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The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Mahmoud Khalil, free speech rights and the legal battle ahead
Farbiarz said on June 20 that there was no evidence that Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, would be a flight risk or danger to the community if he was released. The administration has cited a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 in its effort to deport Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who was born in Syria. The clause allows the secretary of state to remove individuals from the country if they have reason to believe the person's actions or presence undermines foreign policy interests. Earlier in June, Farbiarz said the application of the provision to Khalil's case violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Trump has referred to Khalil as a "radical, foreign, pro-Hamas student." Khalil's lawyers have said there is no evidence he supports the organization, which the federal government has long designated as a terror group. David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech, said he doesn't think international students or visa holders should "take any comfort from (Khalil's release) at all." While Khalil's case garnered publicity and resources for his defense, Keating said that may not be the case for others if the Trump administration targets student protesters at a larger scale. The administration's actions thus far stand to have a "pretty stark" chilling effect on students, he said, adding that they may prompt some to reconsider their plans to study in the U.S. "I think we're sending a really bad lesson about freedoms in America," Keating said. "We should be a beacon of freedom to the world, and I think one way to do that is to let even temporary visitors express their political views." White House says Khalil's case is 'not about free speech' The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) similarly believes the "fight for free speech is far from over," according to FIRE attorney Conor Fitzpatrick. The organization filed an amicus brief in support of Khalil that said Secretary of State Marco Rubio having the authority to deport non-citizens based on his sole assessment "places free expression in mortal peril." Farbiarz ruled against granting Rubio such authority earlier in June, saying that the government's actions were chilling Khalil's right to free speech and negatively impacting his career and reputation, which "adds up to irreparable harm." White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told USA TODAY that Khalil's case was "not about 'free speech.'" "This is about individuals who don't have a right to be in the United States siding with Hamas terrorists and organizing group protests that made college campuses unsafe and harassed Jewish students," Jackson said, adding that the administration "expect(s) to be vindicated on appeal" and "look(s) forward to removing Khalil from the United States." While Fitzpatrick said individuals who disagree with the administration's stance and actions toward Khalil can write to Congress or attend rallies to make their voices heard, the fate of student protesters like Khalil ultimately lies in judges' hands. "Realistically, a lot of this is going to have to be resolved in the courts," he said. "There's only so much activism can do on that front." ACLU lawyer says Khalil's case has 'McCarthyite overtones' The American Civil Liberties Union, which is part of Khalil's legal counsel, was "overjoyed" by his release, but the organization said its celebration is tempered by the reality of the long legal road ahead. "I'd say this is a victory in a critically important battle, but it's a long war and we intend to fight it all the way through," ACLU attorney Brian Hauss told USA TODAY. Hauss noted that the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed noncitizens' right to First Amendment protections in 1945's Bridges v. Wixon decision. The case surrounded the government's attempt to deport a man based on his alleged affiliation with the Communist Party. There are "similar McCarthyite overtones" in Khalil's case, Hauss said, referencing the senator who spearheaded the government's anticommunist crusade. While it's "certainly possible" that a deportation case involving student protesters could end up at the Supreme Court, which has reversed long-standing rulings such as Roe v. Wade in recent years, Hauss said he's optimistic the court would rule in their favor given its rulings upholding the First Amendment in recent years. "For the Supreme Court to step back from those freedoms would be truly surprising, and I hope I'm not surprised," he said. Another high-profile case related to Khalil's surrounds Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested in Boston in March after writing a pro-Palestinian opinion article that criticized the school's response to the Israel-Gaza war in its student newspaper. A federal judge in Vermont ordered Ozturk to be released in May. Contributing: Hannan Adely and Michael Loria BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at USA TODAY. Reach her at bjfrank@ USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Woman sues Keararge board, saying rights violated during trans-athlete debate
Attorneys for a Nashua woman filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday claiming her First Amendment rights were violated when she was 'silenced and threatened with police intervention' after referring to a biologically male athlete on a girls soccer team as a 'tall boy' during a Kearsarge Regional School Board meeting last summer. Attorneys from the Institute for Free Speech, along with local counsel Roy S. McCandless, say Beth Scaer attended the Aug. 29, 2024, meeting to speak out against transgender athletes in girls high school sports, after members of the Kearsarge Regional School Board announced that it would revisit its decision to enforce House Bill 1205, a state law that limited participation in interscholastic girls sports to biological females. Free Speech Complaint The Kearsarge Regional School District is based in New London. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Concord, claims Kearsarge board members silenced Scaer 'just seconds' into her remarks, with board Chair Alison Mastin declaring Scaer's speaking time forfeited, and warning her that police would intervene if she continued speaking and threatening to have the police remove her for violating an unwritten policy against 'derogatory comments' for referring to a biologically male athlete on the girls' soccer team as a 'tall boy." While Scaer was speaking, many attendees in the meeting room "jeered, and hissed to express their opposition to her comments," the lawsuit claims. "Some audience members applauded Mastin for interrupting Beth and cutting her off early," the lawsuit says. "Scaer attempted to protest Mastin's silencing her, but — due to the jeers, hissing, and applause — it was difficult to hear Scaer. Mastin and the school board made no attempt to quiet the crowd so that Scaer's comments could be heard." The lawsuit claims other speakers were given a full three minutes to express support for the transgender athlete by name, with one attendee displaying a sign with the athlete's name on it — which the board allowed. The lawsuit claims the board's actions are unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment. The suit also argues that the unwritten 'no derogatory comments' rule is unreasonable, vague, overbroad, and selectively enforced against disfavored viewpoints. 