In one of his all-too-frequent rants on Truth Social last month, President Trump posted, “I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land.” It’s a transparent and cynical ploy: pit one segment of the education community against another—rich Harvard versus poor “trade schools”—and watch the divisions take hold. But make no mistake: This strategy only works if institutions, elite or otherwise, fall for the bait.
We’re not sure what the president means by “trade schools” but suspect he’s referring to the nation’s 1,000-plus community and technical colleges— institutions that educate about a third of all U.S. undergraduates. We’ve both spent our careers making the case for greater investment in these colleges, including through the Project on Workforce, the cross-Harvard initiative we helped found six years ago to forge better pathways between education and good jobs.
(And for the record: Trump’s accusation that Harvard is “very antisemitic” rings hollow coming from the man who hosted a Holocaust-denying white nationalist at Mar-a-Lago. It’s certainly unrecognizable to us—two Jews who, between us, have spent more than 40 years as Harvard students, staff and faculty.)
If Trump actually cared about funding “trade schools,” he would start by telling congressional leaders to strip the provision in his so-called Big Beautiful Bill that raises the credit-hour threshold for Pell Grant eligibility. Community colleges serve the bulk of low-income students, and most of them have to work while in school. This proposed change proffered by the House, which was not included in the Senate version of the reconciliation bill, could cut off aid for 400,000 students a year and force many to drop out.
But the threat isn’t just in proposed legislation: Community colleges are already the targets of Trump’s politically motivated grant cancellations. For example, just last month, his administration revoked awards from six Tech Hubs, created by bipartisan legislation to boost innovation, job creation and national security. These included projects in Alabama, where a community college would expand biotech training; in Idaho, where a community college planned to train aerospace workers; and in Vermont, where a community college was preparing a new semiconductor workforce.
And the cuts don’t stop there. If the president was really serious about supporting the U.S. skilled technical workforce, he would expand, not gut, programs like the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education initiative, which has provided $1.5 billion to more than 500 community and technical colleges to develop cutting-edge training in fields like advanced manufacturing and robotics. Instead, his budget proposes cutting NSF by 55 percent, including deep reductions to education and workforce programs. The president’s budget also proposes eliminating all Perkins Act funding for community colleges (approximately $400 million), limiting the funding to middle and high schools and thereby cutting off a key source of federal support for technical training beyond secondary school.
If by “trade schools” Trump means education for trades jobs, his hostility toward immigrants undermines the very students he claims to support. Eight percent of community college students are not U.S. citizens, with much higher shares on some campuses. They are just as vital to America’s future as the researchers in Harvard’s labs. In 2024, immigrants made up more than 30 percent of construction trades workers and 20 percent of U.S. manufacturing workers. Closing America’s doors won’t just harm colleges: It will weaken our ability to build, make and compete.
Last week, we joined more than 12,000 Harvard alumni in signing an amicus brief to pledge our commitment to defend not only Harvard but the broader higher education enterprise from the Trump administration’s bullying attacks. Over the past month, we also spoke with community college leaders from around the country whose work we profiled in our 2023 book, America’s Hidden Economic Engines. Without exception, these leaders expressed deep concern, understanding that if Harvard, with all of its resources, could be forced to bend to the will of a tyrannical government, what chance would less resourced institutions have to defend academic freedom and maintain independence from governmental intrusion?
If elite universities and community and technical colleges stand together, we can defend not just education, but democracy itself. Challenging as it will be for Harvard to weather this unprecedented assault on its independence, and that of higher education, it has no choice but to stand firm. Unlike many more vulnerable victims of Trump’s bullying—immigrants, civil servants, USAID grantees, the trans community—Harvard has the resources to fight back. Ultimately its rights, along with the rights of others targeted, will likely be vindicated by the courts. But in the interim, a lot of needless damage will be done to the lives of affected people and institutions. Most Americans may not speak often of such abstractions as academic freedom, due process and the fate of democracy. But they know a bully when they see one.
Rachel Lipson, a co-founder of the Harvard Project on Workforce, was a senior adviser on workforce at the CHIPS Program Office at the U.S. Department of Commerce. She recently returned to Harvard Kennedy School as a research fellow.
Robert Schwartz is a professor of practice emeritus at Harvard Graduate School of Education.Before joining the Harvard faculty in 1996, he had a long career in education and government.
Luke Sheehy during a discussion at the Universities Australia conference in Canberra. Picture: UA
Universities Australia (UA) has again called on the Albanese government to invest in research fund Horizon Europe amid growing uncertainty from the United States.
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The temporary restraining order (TRO) was issued by federal judge Allison Burroughs on June 5, just one day after President Trump’s signing of a proclamation to suspend the issuing of US visas to international students entering Harvard for an initial six months.
During the Massachusetts hearing, Burroughs said Trump’s directive would cause “immediate and irreparable injury” to America’s oldest institution, temporarily blocking it “until there is opportunity to hear from all parties”.
The judge also extended a 23 May restraining order which prevents DHS’s attempt to strip Harvard of its ability to enrol international students, until June 20 or when a preliminary injunction is issued, with a hearing set for June 16.
The June 4 proclamation came in addition to, and aims to circumvent, DHS secretary Kristi Noem’s revocation of Harvard’s SEVP certification, which was also blocked by the courts.
Wednesday’s directive – which incorrectly refers to SEVP as the “Student and Exchange Visa Program” – attempts to bar all new international students, scholars and exchange visitors from pursuing any course of study at the university, for a period of six months.
With the stroke of a pen, the DHS Secretary and the President have sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body
Harvard University
This time, the government framed the ban as a matter of national security, accusing Harvard of collaborating with China. It has repeatedly criticised the institution for failing to root out antisemitism on campus and failing to hand over information on international students.
