Tag: rights

Federal Agency Finds George Mason University Violated Civil Rights Law Through DEI Policies

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has determined that George Mason University violated federal civil rights law by using race as a factor in hiring and promotion decisions, the agency announced on Friday.

The finding concluded that GMU violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in federally funded education programs. The university now has 10 days to accept a proposed resolution agreement or risk losing federal funding.

Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said President Gregory Washington led “a university-wide campaign to implement unlawful DEI policies that intentionally discriminate on the basis of race.”

“You can’t make this up,” Trainor said in a statement, noting that Washington had previously called for removing “racist vestiges” from campus in 2020.

The investigation, launched in July 2025, stemmed from complaints filed by multiple GMU professors who alleged the university adopted preferential treatment policies for faculty from “underrepresented groups” between 2020 and the present.

Federal investigators said that they found several problematic practices. As recently as fall 2024, they argue that the university’s website stated it “may choose to waive the competitive search process when there is an opportunity to hire a candidate who strategically advances the institutional commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

The current Faculty Handbook also requires approval from the “Office of Access, Compliance, and Community” – previously called the “Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” until GMU renamed it in March 2025 – before extending job offers.

One high-level administrator told investigators that Washington “created an atmosphere of surveillance” regarding hiring decisions related to diversity objectives.

Under the proposed resolution agreement, Washington must personally issue a statement and apology to the university community, acknowledging the discriminatory practices. The university must also revise hiring policies, conduct annual training, and remove any provisions encouraging racial preferences.

GMU must post the presidential statement prominently on its website and remove any contradictory materials. The university would also be required to maintain compliance records and designate a coordinator to work with federal officials.

George Mason University, located in Fairfax, Virginia, enrolls approximately 39,000 students and receives federal funding that could be at risk if the violations are not resolved.

George Mason officials said that they are reviewing the specific resolution steps proposed by the Department of Education.

“We will continue to respond fully and cooperatively to all inquiries from the Department of Education, the Department of Justice and the U.S. House of Representatives and evaluate the evidence that comes to light,” the university said in a statement. “Our sole focus is our fiduciary duty to serve the best interests of the University and the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

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August 22, 2025
George Washington U Violated Federal Civil Rights Law

The Department of Justice said Tuesday that George Washington University was “deliberately indifferent” toward Jewish students and faculty who said they faced antisemitic harassment and had violated federal civil rights law that bars discrimination based on race and national origin.

The four-page letter signals that George Washington could be the next university in the Trump administration’s crosshairs. The DOJ sent a similar letter to the University of California, Los Angeles, late last month, and then various federal agencies froze more than $500 million in federal grants at the university. Since then, the Trump administration has demanded $1 billion from the UC system to resolve the dispute—a move the state’s governor called “extortion.”

GW was one of 10 universities that a federal task force to combat antisemitism had planned to visit and investigate. That list included UCLA and Harvard and Columbia Universities, which also have been targeted by the Trump administration.

Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, wrote in the letter that the department plans to enforce its findings unless the university agrees to a voluntary resolution agreement to address the agency’s concerns. She didn’t detail what such an agreement would entail or what enforcement might look like.

The department’s allegations largely center on how the university responded—or didn’t—to a spring 2024 encampment established to protest the war in Gaza. The university ultimately called in D.C. police to clear the demonstration after it persisted for nearly two weeks.

“The purpose of the agitators’ efforts was to frighten, intimidate, and deny Jewish, Israeli, and American-Israeli students free and unfettered access to GWU’s educational environment,” Dhillon wrote. “This is the definition of hostility and a ‘hostile environment.’”

She also wrote that university officials “took no meaningful action” in the face of at least eight complaints alleging that demonstrators at the encampment were discriminating against students because they were Jewish or Israeli.

George Washington spokesperson Shannon McClendon said in a statement that university officials were reviewing the letter.

“GW condemns antisemitism, which has absolutely no place on our campuses or in a civil and humane society,” McClendon said. “Moreover, our actions clearly demonstrate our commitment to addressing antisemitic actions and promoting an inclusive campus environment by upholding a safe, respectful, and accountable environment. We have taken appropriate action under university policy and the law to hold individuals or organizations accountable, including during the encampment, and we do not tolerate behavior that threatens our community or undermines meaningful dialogue.”