'School boards cannot invent speech rules on the fly to silence citizens expressing views they dislike,' Institute for Free Speech attorney Nathan Ristuccia said. 'This unwritten rule about 'derogatory' comments gives the board unchecked power to determine which speech is acceptable and which isn't — precisely what the First Amendment prohibits." The Kearsarge meeting featured a heated debate over the state's Fairness in Women's Sports Act, a law reserving girls sports for biological females. The district had previously voted to follow the law, but following the incident with Scaer, the Kearsarge board reversed course, voting 5-1 to allow the transgender athlete to compete on the girls soccer team. 'Everyone deserves an equal opportunity to address their elected officials without fear of censorship,' Scaer said. 'This case is about ensuring that all citizens — regardless of their viewpoint — can participate in public meetings and comment on issues that are important to the community.' The lawsuit seeks to enjoin enforcement of the 'no derogatory comments' rule, prevent discrimination against speech based on viewpoint, and establish that Scaer's First Amendment rights were violated. Scaer's attorneys also say the lawsuit aims to ensure that Scaer, and others, can speak freely at future board meetings without fear of censorship, retaliation, or removal simply for expressing controversial or dissenting views. A request for comment from Kearsarge school officials was not immediately answered. In a separate lawsuit filed last year, Beth Scaer and her husband, Stephen, claimed their free speech rights were violated after they applied to fly two different flags, a pro-life flag and a Pine Tree flag on flagpoles at City Hall Plaza in Nashua. A federal judge ruled Nashua officials didn't violate the couple's First Amendment rights when they rejected their application, denying their request for a preliminary injunction. The Scaers are appealing that decision. pfeely@
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge denies request for preliminary injunction for parents in Bow pink wristband lawsuit
A federal judge has denied a request for a preliminary injunction from parents involved in a First Amendment lawsuit against the Bow School District for the district's prohibiting them from wearing pink armbands with "XX" on them at sporting events to protest transgender athletes playing girls sports. Attorneys from the Institute for Free Speech and attorney Richard J. Lehmann filed the lawsuit in September in U.S. District Court in Concord on behalf of Kyle Fellers, Anthony 'Andy' Foote, Nicole Foote and Eldon Rash, who claim their rights were violated when they were barred from school grounds following a silent protest of a transgender athlete playing in a girls soccer game in September. The suit names Bow school administrators, including Superintendent Marcy Kelley, Principal Matt Fisk and Athletic Director Mike Desilets. NHIAA soccer referee Steve Rossetti was originally included in the suit, but both sides agreed to dismiss him from the matter. A two-day hearing on the complaint was held in November before Judge Steven McAuliffe. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants violated the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights by banning them from school grounds and events for wearing pink wristbands with 'XX' symbols — a reference to the female chromosome structure — as a form of silent protest during a Bow High School girls soccer game against Plymouth on Sept. 17. According to court filings, the plaintiffs wore the wristbands in protest of a policy allowing transgender athlete Parker Tirrell, identified in court paperwork as a 'biological male,' to play on the Plymouth girls team. On Monday, Judge McAuliffe issued a ruling denying the request for a preliminary injunction. 'This case presents an increasingly common, and commonly difficult constitutional problem: When may public school authorities limit symbolic speech during school athletic contests to protect students from perceived harm?' McAuliffe wrote. 'When protected rights clash, as they do here — when opposing sides each have a point, but compromise proves elusive — courts must strike the balance and explain why, under the particular circumstances presented, the law directs that one right must give way to another.' Attorney Endel Kolde of the Institute for Free Speech said he and his clients 'strongly disagree' with the court's opinion. 'This was adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys greater First Amendment protection than student speech in the classroom,' Kolde said in an email. 'Bow School District officials were obviously discriminating based on viewpoint because they perceived the XX wristbands to be 'trans-exclusionary.' We are still evaluating our options for next steps." A new state law banning transgender girls from playing girls school sports in grades 5-12 is facing a lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional. In his ruling, McAuliffe wrote the First Amendment means that government has 'no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.' 'However, this principle, like other First Amendment principles, is not absolute,' McAuliffe wrote. '(T)he First Amendment does not guarantee the right to communicate one's views at all times and places or in any manner that may be desired.' McAuliffe pointed out the plaintiffs argued the Bow School District could not 'reasonably conclude that their symbolic wristbands communicated a message demeaning the gender identities of transgender students in general or Parker Tirrell in particular,' or was specifically aimed at Tirrell. 'The court disagrees,' McAuliffe wrote. 'The School District understood that in the broad context of opposition to transgender girls' participation in girls' sports, the symbolic message included a demeaning and harassing assertion — an assertion of inauthenticity, falsity and nonexistence with respect to some students' core and immutable characteristics. 'And, it seems evident that had the symbols been worn by students in school or during school activities, they could be barred as reasonably interpreted in context to convey a harassing, demeaning message likely to have a serious negative psychological impact on students who identify as transgender.' McAuliffe admitted plaintiffs said they did not mean to 'target' or harass Parker Tirrell during the soccer match, but simply oppose transgender girls playing on girls' sports teams, based upon reasonable concerns related to unfair competition, risk of injury, and lost opportunities for their daughters. 'Plaintiffs also correctly point out that many people agree with their position (witness the New Hampshire legislation barring transgender participation) or at least agree that some system that is capable of allowing transgender participation but also mitigates the risk of injury and potential physical dominance should be developed,' McAuliffe wrote. 'Context is everything. The evidence of record amply supports the school district's view that the XX symbol on a pink background is well known among those interested in the transgender sports issue, and it is associated with other meanings that are far more offensive than those ascribed by plaintiffs. 'The message generally ascribed to the XX symbol, in a context such as that presented here, can reasonably be understood as directly assaulting those who identify as transgender women.'
