees chair and co-chair of the Presidential Search Advisory Committee.

A first-generation college student raised in rural Wyoming,Tromp brings nearly 30 years of experience in higher education. During her six-year tenure at Boise State, she successfully navigated the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic while increasing student enrollment and improving affordability. Under her leadership, the university achieved record graduation rates and philanthropic funding while expanding its research footprint.

“This is a university that has the power to truly lead the nation and even the world on several fronts,” Tromp said of UVM. “I’m so excited to work with my colleagues, the students, alumni, and friends to improve individual lives and the life of the community.”

Tromp’s rural background appears to have been a significant factor in her selection.

“She grew up with the experience of being in a rural state and understanding the importance of the flagship institution to that state, both urban and rural parts of the state. She really demonstrated an ability to connect well with Vermont culture, given that upbringing,” said Ron Lumbra, immediate past chair of the Board of Trustees and co-chair of the search committee.

A humanities scholar with a concentration in Victorian literature and culture, Tromp has published nine books and dozens of peer-reviewed papers. Her administrative experience includes serving as campus provost and executive vice chancellor at the University of California at Santa Cruz and vice provost and dean at Arizona State University.

Senator Patrick Leahy, who met with Tromp during her campus visit, expressed confidence in her leadership abilities.

“Dr. Tromp seems poised and ready to lead UVM. She clearly understands the impact and responsibilities UVM has in our state,” Leahy said.

Campus leaders have also voiced strong support for the appointment. Athletic Director Jeff Schulman praised Tromp’s “experience, commitment to excellence and passion for UVM,” while Bill Falls, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, described her as “an empathetic and collaborative leader.”

Tromp holds a Bachelor of Arts from Creighton University, a Master of Arts in English from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida. She currently serves on the NCAA Division I Board of Directors and consults on higher education with the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco.

She will succeed Dr. Suresh Garimella, who led UVM from 2019 until October 2024 when he became president of the University of Arizona. Provost Dr. Patricia Prelock has been serving as interim president since Garimella’s departure.

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March 21, 2025
Mott’s former president commuted from Virginia to Michigan

Travel receipts from Mott Community College show the institution paid tens of thousands of dollars for former president Beverly Walker-Griffea to travel back and forth between her home in Virginia and the campus in Michigan, MLive Media Group reported.

The college spent more than $78,000 on Walker-Griffea’s travel between the two states in 2022 and 2023, including on her stays in Michigan hotels, car rentals and per diems for meals, the publication found. Her contract required her to live within 20 miles of the “nearest college district boundary.”

Anne Figueroa, former chair of the Board of Trustees in 2021 and 2022, told MLive the president’s residence in Michigan was undergoing a renovation and Walker-Griffea was attending to health concerns with doctors on the East Coast. (Walker-Griffea owned a home in Virginia from her time working at Thomas Hampton Community College.) Figueroa said there was “no decline in her performance” during that period.

Board members expressed mixed feelings about the unusual arrangement in her last years at the college.

“One of the key roles the president does is to be the representative of the college in the community,” trustee John Daly told MLive, “and, from my perspective, that’s difficult to do if you’re gone a significant amount of the time.”

Walker-Griffea, who left Mott in spring 2024, now directs the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement and Potential, launched by Governor Gretchen Whitmer in December 2023. A department official told MLive that Walker-Griffea was living in Michigan again by the time she left the college.

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March 5, 2025
Statement on President Trump’s Truth Social post threatening funding cuts for ‘illegal protests’

President Trump posted a message on Truth Social this morning that put social media and college campuses on high alert. He wrote:

Colleges can and should respond to unlawful conduct, but the president does not have unilateral authority to revoke federal funds, even for colleges that allow “illegal” protests.

If a college runs afoul of anti-discrimination laws like Title VI or Title IX, the government may ultimately deny the institution federal funding by taking it to federal court, or via notice to Congress and an administrative hearing. It is not simply a discretionary decision that the president can make.

President Trump also lacks the authority to expel individual students, who are entitled to due process on public college campuses and, almost universally, on private campuses as well.

Today’s message will cast an impermissible chill on student protests about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Paired with President Trump’s 2019 executive order adopting an unconstitutional definition of anti-Semitism, and his January order threatening to deport international students for engaging in protected expression, students will rationally fear punishment for wholly protected political speech.