For its part, hours before judge Burroughs’ ruling, Harvard amended a previous lawsuit, alleging both the June 4 proclamation and the DHS revocation were “part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government” in clear retribution for Harvard’s exercising its First Amendment rights to free speech.
“With the stroke of a pen, the DHS Secretary and the President have sought to erase a quarter of Harvard’s student body,” it reads, in what the complaint calls a “government vendetta against Harvard”.
Last year, Harvard hosted 6,793 international students, totalling over 27% of the entire student body, though Trump has mistakenly called the figure 31%.
Meanwhile, on June 5, Harvard’s President Garber sent a letter to the Harvard community, informing students that “contingency plans” were being drawn up to allow students to continue their studies during the summer and the upcoming academic year.
Reaffirming the “outstanding contributions” of international students, Garber vowed to “celebrate them, support them, and defend their interests as we continue to assert our Constitutional rights”.
Kimberly Richey, a Florida education official, made her case Thursday about why she should lead the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, pledging “unwavering” support of the administration’s priorities such as protecting Jewish students.
“Should I be confirmed as assistant secretary for civil rights, I will proudly be joining an administration that will not allow students to be intimidated, harassed, assaulted or excluded from their institutions,” she said in her opening remarks.
But repeatedly throughout the hearing, Democratic senators interrogated her on how she plans to address a massive backlog in complaints—which one senator said has more than doubled since Trump took office, to 25,000—with a reduced staff.
“This administration has fired more than half of the staff at OCR, and President Trump is now asking, in his budget, to slash that by $49 million next year, so explain to me how those firings and that funding cut will help reduce that backlog? I want to understand how you’re going to square that circle,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, asked early on in the hearing.
Richey mostly avoided answering the questions, arguing that she had not yet assumed the role of assistant secretary and, therefore, had no say in the recent changes to OCR.
“As a nominee, I do not have access to information with regard to the decisions that are being made at the department,” Richey responded. “I’m not in communication with OCR leadership or the secretary. One of the reasons why this role is so important to me is because I am always going to advocate for OCR to have the resources it needs to do its job. I think that what it means is I’m going to have to be really strategic, if I’m confirmed, stepping into this role, helping come up with a plan where we can address these challenges.”
Several others doubled down on Murray’s line of questioning, including Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, who asked Richey if antisemitism was getting worse in America. When she said it was, he questioned how cutting OCR staff is conducive to fighting antisemitism on college campuses. She reiterated her answer to Murray’s question, saying, “I can’t explain or provide information on decisions I wasn’t involved in.”
Richey was one of four people who testified Thursday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. She and the nominee for deputy secretary of education, Penny Schwinn, fielded the bulk of the committee’s questions as lawmakers pressed for answers about the OCR’s operations and priorities, proposed budget cuts, and the president’s plans to dismantle the Education Department. The senators didn’t vote on whether to advance the nominations to the Senate floor; that step will likely occur at a later meeting.
Richey is currently senior chancellor for the Florida Department of Education and has twice served in OCR before, including a brief stint as acting secretary of civil rights at the end of Trump’s first term and the beginning of Biden’s presidency. Her confirmation hearing comes months after the Trump administration slashed more than half of OCR’s staff, including shuttering seven of the 12 regional offices dedicated to investigating complaints. The office has also reportedly begun prioritizing opening cases regarding trans women athletes and antisemitism since Trump’s second term began, letting other cases pile up and go unaddressed, according to multiplenews reports.
In the confirmation hearing, Richey expressed strong support for those causes, stressing that she led OCR when it investigated one of the federal government’s earliest cases against a school for allowing a trans woman to play on a women’s sports team.
“I’m certainly committed to vigorously enforcing it and continuing to pursue these cases,” she said.
In response to a different question, though, she did say that OCR would investigate certain complaints of discrimination related to gender identity and sexual orientation—an answer that appeared to incense Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri.
“I want to be crystal clear on this—I think it’s a very dangerous thing to start allowing this into Title IX, which, as you know, it is a landmark statute, it is vitally important, and it has been under attack for four long years,” he said, asking her to confirm that OCR will “go after” colleges and universities that allow trans women to play women’s sports.
He also warned Richey that she should “rethink” her position that OCR can investigate discrimination based on gender identity.
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat from Maryland, pressed Richey on whether she would continue OCR’s new system of prioritizing cases regarding antisemitism and trans athletes, asking if all forms of discrimination should be treated with equal importance.
Richey told Alsobrooks she does believe “it’s important to vigorously enforce all of the federal laws that OCR is responsible for enforcing.” Later in the hearing, she noted that Education Secretary Linda McMahon is “prioritizing” removing trans women from women’s athletics, and she plans to do the same if confirmed.
Schwinn, who was formerly Tennessee’s commissioner of education, received most of the panel’s questions about the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the education department. In response a question from Sen. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, about what steps would be required to dismantle the department, she stated that she “would certainly work, if confirmed, with the secretary and with Congress on any actions related to the role of the department” and that she believes in equipping states with legislation and funding that will help them improve their own educational systems.
“A department or an agency in the federal government is not going to change the outcomes of students—the teacher in the classroom is going to teach the standards that are approved by that state. The parent is the parent of that child. What we need to do is ensure we’ve created a system that is going to drive outcomes,” she said. “That is not going to happen from the federal government, whether there is a Department of Education or not.”
District judge moves to take out an injunction on Trump administration’s Harvard international enrolment ban while the case moves through the legal system.
University’s international students report “emotional distress” as many cancel travel plans over fears they will not be allowed back into the US.
US Department of Homeland Security boss accuses Harvard of “disdain” for American people and spreading hate.
Following on from her decision last week to temporarily block the move, district judge Allison Burroughs told a packed court that she wanted to “maintain the status quo” while Harvard’s case works its way through the legal system.
