April 25, 2025

New from the Institute for Free Speech

Institute for Free Speech Urges Sixth Circuit to Revisit “Precedent-Setting Error” That Undermines Citizens United

.....Earlier this week the Institute for Free Speech filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, advising the court to rehear Boone County Republican Party Executive Committee v. Wallace en banc.   

The case involves a Kentucky law that prevents political parties from speaking for or against any ballot issues unless the parties form a separate political committee with separate funding raised specifically for that purpose. Last year, after initially obtaining an injunction from the Sixth Circuit, several local political parties used their general funds to create signs, mailers, and other campaign materials supporting two ballot issues in the general election.  

But when revisiting the case after the election, a divided Sixth Circuit panel upheld that law under the First Amendment, issuing a 2-1 decision that will stifle the parties’ ability to speak to citizens about ballot measures in the future.  

Freedom of Assembly Arguments, Sixty Years Apart

By Helen Knowles-Gardner

.....On April 26, 1961, the nation’s highest court heard oral arguments in Louisiana ex rel. Gremillion v. NAACP. Louisiana’s Assistant Attorney General William P. Schuler stepped up to the lectern to try and persuade the Supreme Court of the United States that his state’s effort to compel the disclosure of the names and addresses of members of the NAACP was constitutional. His arguments were in vain; the NAACP won the case 9-0. Six decades later, on April 26, 2021, California’s Deputy Solicitor General Aimee A. Feinberg didn’t fare much better in Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) v. Bonta when she tried to defend the state’s rule that forced charities to disclose the names of their major donors before the groups could solicit in the state. AFPF won the case 6-3, with the Court issuing an opinion that cited Gremillion. 

April 26 represents an important date in the history of associational freedom at the Supreme Court.  

Trump Administration

New York Times: Trump Directs Justice Dept. to Investigate ActBlue, Democrats’ Cash Engine

By Maggie Haberman, Reid J. Epstein, and Kenneth P. Vogel

.....President Trump on Thursday directed the Justice Department to investigate ActBlue, the fund-raising platform that powers virtually every Democratic candidate and cause. The move steps up Republicans’ effort to cripple their opponents’ political infrastructure.

It was the third time in three weeks that Mr. Trump has directed the government to target a perceived political enemy. He has drastically expanded the use of his powers to try to damage domestic opponents, eroding a post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence far more than he ever did in his first term.

Mr. Trump called for an investigation by Attorney General Pam Bondi into ActBlue, which is used across the Democratic Party’s ecosystem to collect donations online. The inquiry is ostensibly meant to look into possible illegal donations made by people in someone else’s name, known as straw donations, as well as hard-dollar contributions from foreign donors. Mr. Trump asked for a report on the results of Ms. Bondi’s investigation within 180 days.

Wall Street Journal: Should Harvard Be Tax Exempt?

By The Editorial Board

.....Some conservatives are cheering on Mr. Trump, but they might not like it when President Ocasio-Cortez is in charge. They were rightly indignant when the IRS under President Obama was found to have targeted the tax exemptions of right-leaning 501(c)(4) nonprofits, including pro-Israel groups. The Court’s reasoning in Bob Jones University would allow the President to revoke a charity’s or university’s tax exemption for political reasons. A Democratic President could declare a think tank that opposes its climate or transgender bathroom rules to be acting contrary to “established public policy.”

The Eternally Radical Idea: Harvard in the Crosshairs

By Greg Lukianoff

.....The short version is that the federal government is trying to punish Harvard (either for anti-Semitism or groupthink — or so it claims), and it has chosen to do it in a way that is as troubling as it is unlawful. Its demands of Harvard would catastrophically undermine academic freedom, free speech, and institutional independence on campus. As a result I, along with FIRE, oppose those demands on principle.

As I mentioned above, Harvard is far from innocent. Perhaps more than any other institution (other than Columbia), it has cultivated an institutional monoculture — one that proved to be a fertile breeding ground for anti-Semitism. The predictable consequences of that monoculture are also at the root of Harvard’s last-place finishes in our student rankings.

In addition, anti-Semitism is a real problem on college campuses — Harvard included. I have been adamant about that, and it is why I want religion explicitly added to the categories covered by Title VI. The government is not imagining the problem of anti-Semitism on college campuses, and it should take action.

Just not this action.

The Courts

Courthouse News: X sues to stop Minnesota election misinformation law

By Mark Wasson 

.....The social media company X Corp., formerly Twitter, filed a lawsuit Wednesday in the Federal District of Minnesota against Attorney General Keith Ellison, alleging a state statute intended to take on election misinformation is unconstitutional. 

The statute, passed by the state’s legislature in 2023, prohibits the dissemination of election-related content that is a deepfake. 

X Corp., which is owned by Tesla CEO and government bureaucrat Elon Musk, seeks a ruling to declare the law unconstitutional and to bar Minnesota prosecutors from enforcing it. 

The suit, signed by Erick Kaardal of Mohrman Kaardal, a Minnesota-based law firm, alleges the law violates the civil rights of X and other social media platforms under the First and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution. 