As FIRE knows too well from our work defending student and faculty rights under the Obama and Biden administrations, threatening schools with the loss of federal funding will result in a crackdown on lawful speech. Schools will censor first and ask questions later.

Even the most controversial political speech is protected by the First Amendment. As the Supreme Court reminds us, in America, we don’t use the law to punish those with whom we disagree. Instead, “[a]s a Nation we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

Misconduct or criminality — like true threats, vandalism, or discriminatory harassment, properly defined — is not protected by the First Amendment. In fact, discouraging and punishing such behavior is often vital to ensuring that others are able to peacefully make their voices heard.

However, students who engage in misconduct must still receive due process — whether through a campus or criminal tribunal. This requires fair, consistent application of existing law or policy, in a manner that respects students’ rights.

President Trump needs to stand by his past promise to be a champion for free expression. That means doing so for all views — including those his administration dislikes.

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March 4, 2025
Seton Hall sues its former president

A year after being sued by ex-president Joseph Nyre for alleged breach of contract and retaliation, among other claims, Seton Hall University has hit back with its own legal action against the former leader.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Superior Court of New Jersey, the university accused Nyre of “illicitly accessing, downloading, maintaining, and later disseminating confidential and proprietary documents, as well as documents protected by the attorney-client and work product privileges, and information after his departure as President of the University.” Those documents led to critical reports about the university’s current president, Monsignor Joseph Reilly.

Alongside Nyre, the lawsuit also names John Does 1–10, referring to them as “persons who are in possession of documents unlawfully maintained, retrieved, accessed, and/or downloaded.”

In a statement to Inside Higher Ed, a Seton Hall spokesperson wrote that Wednesday’s filing “makes clear that confidential documents were utilized with sections selectively released, causing damage to the University and its leadership and painting a false narrative about Monsignor Reilly.” Reilly has been accused of failing to report allegations of sexual misconduct and thus violating the university’s Title IX policies.

An attorney for Nyre blasted the lawsuit as a “cover-up” by Seton Hall.

A Legal Clash

Nyre led Seton Hall from 2019 to 2023, when he stepped down unexpectedly.

The former president later sued Seton Hall, alleging he was pushed out by the Board of Regents amid conflict with then-chair Kevin Marino, whom Nyre accused of micromanagement, improperly involving himself in an embezzlement investigation at the law school and sexually harassing the president’s wife, Kelli Nyre, among other claims. Marino, who is no longer a board member, was not named as a defendant in Nyre’s lawsuit, and an investigation found no evidence of sexual harassment.

While Seton Hall is defending itself against Nyre’s lawsuit, it also threw a legal counterpunch in suing the ex-president. The university alleges that its information technology team confirmed that Nyre had improperly accessed materials after his departure, and in doing so, he violated confidentiality provisions in his employment and separation agreement.

Specifically, Nyre is accused of improperly downloading confidential documents that were later provided to Politico. Those files—some of which were also obtained by Inside Higher Ed—seemed to indicate Reilly, the current president, overlooked instances of sexual harassment while rector and dean of the university’s graduate seminary from 2012 to 2022.

However, one of the leaked documents in question—a letter from a Board of Regents member to Reilly in February 2020 that said he had violated university Title IX policies through his inaction—was an unsent draft, university officials previously told Inside Higher Ed.

Seton Hall officials said in the lawsuit that though the Politico reporter never disclosed who provided him with the documents, “it was clear that [Nyre], directly or indirectly, was responsible” for the leak of confidential information to the news outlet between December and February. Seton Hall accused Nyre of trying to “create a false impression about” Reilly, arguing he acted in “bad faith and malicious intent” by not disclosing that the February 2020 letter was never sent.

The allegations against Reilly have prompted calls for transparency from state lawmakers and Democratic governor Phil Murphy, who called on the university to release an investigative report that allegedly cleared Reilly. Seton Hall has thus far declined to do so, citing the need to protect the confidentiality of participants who voluntarily cooperated with the investigation.