It’s the latest twist in the university’s ongoing battle with the Trump administration, which has accused it of anti-semitism and stripped it of billions of dollars in funding. For its part, Harvard is coming out swinging against the directive, swiftly mounting a legal challenge – the latest step of which culminated in Burroughs’ judgement in a hearing yesterday.
In court documents filed ahead of the hearing, Harvard’s director of immigration services at the institution’s international office, Maureen Martin, detailed the toll that the administration’s announcement is taking on the campus’s international students.
She wrote that the revocation notice has caused both students and faculty to express “profound fear, concern, and confusion” – with the university “inundated” with queries from worried international students.
“Many international students and scholars are reporting significant emotional distress that is affecting their mental health and making it difficult to focus on their studies,” said Martin, adding that some are too afraid to attend their own graduation ceremonies this week in case immigration-related action is taken against them.
Meanwhile, others are cancelling international travel plans over concerns they will not be able to re-enter the US. “Some fear being compelled to return abruptly to home countries where they might not be safe due to ongoing conflicts or where they could face persecution based on their identity or background,” Martin wrote.
Many international students and scholars are reporting significant emotional distress that is affecting their mental health and making it difficult to focus on their studies Maureen Martin, Harvard University
While US stakeholders may be breathing a sigh of relief at Harvard’s temporary reprieve, Donald Trump’s government is showing no signs of backing down.
In a letter sent to Harvard before Thursday’s hearing, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that it wanted to move ahead with revoking the university’s SEVP certification, which would mean it could no longer host international students. Notably, though, the letter did not repeat last week’s assertion that Harvard would have 30 days to challenge the decision and suggested the government would not look to immediately enact the directive.
In a statement released yesterday, US secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, doubled down on accusations that Harvard has not complied with SEVP regulations, has “encouraged and allowed anti-semitic and anti-American violence to rage on its campus” and has been working with the Chinese Communist Party.
“Harvard’s refusal to comply with SEVP oversight was the latest evidence that it disdains the American people and takes for granted US taxpayer benefits,” she said. “Following our letter to Harvard, the school attempted to claim it now wishes to comply with SEVP standards. We continue to reject Harvard’s repeated pattern of endangering its students and spreading American hate – it must change its ways in order to participate in American programs.”
Harvard’s row with the Trump administration stems from the stand it took against a raft of government demands, including that it reform its admissions and hiring practices to combat antisemitism on campus, end DEI initiatives and hand over reports on international students.
When the institution refused to comply with the demands, the government – seemingly in retaliation – froze $2.2 billion in the university’s funding, threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status, and demanded that international students’ records be handed over. If Harvard didn’t play ball, it was warned, it risked losing its SEVP certification.
Although Harvard did send over some student information on April 30, and maintained that it had provided the information it was legally bound to supply, this seems to have been insufficient for the Trump administration, which then moved to black the institution from hosting international students.
In yet another blow to the US international education sector, the US government announced this week that it would pause all new study visa interviews at American consulates around the world – sparking dismay from stakeholders.
And Chinese students studying in the US were plunged into uncertainty yesterday after – amid a trade war with Beijing – the government announced plans to “aggressively revoke” their visas. As yet, it remains unclear whether all Chinese students will be affected or just those with links to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in so-called key areas.
Beginning next week, First Amendment News (FAN) will be moving to Substack. Be sure to sign up and follow us there for future installments!
“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit . . . The instant case presents an unprecedented attack on . . . foundational principles. . . . Here, deciding what process was due to plaintiff is unnecessary, because no process was provided.” — Perkins Coie LLP v. Department of Justice (Dist. Ct., D.C., May 2)
“[T]he Court found that Ms. Rumeysa Ozturk has demonstrated a substantial claim of a violation of due process.” — Ozturk v. Hyde (Dist. Ct., VT, May 16)
Maxim: #1: Vagueness and due process cannot coexist, at least not in any system of constitutional justice worthy of the name.
Maxim #2: The broader the law’s sweep, the greater the likelihood that it was designed to be arbitrarily punitive.
It is undeniable: Many of Donald Trump’s executive orders run wildly afoul of basic tenets of fairness. Time and again, he has ordered his subordinates to enforce orders that are shockingly vague and disturbingly broad. Both in their conception and execution, such orders patently violate the commands of the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. And yet, the public and the courts are asked to countenance such abridgments of law in the name of unfettered executive prerogative.
Clarity and precision in lawmaking are fundamental to any system of justice. That call for clarity, which traces back at least to Roman law, finds expression in Montesquieu’s “Spirit of Laws” and William Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England.” Laws must be “plainly and perspicuously penned,” is how Blackstone tagged it.
In “FederalistNo. 62,” James Madison condemned those laws that were “incoherent that they cannot be understood.” The idea is rooted in basic fairness, in due process of law. Such a process is especially important in the First Amendment context.
Whether it be in executive orders directed at DEI practices, law firms, universities, libraries, or immigrants, among others, the basic problem of vagueness is the constitutional cancer present in all of them.
As Justice Thurgood Marshall made clear in 1972’s Grayned v. City of Rockford, vagueness offends fairness because (i) it provides no meaningful warning to ordinary persons as to “what is prohibited,” (ii) it provides no “explicit standards” to law enforcement officials, judges, and juries necessary to avoid “arbitrary and discriminatory application,” and (iii) vague laws chill protected speech insofar as the “boundaries of the forbidden areas [are not] clearly marked.”
Justice William Brennan explained the First Amendment importance of that principle in 1963’s NAACP v. Button: “Standards of permissible . . . vagueness are strict in the area of free expression. . . [I]n the area of First Amendment freedoms, the existence of a [vague mandate is] susceptible of sweeping and improper application.”
In the unconstitutional process, lawyers, scientists, librarians, universities, law firms and others are chilled into silence — and that is precisely the point.
