April 15, 2025

In the News

NH Journal: Judge Rules School Can Ban ‘XX’ Protests Over Males in Girls’ Sports

By Damien Fisher

.....The Bow School District was acting within its authority to kick two soccer dads out of a girls game for wearing pink “XX” wristbands as a silent protest against biological males playing on girls’ teams, a federal judge ruled Monday...

United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe ruled against Foote, Kyle Fellers, Eldon Rash, and Nicole Foote in a 45-page order denying their preliminary injunction against SAU 67. The parents are being represented by the Institute for Free Speech, a legal nonprofit that promotes parents’ rights. Del Kolde, the senior attorney, said he is still considering his next steps in this case.

“We strongly disagree with the Court’s opinion issued today denying our request for a preliminary injunction. This was adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys greater First Amendment protection than student speech in the classroom. Bow School District officials were obviously discriminating based on viewpoint because they perceived the XX wristbands to be ‘trans-exclusionary.’ We are still evaluating our options for next steps,” Kolde said.

Christian Post: IRS may no longer be able to silence pastors if this act passes

By James Harden

.....In 2020, Pastor Gary Hamrick of a Virginia church faced penalties from the IRS for what was deemed a political sermon. His infraction? Attempting to align presidential candidates’ policy positions with biblical teachings. The regulation at the heart of this controversy — the Johnson Amendment — bars tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from political speech. In reality, it's a tool used to silence moral voices in the public square…

The Institute for Free Speech highlights the problem plainly: “Enforcement is rare, penalties are severe, and guidance is unclear.” In effect, it’s not just the ox being muzzled — it’s the entire pulpit.

New from the Institute for Free Speech

Comments to the FEC on AOR 2025-06 (Campaign Legal Center)

.....On April 11, 2025, the Institute for Free Speech filed comments to the Federal Election Commission on an advisory opinion request (AOR 2025-06), suggesting that the Commission decline to issue an opinion.

Read a PDF of the comments here.

Comments to the FCC on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act

.....On April 11, 2025, the Institute for Free Speech submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission after a public request to help identify FCC rules for the purpose of alleviating unnecessary regulatory burdens. In the comments, the Institute urges the Commission to revisit its interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”).

Read a PDF of the comments here.

The Courts

Bloomberg Law: Criticized Proposal Cut from Judiciary’s Amicus Disclosure Rule

By John Crawley

.....A federal judiciary panel narrowly rejected a controversial provision in a draft rule aimed at identifying financial backers of amicus filers and other steps to increase transparency around the submission of outside briefs in appellate courts.

The Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules weighed revisions at a meeting on Wednesday for amending the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure following a comment period that generated a flood of questions about the plan that advanced last year.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Over Eighty Universities File Amicus Brief in Case Challenging Trump's Speech-Based Deportations of Non-citizen Students

By Ilya Somin

.....I am happy to see that 86 colleges and higher education associations  filed an amicus brief in a case challenging the deportations filed by the the Knight First Amendment Institute on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA).

Notable institutions joining the brief include Fordham, Georgetown, the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, Swarthmore, and my undergraduate alma mater Amherst College, among others. This is one of the very few issues on which Amherst agrees with traditional rival Williams College (which also joined the brief)!

Trump Administration

Washington Post: No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found

By John Hudson

.....Days before masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk to deport her, the State Department determined that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization, as the government has alleged.

The finding, contained in a March memo that was described to The Washington Post, said Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not have sufficient grounds for revoking Ozturk’s visa under an authority empowering the top U.S. diplomat to safeguard the foreign policy interests of the United States.

The memo, written by an office within the State Department, raises doubts about the public accusations made by the Trump administration as it has sought to justify Ozturk’s deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has said Ozturk engaged in activities “in support of Hamas,” a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, but neither that agency nor U.S. prosecutors have provided evidence for that claim.

New York Times: Inside Trump’s Pressure Campaign on Universities

By Michael C. BenderAlan Blinder and Jonathan Swan

.....As he finished lunch in the private dining room outside the Oval Office on April 1, President Trump floated an astounding proposal: What if the government simply canceled every dollar of the nearly $9 billion promised to Harvard University?

The administration’s campaign to expunge “woke” ideology from college campuses had already forced Columbia University to strike a deal. Now, the White House was eyeing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.