The allegations against Reilly come as the university is only a few years removed from the sprawling sexual abuse scandal involving former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who sat on both of Seton Hall’s governing boards. Investigators determined in a 2019 university report that McCarrick “created a culture of fear and intimidation” and “used his position of power as then–Archbishop of Newark”—which sponsors Seton Hall—“to sexually harass seminarians” for decades. (McCarrick was defrocked but avoided criminal charges due to a dementia diagnosis.)

As part of the lawsuit, Seton Hall is seeking a temporary restraining order to stop Nyre from allegedly sharing more documents. University officials argued in court filings that Seton Hall stands to “suffer irreparable harm” from further leaks, which “cannot be adequately compensated” monetarily.

“The nature of the harm is such that it affects the university’s ability to maintain the confidentiality of sensitive information, which is crucial for its operations and reputation,” filings read. “Moreover, to the extent that documents to which defendant has access are protected under [the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] or Title IX, the disclosure of such documents would directly implicate the right of students and their parents to control the disclose [sic] of such confidential educational records as well as the confidentiality rights of university employees.”

Pushback

In a statement to Inside Higher Ed, Nyre attorney Matthew Luber called the lawsuit “a desperate, retaliatory ploy designed to silence a whistleblower and distract from the university’s own corruption and misconduct.”

Luber did not specifically address the allegations that Nyre had inappropriately leaked confidential documents but accused Seton Hall of ignoring red flags in hiring Reilly and overlooking Title IX infractions.

“Let’s be clear: Dr. Nyre was not at Seton Hall when Monsignor Reilly engaged in misconduct, nor when the board knowingly violated its own policies and Title IX to install him as President,” Luber wrote. “But he was the one who warned university officials about Reilly’s disqualifying history during his presidential search—warnings that were deliberately ignored by board leadership. Instead of addressing their own failures, Seton Hall is now attempting to smear and intimidate Dr. Nyre.”

As of publication, a judge has not set to a hearing to consider the request for a restraining order.

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February 19, 2025
SFFA president on affirmative action ban’s growing impact

Edward Blum isn’t quite a household name. But at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., he’s a minor celebrity.

The conservative think tank has played host to an array of high-profile politicos, pundits, journalists and businesspeople over the years: Bill Gates, Mike Pence, Jordan Peterson, the Dalai Lama. Blum, who took affirmative action to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 and won, spoke at the institute earlier this month about his decades of legal activism.

It was something of a homecoming for the president of Students for Fair Admissions, who lives in Florida but has been a visiting fellow at AEI since 2005. It was also, in many ways, a victory lap.

Since the court ruled in his favor in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of North Carolina, Blum’s vision of what he calls a “colorblind covenant in public policy” has been ascendant, and in the new Trump administration, Blum’s zealous opposition to race-conscious programs has become a domineering force driving education policy.

Over the weekend, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights issued a letter outlining an expansive interpretation of the SFFA ruling and its plans to enforce a ban on all race-conscious programming in higher ed; colleges that don’t comply in 14 days could lose their federal funding. During her confirmation hearing Thursday, Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon said ending “race-based programming” would be a priority if she were confirmed.

Blum, who spoke with Inside Higher Ed before the OCR letter was published, believes that affirmative action has long been unpopular—winning the public relations battle, he said, was “the easiest part of my job.” Still, he said the political, legal and cultural backlash against affirmative action and DEI over the past few years was affirming. In Trump’s Washington, Blum, who fought the courts unsuccessfully for decades, feels like an insider at last.

“It’s gratifying for those of us who have labored in this movement to see that now, rather than these policies being whispered about as unfair and illegal, there’s a full-throated cry against them,” he said.

The Trump administration’s adoption of Blum’s views on race in higher ed has also prompted another wave of backlash from Blum’s many critics, who say his work is undoing decades of progress toward racial equality and integration.

During his AEI session, Blum was asked about his own views on racial diversity on college campuses, constitutional law notwithstanding. He rejected the premise outright.

“The question implies that someone’s skin color is going to tell me something very fundamental about who they are as an individual. I don’t believe that’s the case,” Blum said. “Your skin color, the shape of your eyes, the texture of your hair tells me nothing about who you are. For some people, being on a campus with racial diversity is important … There are others that don’t seem to care about that.”