The evils of vagueness, among other constitutional wrongs, were thoughtfully identified by federal district court Judge Adam B. Abelson in the recent Maryland District Court case National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education v. Trump. In relevant part, Judge Abelson began:
This Court remains of the view that Plaintiffs have shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their facial free speech and vagueness claims . . . The Challenged Provisions forbid government contractors and grantees from engaging in “equity-related” work and from “promoting DEI” in ways the administration may consider to violate antidiscrimination laws; they demand that the “private sector” “end . . . DEI” and threaten “strategic enforcement” to effectuate the “end[ing]” of “DEI”; and they threaten contractors and grantees with enforcement actions with the explicit purpose of “deter[ring]” such “programs or principles.”
Judge Adam B. Abelson
Thereafter, he emphasized that the Court was
…deeply troubled that the Challenged Provisions, which constitute content-based, viewpoint-discriminatory restrictions on speech (in addition to conduct), have the inherent and ineluctable effect of silencing speech that has long been, and remains, protected by the First Amendment. And they do so through impermissibly vague directives that exacerbate the speech-chilling aspects of the Challenged Provisions.
To elucidate that point, he added:
Historically, the metaphor used to describe the effect of laws that restrict speech is “chill.” The more apt metaphor here is “extinguish.” Part of the explicit purpose and effect of the Challenged Provisions is to stifle debate — to silence selected viewpoints, selected discourse — on matters of public concern. They forbid government contractors and grantees from engaging in discourse — including speech such as teaching, conferences, writing, speaking, etc. — if that discourse is “related” to “equity. ” And they direct the “private sector” to “end” diversity, to “end” equity, and to “end” inclusion. See J21 Order § 4(b) (directing agencies to “encourage the private sector to end . . . DEI”). “End” is not a mere “chill.” “Deter[rence]” is not a side-effect of the Challenged Provisions; their explicit goal is to “deter” not only “programs” but “principles” — i.e. ideas, concepts, and values. After all, the opposite of inclusion is exclusion; the opposite of equity is inequity; and, at least in some forms, the opposite of diversity is segregation.
Such are but some of the evils rooted in many of Trump’s executive orders. Those affronts to due process and First Amendment principles are so obvious as to render their design intentional (see “Trump’s ‘So what?’ stratagem,” FAN 470).
Trump’s Justice Department defends such lawlessness by procedural obfuscation coupled with political rhetoric and claims of unrestrained executive prerogative. When that fails they take cover by being evasive, as revealed in oral arguments in the Second Circuit case of Ozturk v. Hyde:
The appeals court judges pushed . . . [Department of Justice attorney Drew] Ensign on whether or not the Trump administration believed that both students’ speech was lawful speech.
“We have not taken a position on that,” Ensign told the panel of three judges, saying concerns over where the students’ cases should be heard were more important.
“Help my thinking along,” Judge Barrington D. Parker then said. “Take a position.”
“Your honor, I don’t have authority to take a position on that right now,” Ensign replied.
Drew Ensign
In the unconstitutional process, lawyers, scientists, librarians, universities, law firms and others are chilled into silence — and that is precisely the point.
Consider as well this from an article in The New York Times by Stephanie Saul:
The Trump administration is set to cancel the federal government’s remaining federal contracts with Harvard University — worth an estimated $100 million, according to a letter that is being sent to federal agencies on Tuesday. The May 27 letter [from the U.S. General Services Administration] also instructs agencies to “find alternative vendors” for future services.
The additional planned cuts, outlined in a draft of the letter obtained by The New York Times, represented what an administration official called a complete severance of the government’s longstanding business relationship with Harvard.
The letter is the latest example of the Trump administration’s determination to bring Harvard — arguably the country’s most elite and culturally dominant university — to its knees, by undermining its financial health and global influence. Since last month, the administration has frozen about $3.2 billion in grants and contracts with Harvard. And it has tried to halt the university’s ability to enroll international students.
This episode features a conversation with Cass Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School and former administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. His recent working paper, ‘Our Money or Your Life!’ Higher Education and the First Amendment,’ explores the First Amendment constraints on federal funding to American universities.
In the last few weeks, the Trump administration has made several announcements that it is withholding a significant amount of federal funds from specific universities, notably Columbia University and Harvard University, and that those funds will not be released until those universities comply with a set of demands. Harvard received a letter on April 11 demanding changes in Harvard’s governance, faculty hiring practices, student admissions practices, viewpoint diversity among the faculty, and student disciplinary policies, among other things. On May 5, the Secretary of Education sent a letter to Harvard informing the university that the federal government will award it no grants for scholarly research in the future. Reportedly, there is more than $2 billion dollars at stake.
On the podcast we talk through what the Trump administration is doing, what the consequences are for Harvard and other affected universities, and what constitutional issues are raised by the administration’s actions in denying Harvard access to federal research funds. In the process, we get a short course on First Amendment doctrine relating to viewpoint discrimination and unconstitutional conditions.
Trump’s lackey: FCC Chairman Brendan Carr
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr
“He has . . . abandoned the FCC’s posture as an independent regulator in favor of an openly personal embrace of Trump.”
Four months into his tenure as head of America’s top communications regulator, Brendan Carr appears to be running a Trumpian playbook to transform a long-independent agency.
Immediately after being promoted by President Donald Trump to chair the Federal Communications Commission, on Jan. 20, Carr launched investigations into top media companies, including NPR, PBS and Comcast.
Related
Latest update of Zick’s Executive Orders repository
SCOTUS denies review in middle school ‘two genders’ shirt case
This past Monday the Supreme Court denied review (7-2) in L.M. v. Town of Middleborough. The issue raised in that case was whether school officials may presume substantial disruption or a violation of the rights of others from a student’s silent, passive, and untargeted ideological speech simply because that speech relates to matters of personal identity, even when the speech responds to the school’s opposing views, actions, or policies.