“What if we never pay them?” Mr. Trump casually asked, according to a person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussion. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”

The moment underscored the aggressive, ad hoc approach continuing to shape one of the new administration’s most consequential policies.

Mr. Trump and his top aides are exerting control of huge sums of federal research money to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which they see as hostile to conservatives and intent on perpetuating liberalism.

CNN: Trump urges the FCC to punish ‘60 Minutes’ over reports on Greenland and Ukraine

By Brian Stelter

.....President Donald Trump has a “hope” for his Federal Communications Commission: that the agency will punish CBS for airing “60 Minutes” reports he doesn’t like.

Apparently angered by Sunday night’s “60 Minutes” telecast, Trump wrote on Truth Social about his ongoing legal battle with CBS and its parent company, Paramount Global, which is awaiting FCC approval to merge with Skydance Media.

Trump name-checked the man he promoted to chair the FCC, Brendan Carr, whom he called “Highly Respected.” He said hopefully Carr “will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior.”

FEC

Daily Signal: FEC Opens Probe of Rep. Jasmine Crockett Donations

By Fred Lucas

.....The Federal Election Commission opened an investigation into firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, regarding donations to her 2024 campaign made through ActBlue, a Democrat fundraising powerhouse organization.

The Coolidge-Reagan Foundation, a conservative advocacy group, made the FEC complaint on March 26, as first reported by The Daily Signal. 

On April 2, the FEC notified the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation it would review the matter and notify Crockett. 

“The respondents will be notified of this complaint within five business days,” Wanda D. Brown, the FEC assistant general counsel for complaints examination and legal administration, said in the letter…

Brown wrote the letter to Dan Backer, a Washington lawyer representing the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation. 

“The FEC opened an investigation. There is a process, but they are investigating,” Backer told The Daily Signal. 

The complaints reference a specific suspect donor reported to have given 53 separate donations totaling $595 to Crockett’s campaign through the ActBlue portal.

The suspect donor was a 73-year-old Texas resident named Randy Best, according to the FEC complaint.  

Online Speech Platforms

Intelligencer: Meta Wants to Tilt Its AI to the Right

By John Herrman

.....The company says that its goal is to “remove bias from our AI models and to make sure that Llama can understand and articulate both sides of a contentious issue” and that it “can respond to a variety of different viewpoints without passing judgment, and doesn’t favor some views over others.” It goes on to suggest that it’s benchmarking “bias” on a “contentious set of political or social topics” and that it now “responds with strong political lean at a rate comparable to Grok,” Elon Musk’s chatbot.

The States

New York Times: Arson Attack on Josh Shapiro Raises Fears About Threats to Politicians

By Nick Corasaniti

.....The scorched rooms inside the official residence of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania were the work of an arsonist who the authorities say admitted “harboring hatred” for Mr. Shapiro. Officials say the suspect revealed that if he found the governor, he planned to beat him with a hammer.

The attack on Mr. Shapiro and his family was only the latest prominent attempt on the life of an American elected official. A string of violent outbursts in recent years has raised alarms about the threats lawmakers are confronting and the country’s often poisonous political environment.

President Trump faced two assassination attempts last year, a bullet grazing his ear at a rally in Pennsylvania. A group of extremists planned to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. A man broke into Representative Nancy Pelosi’s home and assaulted her husband with a hammer. A gunman attacked Republican members of Congress as they practiced for a baseball game, wounding Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

NewsNation: New York bills would protect Tesla owners, target Tesla dominance

By Johan Sheridan

.....State Senator Mark Walczyk introduced S7271 on April 7…The bill adds “suppression or promotion of a political ideology”—damaging private property to promote or suppress a political ideology—to New York’s property damage laws.

That measure follows nationwide reports of Tesla owners, dealerships, and charging stations being vandalized. Walczyk and Tague said that targeting property in response to the political views of Tesla CEO Elon Musk has added a dangerous layer to disagreements about political ideas…

The bill would make keying or defacing a Tesla a crime, third-degree criminal mischief, a Class E felony that potentially carries a one- to four-year prison term. The Republican legislators held a press gaggle in the New York State Capitol to explain that the measure gives prosecutors a new tool against criminal behavior.