Court Rules in AAUP v Rubio: Trump Admin Violated First Amendment

In a landmark ruling, a federal court today ruled that the Trump administration's policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy violates the First Amendment. The AAUP, the Middle Eastern Studies Association and several AAUP chapters brought the suit with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, seeking to block the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members for ideological reasons (typically because of pro-Palestinian speech).

A two-week trial in July was the first major trial of President Trump's second term and included the testimony of fifteen witnesses, forcing the disclosure of a wealth of new details about the policy and its devastating effects on campuses nationwide. See a summary of the disclosures here.

In today's ruling, Judge William G. Young wrote, "This case-perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court-squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in [the] United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally 'yes, they do.' 'No law' means 'no law.' The First Amendment does not draw President Trump's invidious distinction and it is not to be found in our history or jurisprudence."

Read today's decision here.

Having found that the policy violates the First Amendment, the court will turn to the question of relief in the coming weeks.