Summary of facts: “In this case, L.M.’s [middle] school prohibited him from wearing a non-obscene, non-vulgar shirt stating, ‘There Are Only Two Genders,’ because the message ‘would cause students in the LGBTQ+ community to feel unsafe.’. The school even banned him from wearing the same shirt on which he covered the words ‘Only Two’ with a piece of tape on which he wrote “CENSORED” so that the message read, ‘There Are [CENSORED] Genders.’”
The petition had been distributed for conference twelve times.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissent. Justice Samuel Alito also wrote a separate dissent, which in part read:
This case presents an issue of great importance for our Nation’s youth: whether public schools may suppress student speech either because it expresses a viewpoint that the school disfavors or because of vague concerns about the likely effect of the speech on the school atmosphere or on students who find the speech offensive. In this case, a middle school permitted and indeed encouraged student expression endorsing the view that there are many genders. But when L. M., a seventh grader, wore a t-shirt that said “There Are Only Two Genders,” he was barred from attending class. And when he protested this censorship by blocking out the words “Only Two” and substituting “CENSORED,” the school prohibited that shirt as well.
The First Circuit held that the school did not violate L. M.’s free-speech rights. It held that the general prohibition against viewpoint-based censorship does not apply to public schools. And it employed a vague, permissive, and jargon-laden rule that departed from the standard this Court adopted in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503 (1969).
FBI reopens probe into Dobbs Supreme Court leak
The FBI will launch new probes into the 2023 discovery of cocaine at the White House during President Joe Biden’s term and the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a top official announced on Monday. Dan Bongino, a rightwing podcaster-turned-FBI deputy director, made the announcement on X, saying that he had requested weekly briefings on the cases’ progress. . . .
‘So to Speak’ podcast: Heather Mac Donald on Trump & free speech
“[M]y reaction to everything that Trump is doing, and I agree almost across the board with his substantive aims whether it’s with regards to the universities, whether it’s regards to immigration, is what would we feel if the democratic administrations were doing this exact same thing in favor of their values? Everything we’re doing sets a precedent. Again, I acknowledge the precedent has already been set. . . . I’m still very nervous about the government using power because even though I’m not deeply libertarian, I do think that the hope of a neutral arbiter of a government that is restrained by rules that are content-free that are politics-free is one of the biggest yearnings of humanity, at least in the west.” — Heather Mac Donald
Heather Mac Donald discusses the Trump administration’s free speech record amidst its battles with higher ed, mainstream media, law firms, and more.
Mac Donald is a Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Her most recent book is “When race trumps merit: How the pursuit of equity sacrifices excellence, destroys beauty, and threatens lives.”
Related
Heather Mac Donald, “The White House’s Clumsy Attack on Harvard,” City Journal (April 15) (“The administration is growing ever bolder in its crusade against the institutions responsible for left-wing ideology — whether elite law firms or universities. That crusade is unquestionably justified. Its targets deserve little sympathy. . .”)
2024-2025 SCOTUS term: Free expression and related cases
Cases decided
Villarreal v. Alaniz(Petition granted. Judgment vacated and case remanded for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam))
Murphy v. Schmitt (“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam).”)
TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd v. Garland (9-0: The challenged provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.)
Review granted
Pending petitions
Petitions denied
Emergency Applications
Yost v. Ohio Attorney General (Kavanaugh, J., “IT IS ORDERED that the March 14, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, case No. 2:24-cv-1401, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court. It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Wednesday, April 16, 2025, by 5 p.m. (EDT).”)
Free speech related
Mahmoud v. Taylor (argued April 22 / free exercise case: issue: Whether public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out.)
Thompson v. United States (decided: 3-21-25/ 9-0 w special concurrences by Alito and Jackson) (interpretation of 18 U. S. C. §1014 re “false statements”)
Beginning next week, First Amendment News (FAN) will be moving to Substack. Be sure to sign up and follow us there for future installments!
This article is part of First Amendment News, an editorially independent publication edited by Ronald K. L. Collins and hosted by FIRE as part of our mission to educate the public about First Amendment issues. The opinions expressed are those of the article’s author(s) and may not reflect the opinions of FIRE.
A federal judge on May 22 issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order to shut down the U.S. Department of Education and said the agency must reinstate the employees who were fired as part of mass layoffs.
But only Congress can actually eliminate the department, and the administration’s attempt at getting around that influenced U.S. District Judge Myong Joun’s Thursday ruling.
The Trump administration argued that they implemented agency layoffs to improve “efficiency” and “accountability,” the Massachusetts judge wrote, but then said: “The record abundantly reveals that [the administration’s] true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute.”
Joun added: “A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all. This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.”
“This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families,” Madi Biedermann, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications, wrote in a statement.
Calls for the injunction came from lawsuits filed by the Somerville and Easthampton schools districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers, other education groups, and 21 Democratic attorneys general.
They argued that the gutting of the department rendered the agency incapable of performing many of its core functions required by Congress.
For example, all of the attorneys from the agency’s general counsel office who handle grants for K-12 schools and grants under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, had been fired. The dismantling of the Office for Civil Rights made it difficult to enforce civil rights protections. The department’s Financial Student Aid programs, which provide financial assistance to almost 12.9 million students across approximately 6,100 postsecondary educational institutions, were also hampered.
Trump’s executive order instructed McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities” to the “maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
At the same time, the order said McMahon should ensure “the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
Before the layoffs, the Education Department was the smallest of the 15 cabinet-level departments in terms of staffing, according to the judge, with around 4,100 employees. And the plaintiffs said the agency was strained meeting its obligations even then.
The ruling was not based on the employees’ job rights, but rather how the agency was able to fulfill its obligations.
“It’s not about whether employees have a right to a job,” said Derek Black, a University of South Carolina law professor. “It’s about whether the department can fulfill its statutory obligations to the states and to students.”
