A call for civic institutions to defend the First Amendment
Universities, law firms and media organizations must stand up for their rights while there’s still time
Will our nation’s top civic institutions – universities, media organizations, law firms, and the like – stand up for the First Amendment? Or will they bend the knee to the Trump regime when their rights – and the rights of those they represent – come under threat?
It’s an open question. Trump has taken shocking, really almost unimaginable steps to punish major institutions for their speech – for their support of diversity initiatives he opposes; for representing clients he doesn’t like; even for calling the Gulf of Mexico by its common name.
Some institutions have risen to the challenge and fought back. But too many have surrendered.
That’s why leaders of seven of the nation’s most prominent free speech and press freedom organizations joined forces this week in a dramatic open letter calling on major civic institutions to stand up for the First Amendment while there’s still time.
“Each surrender makes the assertion of First Amendment rights more costly and more perilous,” the letter states. “We fear that if major institutions continue to submit rather than stand on their rights, the freedoms of speech and the press will be seriously and perhaps irrecoverably weakened.”
Just this week, new signs emerged that CBS News will go the way of ABC News and agree to a costly legal settlement with Trump in a clearly bogus lawsuit, simply to curry favor with the president. In CBS’s case, the goal is to clear the way for a lucrative business deal that Trump is effectively holding hostage.
“That seems to me to be an immensely significant capitulation,” Jameel Jaffer, a signatory to the letter and executive director or the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, told me in an interview.
Other signatories to the letter include the Committee to Protect Journalists, PEN America, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and Reporters Without Borders.
Jaffer said the letter came together due to “the accumulation of surrenders by powerful and prestigious and well-resourced institutions, and the sense that with each institution that concedes or capitulates it makes it much harder for the next institution to resist or fight back.”
Jaffer decried his own university’s surrender to Trump’s demands after being threatened with the loss of grant money.
Some universities, like Harvard, are now fighting back. “On the cancellation of grants, I think that we have seen a growing number of universities recognize that there's no accommodation to be found with this administration, but it's taking them a long time.”
Even then, Jaffer said, “it's notable to me that no university has sued over the detention of its students for legitimate political speech.”
Some of the nation’s biggest law firms, including Paul Weiss and Skadden Arps, have agreed to do free legal work for Trump to avoid his punishments. But others, like WilmerHale and Jenner & Block, are suing.
“I think these law firms that have fought back have not only done something courageous and principled, they’ve also been effective and successful in their challenges in the courts,” Jaffer said.
And he hailed the Associated Press’s decision to stand up for its right to free speech. “I think it must've been a really difficult decision for the Associated Press to file that lawsuit challenging their exclusion from the White House press pool,” he said. “I'm sure they did not take that action lightly. They must've known that they were running the risk that there would be further retaliation against them, that the Trump administration would impose other costs on them. But I think they saw that their strength in the long-term turned on the strength of the First Amendment and turned on their willingness to assert and defend their First Amendment rights.”
The coming weeks and months will be key, Jaffer said, “If these institutions aren't willing or able to assert and defend their First Amendment rights then those rights will exist only on paper. In theory, universities will have autonomy and academic freedom. And in theory, law firms will be permitted to represent whoever they'd like to represent. And in theory, media organizations will have the freedom to report on whatever they'd like to report and whatever way they'd like to report on it. But if nobody actually asserts and defends those rights, then in reality those rights won't exist.”
See also John Oliver’s monologue on Trump’s attack on the press, in which he concludes that “unfortunately even as Trump's aggression has gone up, some owners of press outlets have gotten more submissive.”
Wise Words From Sherilyn Ifill
Civil rights activist Sherilyn Ifill has some important advice for how to navigate the next 100 days.
For those of us who have been fully engaged (and thus, are exhausted), some of our energy must shift to activating those among our neighbors, friends, family and groups who have not yet expended themselves in this fight. It’s time to draft fresh troops. Doing that requires educating those who have been focused on the business of living, rather than resisting. They need to know what is at stake and what they can do. This is the terrific and important work I see being undertaken by Black leaders through their State of the People Tour in cities around the country. We need more of this.