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August 13, 2025
Why FIRE is suing Secretary of State Rubio — and what our critics get wrong about noncitizens’ rights

FIRE is suing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to challenge two federal immigration law provisions that give him unchecked power to revoke legal immigrants’ visas and deport them just for speech protected by the First Amendment.

And yes, we knew full-well we’d get blowback. You don’t exactly file a First Amendment lawsuit against a cabinet member without knowing it will be unpopular with parts of the American public.

But for nonpartisan free speech defenders, that comes with the job.

One of our plaintiffs is the student-run paper The Stanford Daily, where writers on student visas are turning down assignments related to the war in Gaza because they fear reporting on it could endanger their immigration status. We are also representing two legal noncitizens who engaged in pro-Palestinian speech and now fear being deported.

Some of the questions we’ve received have been quite thoughtful. Others, however, are mistaken on the premises. So let’s clear the air.

Happy to help, Obsequious Deacon. The First Amendment in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights prohibits the government from “abridging the freedom of speech,” without any distinction between citizens and aliens. If the U.S. government is acting against someone on U.S. soil, the Constitution applies.

Remember, our liberties don’t spring from the kindness of government, but are inherent to each and every individual. The First Amendment presumes there is free speech, and is simply a restriction against government infringement of it. This recognition is what makes the American experiment exceptional and worth defending.

This has been firmly established by the Supreme Court in a long line of cases. In Bridges v. Wixon (1945), the Court made clear that under the protection of the First Amendment, “Freedom of speech and of the press is accorded aliens residing in this country.”

Or take it from Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who famously disagreed on a lot! Here they discuss how even immigrants not here legally (which isn’t the case in this lawsuit, where the plaintiffs are here on visas) enjoy the protection of the First Amendment.

Additionally, in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), the Court said the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies to “all persons” in the country, not just citizens. In Plyler v. Doe (1982), the Court struck down a Texas law that denied public education to undocumented children, explaining that undocumented immigrants are still “persons” under the Constitution.

The same goes for due-process protections. In Wong Wing v. United States (1896), the Court ruled that noncitizens accused of crimes are entitled to Fifth and Sixth Amendment protections, including due process and the right to a jury trial. And in Zadvydas v. Davis (2001) and Sessions v. Dimaya (2018), the Court has since affirmed that due process applies to everyone in the United States, including noncitizens.

We’ve never been conservative, liberal, or any other political label. We’re nonpartisan defenders of the First Amendment.

Before we expanded our mission to defend free speech everywhere, we focused on college campuses where censorship, in recent decades, has overwhelmingly come from the left of the speaker. As a result, we often found ourselves challenging liberal administrators and defending the rights of conservative and moderate students, professors, and speakers. But we don’t care about the viewpoint involved. FIRE’s motto is, “If it’s protected, we’ll defend it.”

As for the claim that we support Hamas, defending someone’s right to speak is not the same as endorsing what they say. Defending the speech of ideological allies and opponents is the foundation of any principled defense of free expression.

No. The terms “lawful” and “illegal” are opposites, of course. The “lawfully present noncitizens” mentioned first are legally allowed to be in the country while the “illegal aliens,” by definition, are not. That said, the First Amendment applies to everyone on U.S. soil. This is America, and you shouldn’t have to prove your citizenship before offering an opinion.

Think of it this way, would you be comfortable if a Democratic administration deported Canadian Jordan Peterson for his speech or a European student whose Ph.D. research concentrated on proving the Wuhan lab leak theory of Covid’s origins? We hope not.

The censorship of noncitizens affects Americans, too. If international students and green-card holders have to censor themselves out of fear, we stand to lose many ideas as a result. Should John Oliver have been forced to censor his criticism of the Iraq War on The Daily Show before he became a U.S. citizen? Should British politician Nigel Farage have been prohibited from criticizing Joe Biden during last year’s Republican National Convention? Of course not, and Americans interested in hearing their perspectives would have been all the worse for it.