The case made by former department employees, educational institutions, unions, and educators, Joun wrote, paints “stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten heralded the judge’s ruling, calling it “a first step to reverse this war on knowledge and the undermining of broad-based opportunity.”
But Biedermann, from the Education Department, said the ruling was unfair to the Trump administration.
“Once again, a far-left Judge has dramatically overstepped his authority, based on a complaint from biased plaintiffs, and issued an injunction against the obviously lawful efforts to make the Department of Education more efficient and functional for the American people,” she said in a statement.
Chalkbeat national editor Erica Meltzer contributed reporting.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
A federal judge in Massachusetts has issued a preliminary injunction halting President Donald Trump’s executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, dealing a significant blow to the administration’s efforts to eliminate the federal agency.
District Court Judge Myong J. Joun on last Thursday blocked Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon from carrying out the executive order and ordered the administration to reinstate approximately 1,300 Education Department employees who were terminated in March as part of a sweeping reduction-in-force.
The ruling comes in response to consolidated lawsuits filed by a coalition of 20 states, the District of Columbia, educator unions, and school districts challenging the administration’s moves to shrink and eventually close the department.
When Trump took office in January, the Education Department employed 4,133 workers. The reduction-in-force announced March 11 terminated more than 1,300 positions, while nearly 600 additional employees chose to resign or retire, leaving roughly 2,180 remaining staff—approximately half the department’s original size.
In his ruling, Judge Joun wrote that “a department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all,” adding that the court “cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.”
The judge also prohibited Trump from transferring management of the federal student loan portfolio and special needs programs to other federal agencies, as the president had pledged to do from the Oval Office.
Judge Joun determined that the Trump administration likely violated the separation of powers by taking actions that conflicted with congressional mandates. He noted the administration had failed to demonstrate that the staff reductions actually improved efficiency, writing that “the record is replete with evidence of the opposite.”
The plaintiffs argued that the department could no longer fulfill critical duties, including managing the $1.6 trillion federal student loan portfolio serving roughly 43 million borrowers and ensuring colleges comply with federal funding requirements.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which joined the legal challenge alongside other educator groups, praised the ruling as a crucial victory for higher education access.
“The AAUP is thrilled that District Judge Joun has blocked Trump’s illegal attempt to gut the Department of Education and lay off half of its workforce,” said AAUP President Dr. Todd Wolfson. “Eliminating the ED would hurt everyday Americans, severely limit access to education, eviscerate funding for HBCUs and TCUs while benefiting partisan politicians and private corporations looking to extract profit from our nation’s higher education system.”
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten called the decision “a first step to reverse this war on knowledge and the undermining of broad-based opportunity.”
The Education Department’s deputy assistant secretary for communications, Madi Biedermann, criticized the ruling in a statement, calling Judge Joun a “far-left Judge” who “dramatically overstepped his authority” and vowed to “immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.”
The case, Somerville Public Schools v. Trump, represents the consolidation of two separate lawsuits filed in March. Democracy Forward is representing the coalition of plaintiffs, which includes the AAUP, Somerville Public School Committee, Easthampton School District, Massachusetts AFT, AFSCME Council 93, and the Service Employees International Union.
The ruling temporarily halts one of the Trump administration’s most ambitious efforts to reshape federal education policy, though the legal battle is expected to continue as the administration pursues its appeal.
There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now. — Bruce Springsteen (May 14)
Was “the Boss” being partisan there? Donald Trump thought so:
“This dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!) ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT until he gets back into the Country, that’s just ‘standard fare.’ Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”
Just goes to show that there are two sides, both of them “partisan.” The singer has his partisan views, and so does the suppressor. We just need to chill, get along, and hear both sides. Ah yes, a Kumbaya embrace — yuck!
The ‘Big Chill’
Do you remember those “nonpartisan” folks who were so outraged by what was going on in the cancel culture world of college campuses? How they lamented the way the censorial mindset was choking the First Amendment? Oh, those First Amendment champions were so incensed.
And fair enough, things were wildly out of control and those liberals responsible for supporting or allowing such censorship had to be called out. Again, fair enough. Of course, those who tolerated college censorship (dare I say “liberals”?) are now livid by what is going on. Rightfully so.
But where are those guardians of free speech (dare I say “conservatives”) now? When never a day goes by when the Trump administration does not abridge the First Amendment with wild abandon?
Censorship is censorship!
Given where we are today, I’m tired of such rhetorical gaming. Censorship is censorship, period! The hell with the thinking that one must walk on “nonpartisan” eggshells before speaking too loudly or too often against censorship when it is as constant as it is today under this administration.
Take heed: It was not partisan to boldly condemn John Adams or Woodrow Wilson or Joseph McCarthy for their crusades of suppression. And it was not partisan to call out their supporters who sat silently in the face of such tyranny. In such a world, there are not “two sides” such that the likes of Bill Maher could dine with “nonpartisan” delight with a “measured” opponent of free expression.
Seven free expression groups speak out — Yes!
Thus, I was delighted to learn that seven groups had written an open letter to “universities, media organizations, law firms, and businesses” to stand up against the “Trump administration’s multi-front assault on First Amendment freedoms.”
Before I say more, let me quote from the timely and important open letter that these seven groups just released. First this: “In little more than 100 days, President Trump and the agencies under his control have threatened First Amendment rights through a breathtaking array of actions.”
After that introduction, they listed an indictment of free speech abridgments, and in a style reminiscent of the indictment in the Declaration of Independence, they have delineated specific things the administration has done (I have added bullets to their text):
They have sought to control speech and association by imposing unconstitutional conditions on a wide range of federal grantees and contractors.
They have sanctioned lawyers for their representation of people whom the president views as political enemies.
They have arrested, detained, and threatened to deport international students — including lawful permanent residents — solely because of their participation in lawful political protest.
They have purged crucial datasets from government websites, gutted agency offices responsible for compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, and imposed new and indefensible restraints on public employees’ right to speak on matters of public concern.
