Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech June 18, 2025 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. Ed. note: The Daily Update will return Monday, June 23. In the News The College Fix: U. Oregon to pay $191,000 after blocking conservative professor on Twitter By Matt Lamb .....The University of Oregon will pay out $191,000 in legal fees to two legal groups representing a professor who it blocked on Twitter (now X) for saying “all men are created equal.” The attorney fees will go to Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley’s representatives at Angus Lee Law Firm and the Institute for Free Speech. The school already spent more than half a million dollars paying its own attorneys and now its insurer will pay out even more. U. Oregon will also revise its social media guidelines and provide training to its employees to end the two-and-a half year lawsuit, as previously reported by The College Fix. NH Journal: Nashua ‘Appeal to Heaven’ Flag Lawsuit Keeps Flying By Damien Fisher .....The fight over Nashua’s City Hall Plaza flagpole isn’t over as residents Beth and Stephen Scaer filed an appeal with the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston this week, arguing the city is abusing the law to get away with First Amendment violations. The Scaers, represented by the Institute for Free Speech, took Nashua to court last year after city officials denied them permission to fly an ‘Appeal to Heaven’ Pine Tree flag on City Hall’s “Citizens’ Flag Pole.” According to the lawsuit, the city used vague language in its 2022 flagpole policy to deny the request. New from the Institute for Free Speech NYC Parent Leaders Secure Settlement Victory against Speech Censorship .....Three parent leaders who successfully challenged unconstitutional speech restrictions by Brooklyn school board officials have scored a win for free speech. Plaintiffs Deborah Alexander, Maud Maron, and Noah Harlan, represented by the Institute for Free Speech, reached a settlement with the individual defendants who excluded them from public meetings and blocked them on social media because of their political viewpoints. The settlement with former Community Education Council (CEC) 14 President Tajh Sutton and First Vice President Marissa Manzanares follows a federal court’s preliminary injunction ruling in September 2024 that found the parents had demonstrated a clear likelihood of success in proving CEC 14’s policies to be unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. The court’s 2024 ruling also ordered Maron’s immediate reinstatement to CEC 2, from which she had been removed for criticizing officials. The Courts Reuters: American Bar Association sues to block Trump's attacks on law firms By Mike Scarcella .....The American Bar Association sued the Trump administration on Monday, seeking an order that would bar the White House from pursuing what the ABA called a campaign of intimidation against major law firms. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., said the administration violated the U.S. Constitution in a series of executive orders targeting law firms over their past clients and lawyers they hired. New York Times: Trump’s Cuts to N.I.H. Grants Focused on Minority Groups Are Illegal, Judge Rules By Zach Montague .....A federal judge on Monday declared some of the Trump administration’s cuts to National Institutes of Health grants “void and illegal,” accusing the government of racial discrimination and prejudice against L.G.B.T.Q. individuals. Ruling from the bench, Judge William G. Young of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts delivered a damning assessment of the Trump administrations’ motives in targeting hundreds of grants that focused on the health of Black communities, women and L.G.B.T.Q. people. He ordered the government to restore much of that funding for now, pending an appeal. “This represents racial discrimination and discrimination against America’s L.G.B.T.Q. community,” he said. “That’s what this is.” Judge Young, a Reagan appointee with 40 years of experience as a federal judge, said the government’s rationale for canceling some of the grants, which also supported research into topics such as gender identity and equity in health care, appeared to be rooted in prejudice. He cited the administration’s very public efforts to eliminate any trace of diversity and equity initiatives from the federal government, as well as its attacks on transgender people. He said that over the course of his career he had “never seen government racial discrimination like this,” and that he felt duty bound to state his conclusion about the government’s intent. Congress New York Post: House GOP launches probe of China-based billionaire linked to protest groups, including anti-ICE agitators in LA By Josh Christenson .....House Republicans launched an investigation Friday into a China-based billionaire purportedly backing left-wing protest groups in the US — including one linked to the anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) riots in Los Angeles — and asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to determine whether he was part of a larger Chinese Communist Party influence operation. The reclusive Neville Singham, who was born in Chicago but lives with his activist wife, Jodie Evans, in Shanghai, “may have acted as an agent for the CCP” through his support of the demonstrations, GOP members of the House Oversight Committee alleged in letters to the billionaire himself as well as Bondi that have been obtained by The Post. Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Declassification Taskforce Chairwoman Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who has threatened to subpoena Singham if he refuses to cooperate with their investigation, drew attention to the CCP’s self-described “Strategy of Sowing Discord” in the letters. Free Expression Chronicle of Higher Education: The Unraveling of the AAUP By Matthew W. Finkin .....An article on threats to academic freedom on college campuses in last week’s New York Times Magazine touched on a running debate between the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Foundation for Individual Rights are Expression (FIRE). The former has long been the expositor of the meaning of academic freedom; the latter is active in litigating free-speech cases. The quarrel between the two organizations raises some hard questions about the AAUP’s current role. Nonprofits Jonesing on Nonprofits: The Fear of Trojan Horse Nonprofits By Darryll K. Jones .....If I can ever get my head back on straight, I will get around to writing about the schizophrenic attitudes most nations harbor regarding nonprofits. On the one hand, peoples adore, or at least revere nonprofits. Especially those that deliver humanitarian relief. But on the other hand, peoples’ governments view nonprofits with suspicion. That suspicion is especially high during times of political upheaval or national crisis. We are witnessing that even today. Governments increasingly view even domestic nonprofits like Trojan Horses. They think nonprofits show up with good intentions but harbor secret and destructive intentions within. Destructive to incumbents, I mean. Non-incumbents tend to defend and ally themselves to nonprofits. So one group might support nonprofits when out of power, but then oppose nonprofits when they regain power. There was an interesting piece in the WSJ last week that demonstrates the point. Here is some of it: The States Idaho Dispatch: Idaho Removes Lawmaker Addresses After Attack on Minnesota Officials By Greg Pruett .....Idaho lawmakers’ addresses no longer appear on the Idaho legislative website. In the wake of the murders in Minnesota, where one lawmaker was killed and another was wounded, some states are taking actions to protect lawmakers from being targeted. Idaho Dispatch was working on another article about the arsonist who was convicted for burning down Rep. Cornel Rasor’s (R – Westmond) store down. As you can see, adding the party and town the lawmakers represent is a common practice in many news articles across various news outlets. Albuquerque Journal: NM Ethics Commission files lawsuit in an attempt to compel group to disclose donors By Dan Boyd .....The state Ethics Commission has filed a lawsuit seeking to compel a nonprofit group to disclose its contributors after it spent roughly $56,000 last year in a campaign against changes to New Mexico’s medical malpractice laws. The group, called New Mexico Safety Over Profit, is one of several organizations that engaged in advocacy on the issue during the run-up to this year’s 60-day legislative session. But unlike other groups, it has declined to divulge its donors and other information related to its advertising campaign, which included full-page newspaper ads and social media posts.. But New Mexico Safety Over Profit’s Executive Director Jon Lipshutz responded to the lawsuit by saying the group is confident it has complied with New Mexico’s campaign finance laws. At the Lectern: Eastman disbarment recommended by State Bar Court’s Review Department; California Supreme Court is next By David Ettinger .....On Friday, the California State Bar Court’s three-judge Review Department came to the same conclusion as a hearing judge over a year ago and recommended the disbarment of President Trump’s former lawyer, John Eastman. (98-page decision and five-page concurrence here; news release here.) Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update." The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the political rights to free speech, press, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org. 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