From Outsider to Agenda Setter

Blum has railed against race-conscious admissions for two decades. A former businessman in Houston, Blum, who has no law degree, founded the legal defense fund Project on Fair Representation in the mid-2000s. He challenged Texas’s reinstatement of race-based admissions in the second Fisher v. the University of Texas case; the case went to the Supreme Court but was ultimately defeated in 2016 when justices ruled that the university’s admission practices were constitutional.

Now, he’s not alone. A corps of public interest law groups has sprung up to litigate the SFFA decision in higher ed at prestigious law firms, on Wall Street and beyond. This month, a brand-new public interest legal group filed a lawsuit against the University of California system accusing it of secretly using racial preferences in admissions, citing increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment at its most selective colleges.

Blum said SFFA isn’t passing the buck and is committed to challenging universities on their compliance with the law, but a groundswell of efforts has lightened his load.

“The SFFA decision has energized the public interest law apparatus,” Blum said. He predicted that under Trump, the Education Department will also play a bigger role in investigating institutions for their compliance with the affirmative action ban. That forecast appears to be coming true with Friday’s Dear Colleague letter, though the agency still has to enforce the directive, a complicated prospect considering its broad scope.

Edward Blum (left) at the American Enterprise Institute on Feb. 5, with moderator Frederick Hess.

Blum supports the intensifying attacks on DEI and said that with more state laws forbidding spending on diversity and equity programs, there’s room for legal work to ensure colleges aren’t spending on “DEI by another name.”

But despite the high-profile political implications of his work, he doesn’t see himself as a political actor. In the late 1990s, he ran a failed congressional campaign in Houston, but the thought of running for office now evokes “overwhelming negative emotions.” And he’s careful to draw a line between his legal advocacy work and the anti-DEI crusades of conservative lawmakers.

“There is a 20-foot wall between the political people in the movement and the public interest groups,” he said.

‘A Forever Endeavor’

Blum is not finished suing colleges over affirmative action, or at least those he believes could be flouting the law. He’s particularly interested in selective colleges that reported similar or higher rates of Black and Hispanic enrollment this year, such as Yale, Duke and Princeton—a sure sign, he believes, that they’ve been “cheating.” SFFA has a “vibrant role to play,” he added, in holding them to account.

“So many of us are befuddled and concerned that in the first admissions cycle post-SFFA, schools that said getting rid of affirmative action would cause their minority admissions to plummet didn’t see that happen,” he said.

When asked if recent expansions to financial aid offerings at these universities could account for the change, Blum was circumspect. He’s not opposed to economically progressive admissions initiatives; he calls Rick Kahlenberg, a liberal proponent of “class-based affirmative action,” a like-minded friend. But he said the onus was on colleges to prove that’s the source of their continued racial diversity. He also said that geographic diversity initiatives would be unconstitutional if they only applied to “Harlem and the South Side of Chicago, and not also rural Missouri and northern Maine.”

Since the Supreme Court ruling, experts, college administrators and lawyers have debated whether the SFFA decision applies to race-conscious scholarships, internships and precollege programs as well as admissions. In the months after the ruling, attorneys general in Ohio and Missouri issued orders saying it did, and some colleges have begun to revise racial eligibility requirements on scholarships. At the same time, scholars and lawyers said implementing changes to nonadmissions programs amounted to overreach from state lawmakers and institutions alike.

Blum doesn’t actually believe the decision itself extends to those programs. He does think they’re illegal—there just hasn’t been a successful case challenging them yet.

“I haven’t really made myself clear on this, which is my fault, but the SFFA opinion didn’t change the law for those policies” in internships and scholarships, he said. “But those policies have always been, in my opinion, outside of the scope of our civil rights law and actionable in court.”

He’s still looking for a case that could enshrine his view in the law—two weeks ago McDonald’s settled a lawsuit he filed against their Latino scholarship program, putting that one out of contention. But he said that for the most part, in the wake of the SFFA decision, colleges have proactively altered or ended those programs themselves.

“Even if the ruling didn’t apply directly, it’s had this cascading effect,” he said.

That effect, Blum said, has spread to cultural and corporate institutions as well as higher ed, contributing to a general chilling effect on what he views as unconstitutional racial preferences in American society. It’s a major turnaround, he acknowledged, from the ubiquity of DEI initiatives and racial reckoning just five years ago after the murder of George Floyd.