If you’re having a conversation with someone, you deserve to hear their full opinion, not one sanitized to avoid retaliation from government censors. And if the current administration’s actions don’t worry you, just imagine the other side wielding the same power.

Bear in mind our lawsuit and this discussion are not about admitting noncitizens, the focus is throwing people who are already here legally out of the country for protected speech. As our preliminary injunction brief explained (check out footnote 7), the law has long distinguished the discretion afforded in determining whom to allow into the country from permissible considerations when attempting to deport someone legally here. Our client The Stanford Daily is suing Rubio because its noncitizen student writers are afraid to practice basic journalism for fear they could be deported. That’s not very American.

Another problem here is there is not exactly universal agreement on what constitutes “American values.” Quite the contrary, it’s frequently been misused to silence dissent, which is ironic because the most fundamental of American values is to protect dissent in what increasingly seems to be the uniquely American belief that all people should be free to fully speak their minds.

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August 12, 2025
UC Will “Dialogue” With Feds Over Civil Rights Investigation

The UC system says it will “engage in dialogue with the federal administration” over grant cuts.

Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

The University of California system announced Wednesday that it would negotiate with the federal government. The response comes a day after the Department of Justice’s deadline for the institution to express its interest in finding a “voluntary resolution agreement” to the agency’s investigation into antisemitism on the University of California, Los Angeles, campus.

On the line is—according to a UC estimate—$584 million in funding that at least three different federal agencies announced they were suspending in the week between the DOJ’s July 29 letter to system officials and its Aug. 5 deadline for them to respond.

If the UC system comes to a resolution with the Trump administration, UCLA would become the first public university to openly make a deal with the federal government to restore grant funding. In the past month, Columbia and Brown Universities have agreed to collectively pay hundreds of millions of dollars to get their funding back.

In the two-paragraph statement, UC system president James B. Milliken said, “Our immediate goal is to see the $584 million in suspended and at-risk federal funding restored to the university as soon as possible,” but he argued that the “cuts do nothing to address antisemitism.”

“The extensive work that UCLA and the entire University of California have taken to combat antisemitism has apparently been ignored,” he said. “The announced cuts would be a death knell for innovative work that saves lives, grows our economy, and fortifies our national security. It is in our country’s best interest that funding be restored.”

The DOJ’s July 29 letter to the system said its months-long investigations, which remain ongoing, have so far found that UCLA violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in its response to a protest encampment on its campus in the spring of 2024.

In a press release about the letter, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.” The agency said in the letter that it is prepared to sue by Sept. 2 “unless there is reasonable certainty that we can reach an agreement.”

But the Trump administration still hasn’t made clear what exactly it wants UCLA to do. Unlike with Columbia and Harvard, the federal government hasn’t listed its overarching demands. And the administration doesn’t appear to only be interested in addressing last year’s encampment at UCLA.

In their own letters to UCLA last week, the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department announced funding suspensions, citing UCLA’s failure “to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias” and saying it “endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces.” Both agencies also accused UCLA of considering race in admissions.

The Health and Human Services agency, which includes the National Institutes of Health, didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed with NIH’s grant suspension letter, and an HHS spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday. A DOJ spokesperson also declined to comment, and the White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. UC system spokespeople didn’t provide interviews or answer written questions.

UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk said in a separate statement that the institution is doing everything it can “to protect the interests of faculty, students and staff—and to defend our values and principles.”

“We will continue to hold town halls, convene office hours and share information with you, particularly those who are in the most directly affected areas,” Frenk told his employees. “This includes departments that rely on funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy.”

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August 7, 2025
DOJ Says UCLA Violated Jewish Students’ Civil Rights

The U.S. Department of Justice issued a notice to the University of California, Los Angeles, on Tuesday alleging that it violated civil rights law. The move came just hours after the university announced a $6.45 million settlement to end a lawsuit brought by Jewish students over allegations of antisemitism last year.

“The Department has concluded that UCLA’s response to the protest encampment on its campus in the spring of 2024 was deliberately indifferent to a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI,” the notice read. It also said an investigation into the University of California system is ongoing.