The State of the People Tour – "a movement to rally, restore, and reimagine what's possible for Black communities across the U.S." -- is in Detroit today, then is headed to Jackson, Louisville, and Los Angeles.
Ifill also calls for “faith institutions to get to the front lines”:
Many have left faith institutions out of the resistance calculus, but now is the time to demand their involvement in addressing this existential crisis for our democracy.
And, of course, every faith institution should be taking up regular collections to support those who have lost jobs as a result of the attack on federal agencies. This is the period when the effects of federal government layoffs will be felt in missed mortgage and car payments. Those with student loans will be especially hard hit in the coming 6 months.
Is your faith institution getting to the front lines, or not? Tell me in comments.
Wise Words From Jamelle Bouie
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie ends his most recent piece – about how the MAGA movement is waging war on the nation’s democratic and economic future – with a few word about the obligation anti-Trump Americans have to articulate their contrasting vision of the future:
We have, in this country, a powerful movement eager to summon an authoritarian future. What we need is a movement dedicated to an egalitarian one, to a future in which all Americans can live the lives they choose to make for themselves — a country that rejects walls and rigid hierarchies in favor of the democratic virtues and universalist ideals of this country’s best traditions.
We have names for this vision. Frederick Douglass called it the “composite nation.” W.E.B. Du Bois called it the “abolition democracy,” and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of a “beloved community.”
With these materials, we can imagine a better future and contest the dark dreams of those in power. And if our political leaders are too timid to embark on that task — too afraid of backlash to think beyond the familiar — then we, as citizens still and not yet subjects, have an obligation to do so.
Wise Words From Bruce Springsteen
Our national bard has (finally) come out swinging. During his concerts in England this week, Bruce Springsteen had this to say:
In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.
Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!
He continued, in his introduction to the song, “House of a Thousand Guitars”:
The last check, the last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed are the people, you and me. It’s in the union of people around a common set of values now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. At the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other.
And then, before breaking into “My City of Ruins,” he listed his grievances:
There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now.
In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.
In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.
In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.
They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society.
They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.
They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.
A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.
The America l’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, “In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough.” Let’s pray.
You can watch the video of his comments here, or buy a four-song EP from the opening night of the tour titled “Land of Hope and Dreams” that includes two of his introductions.
Trump responded by calling Springsteen an “obnoxious jerk.” Then, this morning, he posted a doctored video on social media purporting to show him striking Springsteen in the head with a golf ball.
Last Week in Protests
Protesters across Chicagoland on Sunday organized a 30-mile-long human chain against Trump's "illegal and authoritarian actions." The goal was to form one continuous line of demonstrators stretching from Chicago to Aurora. Organizers included the Democratic Party of DuPage County, Indivisible Illinois, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and other political organizations across the Chicago area. They claimed that as many as 18,000 people participated, a lot of them dressed in black. Here’s some video.
Hundreds of protesters turned out in Asheville, N.C., on Sunday to express opposition to the Republican budget bill.
One of the founders of Ben & Jerry’s, Ben Cohen, was among a group or protesters arrested last week after they interrupted a Senate committee hearing to protest U.S. funding for Israel’s military.
Episcopal Pushback
A message from the Episcopal Migration Ministries, the organization that leads The Episcopal Church’s refugee resettlement ministry.
Since January, the previously bipartisan U.S. Refugee Admissions Program in which we participate has essentially shut down. Virtually no new refugees have arrived, hundreds of staff in resettlement agencies around the country have been laid off, and funding for resettling refugees who have already arrived has been uncertain. Then, just over two weeks ago, the federal government informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees.
In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step. Accordingly, we have determined that, by the end of the federal fiscal year, we will conclude our refugee resettlement grant agreements with the U.S. federal government.
Lawsuits Watch
A federal district judge in Washington on Monday rejected the Trump’ regime’s attempt to take over and destroy the independent United States Institute of Peace. Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled that “the removal of USIP’s president, his replacement by officials affiliated with DOGE, the termination of nearly all of USIP’s staff, and the transfer of USIP property to the General Services Administration (“GSA”), were… effectuated by illegitimately-installed leaders who lacked legal authority to take these actions, which must therefore be declared null and void.” She added: “The President’s efforts here to take over an organization outside of those bounds, contrary to statute established by Congress and by acts of force and threat using local and federal law enforcement officers, represented a gross usurpation of power and a way of conducting government affairs that unnecessarily traumatized the committed leadership and employees of USIP, who deserved better.”