“Its requirements are so vague and unintelligible that social media platforms cannot understand what the statute permits and what it prohibits, which will lead to blanket censorship, including of fully protected, core political speech,” Kaardal wrote in the complaint.

New York Times: Judges Appear Receptive to Blocking Trump’s Orders Targeting Big Law Firms

By Zach Montague

.....Two federal judges on Wednesday appeared sympathetic to arguments from elite law firms asking for definitive relief from President Trump’s executive orders targeting them.

Lawyers for two firms, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, have asked the courts to permanently block the Trump administration from carrying out the orders, arguing that the measures are so blatantly unconstitutional that no trial is necessary.

The orders, they stressed, pose a critical threat to their businesses and the legal profession writ large. The firms have clients and have employed lawyers Mr. Trump opposes politically.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Pro-Life Amicus Brief in Georgia Adult-Entertainment Case

By Sasha Volokh

.....Thanks to Kelsey Hazzard of Secular Pro-Life and my Emory Law colleague Tom Arthur for writing and filing this brief. More generally, thanks to the organizations and people involved for recognizing that we're all in this together: pro-life people who oppose Hill v. Colorado should support this cert petition even if they have no interest in (or are even opposed to) adult entertainment, because high-level First Amendment doctrines (like the distinction between content discrimination vs. content neutrality) are rarely hermetically sealed to particular business models! Supporting Reed v. Town of Gilbert and making it extremely hard for the government to discriminate in regulation and taxation pays dividends across the board, whether you support nude dancing or anti-abortion counseling.

FCC

Wall Street Journal: Paramount in Talks With FCC Over Diversity Policy Concessions for Merger

By Jessica Toonkel, Josh Dawsey, and Drew FitzGerald

.....The Federal Communications Commission has begun discussing with Paramount Global initial steps the company would need to take to secure the agency’s approval of its merger with Skydance Media, according to people close to the discussions.

One action under discussion between the agency and Paramount is a commitment that the company continues to abstain from particular corporate diversity initiatives, the people said. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has urged telecom and media companies to limit their diversity, equity and inclusion policies as a precondition for the agency to consider mergers and acquisitions.

Free Expression

New York Times: This Is the Hole the Anti-Woke Right Fell Into

By David French

.....What if you created a movement that proclaimed its love and admiration for free speech while engaging in cancel culture with ferocious glee? What if that same movement proclaimed its love of the American founding at the same time that it got busy attacking the founding’s most important achievement, the Constitution?

Meet the anti-woke right. It’s a loose coalition of podcasters, influencers and Silicon Valley moguls who’ve led a mass movement against the left, a movement that helped return Donald Trump to the White House. If you’ve followed its rise to power, very little about the Trump administration’s first 100 days would surprise you.

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post: Videos disparaging trans women aren’t hate speech, Meta board says

By Naomi Nix

.....The Oversight Board sided with Meta early Wednesday and ruled that the two posts about trans people didn’t violate the company’s hate-speech rules. The board’s decisions on specific cases are considered binding.

The ruling focuses on disparaging comments accompanying two videos, one showing a trans woman using a woman’s bathroom and another showing a trans girl winning a female sports competition. The videos and posts responding to them circulated on social media last year. In both cases, Meta determined that while posts about the videos questioned a trans person’s gender identity, they didn’t violate its rules against hate speech or harassment.

The States

Radio Iowa: Iowa House sends ‘Anti-SLAPP’ bill to governor

By Kay Henderson

.....A bill that supporters say will shield Iowans from lawsuits meant to silence critics has cleared the legislature and is headed to the governor.

Republican Representative Steven Holt of Denison started working on the legislation seven years ago when a local newspaper was sued for reporting on a local policeman.

“I was just corresponding back and forth with Doug Burns this morning from the Carroll newspaper who spent $100,000 defending himself in court after telling the truth and he basically lost his newspaper as a result of it,” Holt said, “so this is very important legislation.”

The bill gives a defendant the ability to immediately ask an Iowa judge to dismiss a lawsuit that impedes their freedom of speech or freedom of the press. The House has previously passed four bills to address so-called SLAPP actions — SLAPP stands for “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.”

Post and Courier: South Carolinians can be sued for criticizing politicians. A Statehouse bill could stop it.

By Nick Reynolds

.....Late last month, anti-SLAPP legislation sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Weston Newton, R-Bluffton, unanimously passed the House of Representatives. On April 23, the bill — dubbed the South Carolina Public Expression Protection Act — received its first hearing in the Senate, where it was easily advanced by a Judiciary subcommittee for review by the full Judiciary Committee later this month. 

While it did move forward, some felt the bill needed work. Sen. Deon Tedder, D-North Charleston, said he wanted to ensure elected officials who were legitimately defamed or lied about had an appropriate window to seek damages from individuals who made the claims. 

But the general thrust of the bill, members said, was sound…

The bill will now go to the full Judiciary Committee, where it will likely see some amendments before being voted up or down to the full Senate.