First Amendment
18 briefs
The FCC vs. The View, and the Broadcast License as a Weapon
The Trump FCC is using a 1934 equal-time rule to investigate a talk show, threatening licenses and rewriting 20-year-old precedents. ABC is fighting back. The stakes are whether the government can police broadcast content through regulatory intimidation.
Judge Calls DOGE's NEH Grant Cuts 'Blatant.' Trump Will Ignore Her.
A federal judge ruled 1,400 humanities grants were canceled unconstitutionally by DOGE staffers who used ChatGPT and DEI keywords to slash $100 million in congressionally appropriated funds. The ruling will almost certainly not stick.
Northwestern Pays $75 Million. Harvard's Judge Says Antisemitism Was a Smokescreen.
Two universities, two opposite outcomes, same week. One court finds the funding freeze was political coercion. One university pays $75 million to end the investigation.
The DOJ Charges Comey Over a Seashell Photo
The second indictment of a former FBI director for a beach photo is either the most embarrassing prosecution in modern history, or a warning shot designed to be dismissed.
The FCC Opens a License Review Over a Late-Night Joke
The White House wants Jimmy Kimmel fired. The FCC is helping. Neither will succeed, and that may be the point.
The Regulator as Weapon
The FCC is threatening to challenge ABC's broadcast licenses because a comedian made a joke the president disliked. The licensing process has never been used this way. That is the point.
The Federal Government Just Declared War on State AI Regulation, and Colorado Folded Before the Battle Started
The DOJ joined xAI's lawsuit against Colorado's AI antidiscrimination law the same afternoon Colorado's AG agreed to stop enforcing it. No court ordered the freeze. The legislature has 16 days to pass a replacement. The AI Litigation Task Force is just getting started.
The Federal Government Just Told States They Cannot Regulate AI Bias
The DOJ's decision to join xAI's suit against Colorado isn't about Musk. It's a constitutional claim that anti-discrimination mandates in AI are themselves unconstitutional discrimination.
Trump Signed an Order Telling the Post Office How to Handle Ballots. The Post Office Answers to a Board That Answers to Nobody.
The March 31 executive order requires the postmaster general to regulate mail voting. Federal law explicitly prohibits presidential control of the mail. Both things are true at once.
The Fifth Circuit Just Told Texas It Can Post the Ten Commandments in Every Public School. The Supreme Court Has to Take This.
A 9-8 ruling by the most conservative federal appeals circuit reversed a lower court injunction and greenlit Texas Senate Bill 10. ACLU is appealing. Louisiana and Arkansas have similar laws waiting.
A Federal Judge Blocked Arkansas's Social Media Age Law. This Is the Third Time.
NetChoice keeps winning in court. States keep passing new versions of the same law. Neither side is trying to resolve the constitutional question. They are trying to outlast each other.
SCOTUS Takes Up a Case That Could Let Religious Schools Exclude LGBTQ Families and Still Take Public Money
The Catholic preschool case is not about preschools. It is about whether publicly funded institutions can use religious identity to opt out of nondiscrimination requirements.
The Government That Made Apple Delete Its Own Critics
A federal judge found the Trump administration coerced Facebook and Apple into removing ICE-tracking tools, ruling it a First Amendment violation.
The FTC Is Doing to NewsGuard What Rhode Island Did to Comic Books in 1956.
Courts have repeatedly ruled that government pressure on private intermediaries to suppress speech is unconstitutional. The Trump administration is doing it anyway, from a different direction.
Two Parties, Two Theories of What AI Is
Both parties want to regulate AI, but they disagree on whether the problem is the technology itself or what people do with it, and that gap cannot be bridged.
The Government That Pressed the Mute Button
The DOJ settled a lawsuit confirming the Biden State Department funded tools to suppress protected speech on social media. The settlement admits more than it resolves.
The Pentagon Keeps Losing in Court and Keeps Not Caring
Judge Friedman found the Defense Department in contempt for evading his press access ruling. The administration's plan is not to comply. It is to appeal.
xAI Is Arguing That Math Is Speech. If It Wins, AI Becomes Constitutionally Unregulateable.
The claim that a language model's probability distributions are protected expression under the First Amendment would create a constitutional black box around every AI system in America.