The message made no mention of the settlement; UCLA divided the funds between the plaintiffs and Jewish advocacy and community organizations. The settlement also said the university cannot exclude Jewish students or staff from educational facilities and opportunities “based on religious beliefs concerning the Jewish state of Israel.” (Jewish student plaintiffs argued they were barred by pro-Palestinian protesters from entering certain areas of campus.)

According to the federal notice, UCLA now has until Aug. 5 to contact the DOJ to seek a voluntary resolution agreement “to ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated and reasonable steps are taken to prevent its recurrence.” DOJ officials said they’re prepared to file a complaint in federal district court by Sept. 2 “unless there is reasonable certainty that we can reach an agreement in this matter.”

“Our investigation into the University of California system has found concerning evidence of systemic anti-Semitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability from the institution,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “This disgusting breach of civil rights against students will not stand: DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.”

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July 31, 2025
UCLA violated civil rights law, Justice Department alleges
Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Justice alleged Tuesday that the University of California, Los Angeles violated civil rights law by failing to do enough to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment.
- The findings stem from UCLA’s approach to a pro-Palestinian encampment that students erected on the university’s campus in the spring 2024 term. UCLA officials declined to disband the encampment for nearly a week, citing the need to balance free speech protections with student and employee safety.
- In a letter to Michael Drake, president of the University of California system, Justice Department officials said they would seek to enter a voluntary resolution with UCLA to “ensure that the hostile environment is eliminated.”
Dive Insight:

The Justice Department is also investigating the entire University of California system over similar allegations. That systemwide probe found “concerning evidence of systemic anti-Semitism at UCLA that demands severe accountability,” U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a Tuesday statement.

“DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system,” Bondi said.

Justice Department officials gave UCLA leaders until Aug. 5 to reach out about entering a voluntary resolution. They threatened the university with a lawsuit by Sept. 2 if they don’t believe they can strike an agreement with the institution.

The Justice Department investigation focused on the pro-Palestinian encampment erected on UCLA’s campus on April 25, 2024. Encampment demonstrators demanded that the university divest from companies with ties to Israel’s military.

On the same day it was erected, a university spokesperson told the campus community that officials were monitoring the situation to balance the “right to free expression while minimizing disruption” to the institution’s teaching and learning mission.

However, several days into the protest, some demonstrators formed human blockades to prevent some people on campus from moving freely throughout Royce Quad, including students wearing a Star of David or those who refused to denounce Zionism, according to an internal report from a university task force released last October.

The task force also found the encampment violated university rules and that the blockades disparately impacted Jewish people.

The Justice Department’s letter to UCLA heavily cited the university’s own task force report, as well as 11 complaints the university received alleging that encampment protesters discriminated against them based on their race, religion or national origin.

“UCLA’s documentation established that it did not outright ignore these complaints; however, the University took no meaningful action to eliminate the hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students caused by the encampment until it was disbanded,” the letter states.

Violence broke out at the site on the night of April 30, 2024, when counterprotesters attempted to dismantle the encampment’s barricade, The New York Times reported.

The counterprotesters attacked those within the encampment, including by launching fireworks into the encampment and hitting the pro-Palestinian protesters with sticks, according to the publication. Some of the pro-Palestinian protesters also fought back.

Police arrived hours later, though they did not immediately break up the violence. The next day, UCLA officials made the call to have police break up the encampment, resulting in over 200 arrests.

“In the end, the encampment on Royce Quad was both unlawful and a breach of policy,” then-UC Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement. “It led to unsafe conditions on our campus and it damaged our ability to carry out our mission. It needed to come to an end.”

In their letter, Justice Department officials criticized university leaders, alleging they knew that protesters were “engaging in non-expressive conduct unprotected by the First Amendment” and were denying “Jewish and Israeli students access to campus resources” days before they moved to disband the encampment.

UCLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Justice Department findings come the same day the university settled a lawsuit from Jewish students and a Jewish professor, who alleged their civil rights were violated because UCLA allowed protesters to block their campus access.

The agency’s letter mentioned the lawsuit’s filings, though it did not refer to the settlement.

