Judge rules against Trump administration in Stanford student free speech case
The Trump administration’s threats to deport noncitizen students at Stanford University who spoke out against Israel was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge, The Mercury News reported.
The Stanford Daily student newspaper and an anonymous student filed the lawsuit last August, claiming the administration had unlawfully used the Immigration and Nationality Act to revoke student visas over speech that is constitutionally protected. They pointed to the federal government’s efforts to target noncitizens who had criticized Israel, and said the efforts had caused reporters to self censor or quit, according to The Mercury News.
The government claimed that the plaintiffs’ claims were speculative as they, themselves, had not faced arrest or deportation.
“In the United States, free speech, including the freedom to criticize the government and its leaders, is not a sign of our democracy’s fragility,” U.S. District Judge Noël Wise wrote, according to The Mercury News. “It is evidence of its strength. That strength is diminished when members of our society — citizens and noncitizens alike — must self-censor and ‘behave’ or suffer the government’s retaliation.”
He argued that the federal government had violated both the First and Fifth amendments.
The legal challenge followed a wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country, including at Stanford, the newspaper reported.
Conor Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is representing the plaintiffs, told the publication that the “ruling proves that free speech isn’t a privilege, but the inalienable right of every man, woman and child.”
The ruling, which will prevent noncitizen student-journalists at the Stanford Daily and other parties at the university from having their visas revoked or being deported because of their protected speech, is the first of its kind in the country, according to the foundation, The Mercury News reported.
This story was originally published by EdSource.