They have invoked civil rights laws to justify extensive and unwarranted intrusions into universities’ autonomy and academic freedom.
Resurrecting a policy introduced during President Trump’s first term, they have barred legal scholars from providing information and expertise to the International Criminal Court.
They have banned the Associated Press from the White House press pool because it declined to update its stylebook to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
Books have been removed from U.S. military service academy libraries, and other federally operated educational institutions, because they do not conform to the administration’s ideological preferences, and federal funds are being used as a cudgel to censor curriculum and promote the administration’s viewpoints in schools.
The Federal Communications Commission has threatened to revoke the licenses of television and radio networks and stations whose reporting the administration disfavors.
As Professor Timothy Zick has so ably documented, the Trump administration’s assault on free expression is unprecedented. The following assessment from the seven groups echoes what is reliably set off in detailed form in Zick’s repository over at First Amendment Watch:
There have been other times in our nation’s history that witnessed sustained and misguided efforts to suppress speech. All of our organizations have opposed both Democratic and Republican administrations when they abridged First Amendment freedoms — as all of them, at various points, have done. But we share the view that the Trump administration’s actions, taken together, represent an extraordinary and in some ways unprecedented challenge to First Amendment rights and the values they embody [emphasis added]. These actions call for a forceful, uncompromising response. Some institutions have countered in exactly this way, to their credit.
Where the hell are other free speech groups and individuals?
Against that backdrop, I ask: where the hell are all those other groups, who when it came to campus censorship were so outspoken in defense of free expression? Why don’t they have their own open letters? Why are so many of those groups not openly endorsing the courageous assessments of those who, like Judge Michael Luttig, condemn the tyranny that is Trump? Too many conservative and liberal groups are afraid to speak out, afraid to put their names on the line.
Judge Michael Luttig
What we are witnessing today is a BIG CHILL effect of enormous magnitude. Some liberals (in law firms, universities, think tanks, and elsewhere) are afraid to speak out, lest they be attacked by one of the president’s executive orders. By the same token, some conservatives are afraid to speak out (on their blogs or elsewhere) for fear that they will lose stock in their ideological world, or fall victim to Trump’s wrath.
Bottom line: Tyranny is tyranny, and condemning it is not partisan — it’s American!
Recent samples of the BIG CHILL in suppressive operation
The decision by nine of America’s biggest law firms to “bend the knee” to President Trump drew condemnation among lawyers across the political spectrum, including from attorneys inside the firms who quit or launched resistance campaigns. Others have chosen a less career-limiting form of rebellion.
That would be offering leaks to Above the Law, a pugnacious legal industry website best known for scoops about law firm annual bonuses, snarky coverage of legal news and salacious stories of barristers behaving badly. But since March, when Mr. Trump began targeting for retribution top law firms whose clients and past work he does not like, Above the Law has become a rage read for lawyers incensed at the firms that accommodated him.
Fueled by a stream of inside-the-conference-room exclusives, Above the Law delivers a daily public spanking to what it calls “The Yellow-Bellied Nine.” Those are the elite firms that pledged a collective $1 billion in free legal work to Mr. Trump after he signed executive orders threatening to bar their lawyers from federal buildings, suspend their security clearances and cancel their government contracts.
Coming next week on FAN: Timothy Zick on institutional independence and democratic backsliding
Although the Trump Administration’s agenda regarding freedom of expression can appear chaotic, one consistent strategy has been attacking institutions that are essential to checking executive power. It is no accident that many of President Trump’s Executive Orders and the agency actions they direct have targeted the media, universities and faculty, law firms, libraries, and museums. These and other entities are sometimes referred to as “First Amendment institutions” or “knowledge institutions,” because they contribute to and facilitate public discourse and are necessary to a free and open society.
‘[Re]Distributed for Conference’ — SCOTUS mantra in some First Amendment cases
Apparently, the Justices are so overworked with all the Trump emergency appeals that they have to continue to pause on what to do with some of the First Amendment cases on their docket. For example, consider the following petitions:
Jessica Levinson on Comey, protected speech, and DOJ investigation
Professor Jessica Levinson
Questions are swirling following the launch of a federal investigation into former FBI Director James Comeyover a now-deleted social media post of seashells arranged in the numbers “8647” on the beach. (“Eighty-six” is commonly understood to mean “get rid of.” President Trump is the 45th and 47th President of the United States.) Was Comey calling for the assassination of Trump? Or was he, as he has since stated, expressing a political opinion about Trump?
If Comey’s post amounted to a siren song, beseeching others to kill the president, he can be punished for his speech. But should Comey’s post be viewed as political advocacy, which I argue it should, he is entitled to the full protection of the First Amendment.
The genuine threat is not that a president’s life is in danger, but that the Trump administration is attempting to silence the speech of political adversaries. Even if it is unlikely that Comey faces anything more than a slap on the wrist for his post, the decision to open an investigation in and of itself should be worrisome. Comey has access to the media and resources to defend himself. Not everyone does. And the prospect of chilling political speech critical of government officials should concern all of us.
Statement from the Institute for Free Speech on party coordination limits
The Institute for Free Speech commends the Department of Justice’s decision in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC to acknowledge that federal limits on coordinated expenditures between political parties and their candidates violate the First Amendment. In a dramatic and unusual shift, the DOJ is now asking the Supreme Court to overturn its 2001 decision in Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC (Colorado II).
“The Solicitor General’s recommendation that the Court grant the petition is a commendable move that acknowledges the First Amendment flaws in these limits,” said Institute President David Keating. “As we argued in our amicus brief, the factual basis underpinning Colorado II has been proven wrong by real-world evidence.”