As part of that agreement, UCLA agreed to pay about $6 million, with the funds going directly toward the plaintiffs and their legal fees, as well as to Jewish groups and a campus initiative to combat antisemitism.
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July 30, 2025
Justin Amash | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Throughout his career, former Congressman Justin Amash
has been a strong advocate for freedom of speech, writing that “The
value of free speech comes from encountering views that are
unorthodox, uncommon, or unaccepted…Free speech is a barren
concept if people are limited to expressing views already widely
held.”

In this special live episode, filmed in front of 200+
high schoolers attending FIRE’s Free Speech Forum at American
University in Washington, D.C., Amash takes questions from the
audience and discusses his upbringing, his political career, the
state of American politics, and how the Constitution guided his
work in Congress.

Earlier this year, Congressman Amash
joined FIRE’s Advisory Council.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

03:30 Upbringing

06:21 Law school

13:15 Time in Congress

15:59 Why Amash publicly explained each of his
votes

26:30 On being the first libertarian in Congress

30:57 Connection between his principles and free
speech

33:10 Trump’s first impeachment

42:48 Dealing with pushback from constituents

46:03 Term limits for members of Congress?

55:25 How high schoolers can pursue a career in
politics

59:45 Has there been a regression in First Amendment
protections?

01:07:32 What Amash is up to now

01:08:06 Outro

Enjoy listening to the podcast? Donate to FIRE today and
get exclusive content like member webinars, special episodes, and
more. If you became a FIRE Member
through a donation to FIRE at thefire.org and would like access to
Substack’s paid subscriber podcast feed, please email
[email protected].

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July 24, 2025
GMU President Responds to Civil Rights Investigation

In a pointed letter to the George Mason University community Wednesday, President Gregory Washington defended his institution against the Trump administration, which launched an investigation last week into the university’s alleged violations of Title VI.

According to an announcement from the Education Department, GMU “illegally uses race and other immutable characteristics in university policies, including hiring and promotion.”

In his letter, Washington vowed to “cooperate fully” with the Office for Civil Rights.

“I can assure you that George Mason has always operated with a commitment to equality under the law, ever since our inception,” he wrote. ”It is simply the Mason way, and in my experience, it has not discriminated based on race, color, national origin, or otherwise. Our diversity efforts are designed to expand opportunity and build inclusive excellence—not to exclude or advantage any group unlawfully.”

He offered a brief history of Title VI—which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in federally funded programs—and the rest of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Then, without naming any names, he essentially accused the Trump administration of willfully misinterpreting the law.

“Today, we are seeing a profound shift in how Title VI is being applied,” he wrote. “Longstanding efforts to address inequality—such as mentoring programs, inclusive hiring practices, and support for historically underrepresented groups—are in many cases being reinterpreted as presumptively unlawful. Broad terms like ‘illegal DEI’ are now used without definition, allowing virtually any initiative that touches on identity or inclusion to be painted as discriminatory.

“This shift represents a stark departure from the spirit in which civil rights law was written: not to erase difference, but to protect individuals from exclusion and to enable equal opportunity for all.”

He noted that GMU—which enrolls roughly 40,000 students—admits 90 percent of applicants and has more Pell-eligible students than any other institution in Virginia.

The university’s mission “includes the belief that diversity includes thought, background, and circumstance and any attempt to artificially redefine our diversity, as one of race-based exclusivity, is doomed to fail no matter who ends up being excluded,” he wrote.

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July 18, 2025
Missouri governor signs legislation securing students’ rights to freely associate on campus

Missouri has passed a law protecting the right of students to gather and speak on campuses across the state. On Wednesday, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed into law SB 160, which defends the freedom of student organizations to set leadership and membership requirements that are consistent with their beliefs.

Although the bill was later amended to include provisions unrelated to the student organization protections for which we advocated, the final law still marks a meaningful victory for students at Missouri’s public colleges and universities.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to freely associate with others who share their beliefs — or not associate with those who don’t. FIRE has consistently opposed policies that force student groups to eliminate belief-based membership rules to gain official college recognition. As we said in March when Utah signed similar protections into law, it makes little sense, for example, “to force a Muslim student group to let atheists become voting members or for an environmentalist student group that raises awareness about the threats of climate change to allow climate change skeptics to hold office.”