A federal judge in Massachusetts who had previously blocked the removal of Asian migrants to Libya has now blocked their removal to South Sudan – but possibly too late to prevent one from being rendered to that war-torn country. Boston Judge Brian E. Murphy warned Trump officials of possible criminal sanctions. “Based on what I have been told,” he said, “this seems like it may be contempt.”
Khan Suri, a Georgetown professor legally living and working in the United States on a research scholar visa, was released from immigration detention last week after a federal judge’s ruling. The Trump administration had accused him of supporting Hamas in social media posts. “Speech regarding the conflict there and opposing Israel’s military campaign is likely protected political speech,” Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said in her ruling. “The First Amendment does not distinguish between citizens and noncitizens.”
A federal judge in Washington last week ruled that the Trump Justice Department likely engaged in unconstitutional retaliation when it cut off grants to American Bar Association programs assisting victims of domestic violence. Judge Christopher Cooper temporarily blocked the cancellation of a $3.2 million grant, which came a day after a DOJ memo singling out the ABA for “support of activist causes”.
The New York Times reported that “An effort by the Trump administration to arrest undocumented migrants for trespassing on a newly declared ‘national defense’ zone along New Mexico’s border with Mexico may be unraveling after a federal judge this week began dismissing charges against nearly 100 migrants arrested under the new tactic.”
The watchdog group American Oversight on Monday filed suit against the Trump administration for unlawfully withholding records related to its attempt to direct the IRS to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status.
Lambda Legal, the LGBTQ rights organization, has filed a federal lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health over the termination of hundreds of research grants that funded essential research addressing the health of sexual and gender minorities, including HIV research.
Mark Your Calendars
On Thursday, from noon to 1 p.m. ET, the American Federation of Government Employees is holding a public rally outside the Department of Health and Human Services headquarters, to call attention to the devastating cuts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a little-known agency whose mission is to protect workers from injuries and occupational diseases.
Every Thursday from 3 to 4 pm ET, Indivisible co-directors Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg hold a “What’s the Plan?” mass Zoom meeting.
On Thursday at 4 p.m. ET, the ACLU and Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) are holding a virtual town hall to discuss “the critical role of the courts in checking executive overreach, the power of collective action, and the path forward in the face of a second Trump administration.”
On Thursday, from 5 to 6:30 pm ET, Public Citizen will hold a rally outside the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., to protest the president’s unprecedented ethics violations and corruption techniques. Inside, Trump will be hosting a dinner with the top buyers of his $TRUMP meme coin. Those buyers – most of them non-American -- spent an estimated $148 million to win the opportunity to dine with the president.
On Thursday, from 6 to 8 pm ET, Moveon is organizing targeted phone banks to reach constituents in key Republican districts, to urge them to tell their representatives not to support the Republican budget package that hurts the poor at the expense of the ultrarich.
Here's a list of other events near you in the coming week.
Two big upcoming rallies: the Unite for Veterans, Unite for America Rally on June 6 on the National Mall; and the nationwide “No Kings” protest to counter Trump’s planned military parade on June 14.
Odds and Ends
The backlash against Target for abandoning its diversity, equity and inclusion programs is hurting its bottom line, the Washington Post reports. “[U]nlike Walmart and other competitors, Target has seen traffic to its stores fall since activists, Black civil rights figures and faith leaders began an ‘economic blackout’ in late February.”
The Spencer Foundation has developed a “rapid response bridge grant opportunity” for scholars and teams whose grants have recently been cancelled by the National Science Foundation.
Fast Company has an article about how “For people who want to wear their opposition to President Donald Trump on their sleeve without being too conspicuous, there’s the subtle anti-Trump world of Etsy.”
The annual Oaklash festival was held in Oakland over the weekend. It’s a three-day celebration of drag and the LGBTQ community. Need a spiritual cleanse? Here’s a photo essay.