While he’s relishing in the legal, political and cultural victory of his crusade, he’s not resting on his laurels.

“There are no permanent victories in politics,” Blum said, loosely quoting Winston Churchill. “The same applies to legal advocacy. This is a forever endeavor.”

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February 19, 2025
60 Minutes and Vice President Vance put Europe’s worrying speech restrictions into the spotlight

Free speech in Europe is under debate at the moment, and for good reason. For anyone who is concerned about the preservation of free expression on a global scale, the restrictions on speech — including online speech — in countries like the United Kingdom and Germany in recent years have been alarming.

I’ve long written about international threats to free expression at FIRE — including in our newsletter, the Free Speech Dispatch — to help Americans better understand the broader state of speech, and how our First Amendment fits into the global stage. The current spotlight on speech restrictions abroad should once again remind us of the value of protecting our rights here at home.

Policing the ‘limits’ of Germany’s speech

A CBS 60 Minutes segment that aired over the weekend is particularly disturbing, both because of the extent to which Germany polices speech and the casual disregard the prosecutors interviewed showed toward freedom of expression.

One of the prosecutors, when asked how targets respond to raids — sometimes conducted pre-dawn — of their homes and electronics, said that they are surprised to discover that they have committed a crime. “You have free speech as well, ” Dr. Matthäus Fink said, “but it also has its limits.”

Indeed it does, online and off. Just look at how German police and prosecutors have responded to speech that has the potential to offend in recent years.

A 64-year-old man is facing charges not just for alleged antisemitic posts, but also for calling a German politician a “professional idiot.” An American writer living in Germany may be sentenced to years in prison for satirically using a swastika to criticize the country’s COVID policies. Berlin police literally cut off the power to a pro-Palestinian conference because of “the potential for hate speech.” Then they shut down a pro-Palestinian protest because they couldn’t be sure if Irish protesters were saying something hateful in a foreign language — better censored than sorry. And what of the arrests of people who share, even unknowingly, a fake quote, because “the accused bears the risk of spreading a false quote without checking it”? Or of the man whose home was raided at dawn for tweeting at a local politician, “You are such a penis”?

And it’s not only Germany that targets insults of politicians. Just yesterday, news broke that a musician from the band Placebo has been charged with defamation for “contempt of the institutions” after calling Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni a “piece of shit, fascist, racist” during a 2023 music festival.

Free speech is under threat in Europe, whether it’s online speech, blasphemy, or public protests.

In case you thought arrests over insults were a fluke, the prosecutors featured by 60 Minutes are here to assure you: That’s the intention, not a byproduct. When interviewer Sharyn Alfonsi asked, “Is it a crime to insult somebody in public?,” all three confirmed it was, with Fink suggesting punishment for online insult could be even more severe “because in internet, it stays there.” Reposts, too, can be criminal.

Fink went on to defend prosecutorial action against the man who called a politician a “penis,” suggesting this and similar crass language has “nothing to do with … political discussions or a contribution to a discussion.” The notion that prosecutors should use the power of the state to shape the civility of political discourse should alarm anyone concerned about the state of expression in Germany and online.

Vance criticizes European leaders’ speech policing

Last week, Vice President JD Vance gave a much-discussed speech about “shared values” at the Munich Security Conference. In it, Vance took European leadership to task over censorship of conservative and religious speech, particularly in the UK. “Free speech, I fear, is in retreat,” Vance said.

The speech prompted pushback from European officials who objected to Vance’s diagnosis. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, for example, said in response to Vance’s discussion of religious speech, “let’s be clear, we don’t have blasphemy laws in the UK.”

That isn’t so clear at all.

In just the past few months alone, the UK managed to have multiple blasphemy controversies. (Not to mention the UK’s many other recent free speech woes covered in FIRE’s Free Speech Dispatch, which are too numerous to discuss in full here.)

In November, the Advertising Standards Authority banned comedian Fern Brady from using an advertisement for her stand-up tour that depicted Brady as the Virgin Mary because it could cause “serious offence” to Christians. Then Member of Parliament Tahir Ali called on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to create “measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions” — also known as a blasphemy law.