In a letter to Missouri’s legislature supporting SB 160, we explained that the right to associate freely extends to students at public universities and to the student organizations they form. The Supreme Court agrees, and has repeatedly upheld this principle, affirming in Healy v. James that public colleges cannot deny official recognition to student organizations solely based on their beliefs or associations. Similarly, in Widmar v. Vincent, the Court ruled that a public university violated the First Amendment by denying a religious student group access to campus facilities because of its religious beliefs.

However, the Court’s decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez upheld the constitutionality of “all-comers” policies — requiring student organizations to accept any student as a member or leader, even those who oppose the group’s core beliefs. But the ruling applies only when such policies are enforced uniformly. In practice, universities often apply these policies selectively. For example, some religious organizations have been forced to accept members and leaders who do not share their faith, while secular groups have been allowed to set their own membership and leadership requirements without administrative intervention.

This selective enforcement results in viewpoint discrimination. SB 160 is meant to correct that imbalance. It states that schools cannot take any action against a student association or potential student association:

(a) Because such association is political, ideological, or religious;

(b) On the basis of such association’s viewpoint or expression of the viewpoint by the association or the association’s members; or

(c) Based on such association’s requirement that the association’s leaders be committed to furthering the association’s mission or that the association’s leaders adhere to the association’s sincerely held beliefs, practice requirements, or standards of conduct.

With the enactment of this bill, Missouri joins a growing number of states strengthening protections for the First Amendment rights of student organizations on campus.

FIRE thanks Missouri lawmakers and Gov. Kehoe for affirming that students don’t shed their constitutional rights at the campus gates.

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July 10, 2025
Extortion in plain sight | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

This essay was originally published by The Dispatch on July 4, 2025.

Paramount Global’s decision to pay $16 million to end President Donald Trump’s lawsuit over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris was a “win for the American people,” according to Trump’s lawyers. And it happened because “CBS and Paramount Global realized the strength of this historic case and had no choice but to settle.”

Well, not quite.

The case is “historic” for sure, but not in a good way or because the advocates came up with profound theories of media law. Quite to the contrary: The case is so baseless, so devoid of factual or legal support, and so diametrically opposed to basic First Amendment principles it is hard to imagine how those who filed it sleep at night.

The main question about Paramount’s decision to settle this comically frivolous lawsuit is not why the company decided to settle, but why did resolving it take this long if the “historic case” were so “strong?” The reason for the settlement is obvious. Paramount, the corporate parent of the CBS television network, had a gun to its head.

Paramount must get approval from the Federal Communications Commission for its proposed $8 billion merger with Skydance Media (which includes the transfer of 28 CBS-owned and -operated broadcast stations). The merger agreement expired April 7 but was extended to July 7. So it was pay-up or shut-up time.

The holdup, in every sense of that word, came in the form of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, whom President Trump elevated to head the commission on Inauguration Day. As one of his first official acts, Carr opened his own investigation of the Harris interview over supposed “news distortion,” and he slow-rolled the FCC’s merger review process. The Securities and Exchange Commission and European regulators had approved the merger back in February, but the FCC continued to “ponder” the matter as the deal clock ticked down.

Trump’s $16M win over ’60 Minutes’ edit sends chilling message to journalists everywhere

Trump’s $16M win over a “60 Minutes” edit sends a chilling message to journalists everywhere. FIRE’s Bob Corn-Revere calls it what it is: the FCC playing politics.

Read More

But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: Couldn’t it be that Carr was just carefully considering nuanced issues of media law in order to safeguard the public from big-network media bias? After all, Trump had claimed that CBS had edited its interview deceptively to make Harris “look better” — something he called “totally illegal,” an “UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL,” and for which the FCC should “TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE.” Never mind that networks are not licensed by the FCC (stations are), the rant led to the lawsuit in Texas and later the FCC investigation.