The Institute’s brief demonstrated that over half the states allow unlimited party coordination, including 17 states that also restrict individual contributions—yet there is no evidence of these arrangements leading to corruption. The DOJ’s brief now acknowledges this reality, recognizing that the law represents a “prophylaxis-upon-prophylaxis approach” that fails heightened First Amendment scrutiny.
“When more than half the states manage to operate elections without restricting coordinated party expenditures and without giving rise to any relevant quid pro quo corruption, it is hard to believe that the law is ‘necessary to prevent the anticipated harm,’” noted the Institute’s brief.
The NRSC case challenges federal limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates under 52 U.S.C. 30116(d). These restrictions severely burden the core function of political parties—to support and promote their candidates.
[ . . . ]
To read the Institute’s amicus brief in the case National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, click here. To read the Solicitor General’s just-filed brief, click here. To read Institute Senior Attorney Brett Nolan’s expert analysis on the Sixth Circuit’s decision in NRSC, click here.
Claim: The ‘deluge of pornography has had a negative impact on modern society’
Christine Emba
It’s hard not to see a connection between porn-trained behaviors — the choking, slapping and spitting that have become the norm even in early sexual encounters — and young women’s distrust of young men. And in the future, porn will become only more addictive and effective as a teacher, as virtual reality makes it more immersive and artificial intelligence allows it to be customizable. (For a foretaste of where this might end up, you can read a recent essay by Aella, a researcher and sex worker, on Substack defending A.I. child porn.)
In her new book “Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves,” Sophie Gilbert critiques the mass culture of the 1990s and 2000s, noting how it was built on female objectification and hyperexposure. A generation of women, she explains, were persuaded by the ideas that bodies were commodities to be molded, surveilled, fetishized or made the butt of the joke, that sexual power, which might give some fleeting leverage, was the only power worth having. This lie curdled the emerging promise of 20th-century feminism, and as our ambitions shrank, the potential for exploitation grew.
[ . . . ]
[W]hile Ms. Gilbert is unsparing in her descriptions of pornography’s warping effect on culture and its consumers, she’s curiously reluctant to acknowledge what seems obvious: Porn hasn’t been good for us. While her descriptions of the cultural landscape imply that the mainstreaming of hard-core porn has been a bad thing, she pulls her punches.” (emphasis added)
Forthcoming scholarly essay on ‘Fascist Government Speech’
Professor G. Alex Sinha
On the day he was sworn in for a second term, President Trump issued pardons and commutations to all of his supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This sweeping act of clemency gave legal effect to a longstanding grievance: Ever since the attack, which disrupted congressional certification of his 2020 election defeat, President Trump has consistently glorified the attackers and denounced their prosecutors. In defending the clemencies two days after issuing them, President Trump reiterated familiar themes — once more refusing to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election, celebrating the patriotism of his supporters, and maligning those who pursued their accountability through what became the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history.
President Trump’s script was so familiar that it obscured a constitutional novelty. For most of the time between the January 6 attack and the subsequent clemencies, President Trump was not the president. He was a private citizen, and his speech about January 6 was protected by the First Amendment even to the extent that it was false or dangerous. But, by noon on January 20, 2025, he was once again President Trump—a government official, speaking on behalf of the government, and thus uttering government speech. Government speech is not protected by the First Amendment, but rather by an evolving set of Court-fashioned rules known collectively as the government-speech doctrine. In an instant, his comments took on an entirely new constitutional cast.
Ordinarily, this transition would be unremarkable; it occurs whenever a private citizen assumes a governmental role. But, combined with their content, President Trump’s statements — on this subject and many others — create a serious First Amendment problem. His remarks are deeply and distinctly illiberal, calibrated to undermine, falsely, the democratic legitimacy of a previous administration and to rewrite the history of an insurrectionist threat that would have allowed him to maintain power by violent and anti-democratic means. It is fascist speech, which invites wildly different constitutional analysis depending on its source.
Accordingly, this paper introduces and evaluates the concept of fascist government speech — a category we can no longer afford to ignore. Our First Amendment free-speech rights spring in substantial part from a commitment to self-governance, and the protections that follow generally extend to private fascist speech as part of a forceful commitment to free debate that courts and scholars have long believed would facilitate a robust democracy. By contrast, the basis of the government-speech doctrine is functional necessity, a recognition that our democratic self-governance would be rendered ineffective if the government could not spread its message. That backstory simply cannot justify protecting fascist government speech, which directly undermines the basis for governmental communicative prerogatives. Yet the doctrine, as constituted, ultimately does protect fascist government speech. Worse still, the doctrine operates to abrogate private free-speech claims, a result that is distinctly perverse when the abrogation functions to amplify fascist government speech. This paper therefore argues for significant revision to the government-speech doctrine to blunt the threat of fascist government speech.
2024-2025 SCOTUS term: Free expression and related cases
Cases decided
Villarreal v. Alaniz(Petition granted. Judgment vacated and case remanded for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam))
Murphy v. Schmitt (“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of Gonzalez v. Trevino, 602 U. S. ___ (2024) (per curiam).”)
TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Ltd v. Garland (9-0: The challenged provisions of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.)
Review granted
Pending petitions
Petitions denied
Emergency Applications
Yost v. Ohio Attorney General (Kavanaugh, J., “IT IS ORDERED that the March 14, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, case No. 2:24-cv-1401, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court. It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Wednesday, April 16, 2025, by 5 p.m. (EDT).”)
Free speech related
Mahmoud v. Taylor (argued April 22 / free exercise case: issue: Whether public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out.)
Thompson v. United States (decided: 3-21-25/ 9-0 w special concurrences by Alito and Jackson) (interpretation of 18 U. S. C. §1014 re: “false statements”)
This article is part of First Amendment News, an editorially independent publication edited by Ronald K. L. Collins and hosted by FIRE as part of our mission to educate the public about First Amendment issues. The opinions expressed are those of the article’s author(s) and may not reflect the opinions of FIRE or Mr. Collins.