And early this month, Greater Manchester Police arrested a man “on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence” for publicly burning a Quran. An assistant chief constable said police “made a swift arrest at the time and recognise the right people have for freedom of expression, but when this crosses into intimidation to cause harm or distress we will always look to take action when it is reported to us.”

Harm? Distress? These concepts are vast enough to fit the entirety of Big Ben. It is, as writer Kenan Malik puts it, “a form of blasphemy restriction but in secular garb.”

Labour Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is also establishing a council to create an official government definition of Islamophobia. Depending on the council’s ultimate definition, and whether and how it is used by government agencies to respond to Islamophobia, it could implicate UK citizens’ ability to speak freely about important religious issues. (As FIRE has written repeatedly in the context of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism in the U.S., codification of these definitions into official policy can risk punishment or chilling of protected speech about political and religious matters.)

Outside of the UK, Europe’s restrictions on blasphemy are growing — and show no signs of stopping. Indeed, the Manchester man arrested for burning a Quran did so in response to the Jan. 29 assassination in Sweden of Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, known for his well-publicized and controversial public Quran burnings. Just after Momika’s killing, a Swedish court found Salwan Najem, another Iraqi refugee who burned Qurans with Momika, guilty of incitement against an ethnic group. Momika faced similar charges, which were only dropped upon his death.

The United Nations Human Rights Council encourages these kinds of prosecutions, passing a 2023 resolution advising countries to “address, prevent and prosecute acts and advocacy of religious hatred.” Denmark did so, enacting a law criminalizing desecration of holy texts later that year.

Vance’s support of speech abroad is undermined by Trump admin’s early censorship efforts

Free speech is under threat in Europe, whether it’s online speech, blasphemy, or public protests. But it simply isn’t possible to square Vance’s criticism of European censorship with the recent actions of the administration in which he serves.

In his speech, Vance said “there is a new sheriff in town” and “under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer them in the public square.” Vance also objected to “shutting down media.”

Has Vance checked in on what the sheriff is doing?

The president is directly targeting people for their speech, which frustrates the United States’ ability to credibly — and rightfully — advocate for free speech on the world stage. Take, for example, the White House’s decision last week to indefinitely bar the Associated Press from spaces including the Oval Office and Air Force One over its failure to adopt the government-preferred term “Gulf of America.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the White House was punishing what it deems misinformation, saying that “if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable.” In his speech, Vance criticized the Biden administration for “threaten[ing] and bull[ying]” private companies into censoring “so-called misinformation.”

Vance, however, is aware of the AP decision — and supports it. In response to journalist Mehdi Hasan’s post asking Vance if he’d seen the ban, he wrote yesterday afternoon: “Yes dummy. I think there’s a difference between not giving a reporter a seat in the WH press briefing room and jailing people for dissenting views. The latter is a threat to free speech, the former is not. Hope that helps!”

That’s rationalizing censorship.

He’s right that banning a journalist from press events isn’t the same as imprisoning them. Obviously some punishments are worse than others, but any punishment based on a journalist’s viewpoint is a free speech violation. As my colleague Aaron Terr explained last week, explicitly barring a news outlet on the basis of viewpoint — and its failure to adopt the state’s preferred terminology — is a serious threat to free speech, one Americans should oppose regardless of who is in the Oval Office.

Vance also said in Munich, “Speaking up and expressing opinions isn’t election interference.” He’s right. There is perhaps no one who needs to hear that message more than President Donald Trump, who praised Vance’s speech but is nevertheless suing Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer for her polling in the 2024 election — calling it “election interference.” (FIRE represents Selzer.)

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Another member of the Trump administration, Elon Musk, separately called this weekend for journalists at 60 Minutes to receive “a long prison sentence” for “deliberate deception to interfere with the last election,” referring to the journalists’ editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, not the segment on Germany’s online speech policing. Instead, hours later, he shared a clip of that segment with the caption, “Thank the Lord that America has freedom of speech!”

Elected officials should press their colleagues around the world to stand by the values of free expression. Vance’s articulation of those rights is necessary. But being effective requires credibility. That’s why FIRE believes our commitment to nonpartisanship, and our dedication to defending the right to speak regardless of preference or popularity, is our most important value.

If we undermine these freedoms at home, it’s harder to advocate them abroad to an already skeptical body politic.

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February 18, 2025