Loopy all-cap social media posts aside, there was never a legitimate basis either for the lawsuit or the FCC action. Every day, from the smallest newspaper to the largest network, reporters and editors must digest and condense the information they collect — including quotes from politicians and other newsmakers — to tell their stories concisely and understandably. For instance, Trump has repeatedly received the same treatment. Fox News repeatedly edited interviews with then-candidate Trump during the campaign, editing answers to enhance coherence, eliminate digressions, and excise insults. Making sense of the stuff that pours from politicians’ mouths is not easy. And here, CBS was accused of something unforgivable: committing standard journalism.

This was never about swapping out answers to different questions or rewriting answers, as Trump and his supporters falsely claim. During the interview, 60 Minutes correspondent Bill Whitaker asked then-Vice President Harris a question about the Biden administration’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

MR. BILL WHITAKER: But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening. The Wall Street Journal said that he — that your administration has repeatedly been blindsided by Netanyahu, and in fact, he has rebuffed just about all of your administration’s entreaties.

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we’re not going to stop doing that. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.

CBS broadcast two excerpts of Harris’ answer on two separate programs: On Face the Nation, CBS aired the first sentence of Harris’ answer. On 60 Minutes, CBS aired the last sentence of the answer. Really — that’s all this is about.

The FCC in the past has never defined the editing process as “news distortion.” In fact, it has steadfastly maintained the First Amendment bars it from doing so. Chairman Carr’s decision to reopen a closed complaint in a matter he knows to be baseless and beyond the FCC’s authority is unprecedented and indefensible.

We need a far stronger word than ‘hypocrite’ to capture this moment. We have a president who on day one issued an executive order purporting to ‘restore free speech’ … [then] deployed agency heads to retaliate against news organizations that displease him.

And the arguments in the now-settled lawsuit are even more frivolous (if that’s even possible). Trump’s lawyers argued that the Harris interview violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and the federal Lanham Act as a “false, misleading, or deceptive act or practice” and asserted $20 billion in damages. Those laws are designed to prevent consumer deception in marketing practices (like turning back the odometer on a used car) or false advertising. They simply don’t apply to editorial judgments by news organizations. No court in any jurisdiction has ever held that such a cause of action might be valid, and few plaintiffs have ever attempted to bring such outlandish claims. Those who have done so were promptly dismissed.

But who needs good arguments or supporting legal authority when federal regulators are willing to ignore their oath to uphold the Constitution and back your political power play?

Of course, Carr has maintained that there was no link between the Texas lawsuit and the FCC’s merger review or news distortion investigation. But let’s get real. Before he was named chairman, Carr said he didn’t think the 60 Minutes interview “should be a federal case,” and “we don’t want to get into authenticating news or being a Ministry of Truth.”

But once Trump announced Carr as his pick to head the agency, Carr changed his tune, telling Fox News the FCC would review the 60 Minutes complaint while considering whether to approve the Paramount-Skydance merger. The hypocrisy here is staggering. As chairman, Carr has routinely boasted that he wants to move quickly to spur business and investment. Yet here, he mysteriously lagged in reviewing the Paramount Global-Skydance merger (coincidentally, no doubt) as settlement negotiations dragged on in Texas.

We need a far stronger word than “hypocrite” to capture this moment. We have a president who on day one issued an executive order purporting to “restore free speech” and to bar any federal official from engaging in censorship. At the same time, the very same president deployed agency heads to retaliate against news organizations that displease him and to do so in support of his private litigation efforts. And we have an FCC chairman who used to say things like “[a] newsroom’s decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official, not targeted by them,” who has made micromanaging news editing a defining principle of his administration.

Meanwhile, settlement of Trump’s case against CBS and the anticipated merger approval raise some significant questions. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden have asked whether the settlement might violate federal bribery laws, which prohibit corruptly giving anything of value to public officials to influence an official act. In a similar vein, the Freedom of the Press Foundation has threatened (as a Paramount shareholder) to bring a derivative action against the company for conflict of interest, and last May filed a shareholder information demand.

Whatever else may happen, this week’s settlement announcement is not the end of this saga. But one thing is clear: The bullying tactics that led to this settlement stain our nation’s character and taint not just those who engage in them but also those who give in.

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July 7, 2025