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge rules against dads who wore pink wristbands to protest trans high school athletes
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Two fathers who oppose allowing transgender athletes to play high school sports won't be allowed to wear pink wristbands marked 'XX' to games while their lawsuit against the school district continues, a federal judge ruled Monday. Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote were banned from school grounds in Bow after wearing the wristbands to a soccer game in September that included a transgender girl on the opposing team. They later sued the school district, and while the no-trespass orders have since expired, they asked the judge to allow them to carry signs and wear the wristbands featuring the symbol for female chromosomes at school events while the case proceeds. Both men testified at a hearing in November that they didn't intend to harass or otherwise target transgender athlete Parker Tirrell, and their attorneys argued they did nothing more than silently express their support for reserving girls' sports for those assigned female at birth. But in denying their motion Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe said the parents' 'narrow, plausibly inoffensive' intentions weren't as important as the wider context, and that adults attending a high school athletic event do not enjoy a First Amendment protected right to convey messages that demean, harass or harm students. "While plaintiffs may very well have never intended to communicate a demeaning or harassing message directed at Parker Tirrell or any other transgender students, the symbols and posters they displayed were fully capable of conveying such a message," he wrote. 'And, that broader messaging is what the school authorities reasonably understood and appropriately tried to prevent.' School officials described receiving strongly-worded emails from Foote in which he called himself a 'real leader' who was prepared to take action and seeing his social media posts urging others to attend the game. In the days leading up to the game, another parent told school officials she overheard others talk about showing up to the game wearing dresses and heckling Tirrell. 'This was organized and targeted,' Superintendent Marcy Kelley said. Brian Cullen, an attorney for the school district, said Monday he was pleased with what he called a well-reasoned ruling that affirms that school districts can and should protect students from harassment from adults on school grounds. And he noted that the ruling doesn't prevent the plaintiffs from expressing their views in other ways. 'It simply prevents them from bringing their protest to the sidelines of a game being played by kids. That should not be a controversial limitation,' he said. Del Kolde, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he strongly disagrees with the ruling. 'This was adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys greater First Amendment protection than student speech in the classroom,' said Kolde, senior attorney for the Institute for Free Speech. 'Bow School District officials were obviously discriminating based on viewpoint because they perceived the XX wristbands to be 'trans-exclusionary.'' After the ruling was issued, the plaintiffs filed a notice saying they do not intend to enter more evidence before the judge makes a final decision. Meanwhile, Tirrell and another student athlete are challenging the state law that bans transgender athletes in grades 5 to 12 from teams that align with their gender identity, as well as President Donald Trump's Feb. 5 executive order, 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports.' A federal judge ruled in their case that they can play sports during the ongoing lawsuit that seeks to overturn the law.
Associated Press
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Judge rules against dads who wore pink wristbands to protest trans high school athletes
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Two fathers who oppose allowing transgender athletes to play high school sports won't be allowed to wear pink wristbands marked 'XX' to games while their lawsuit against the school district continues, a federal judge ruled Monday. Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote were banned from school grounds in Bow after wearing the wristbands to a soccer game in September that included a transgender girl on the opposing team. They later sued the school district, and while the no-trespass orders have since expired, they asked the judge to allow them to carry signs and wear the wristbands featuring the symbol for female chromosomes at school events while the case proceeds. Both men testified at a hearing in November that they didn't intend to harass or otherwise target transgender athlete Parker Tirrell, and their attorneys argued they did nothing more than silently express their support for reserving girls' sports for those assigned female at birth. But in denying their motion Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe said the parents' 'narrow, plausibly inoffensive' intentions weren't as important as the wider context, and that adults attending a high school athletic event do not enjoy a First Amendment protected right to convey messages that demean, harass or harm students. 'While plaintiffs may very well have never intended to communicate a demeaning or harassing message directed at Parker Tirrell or any other transgender students, the symbols and posters they displayed were fully capable of conveying such a message,' he wrote. 'And, that broader messaging is what the school authorities reasonably understood and appropriately tried to prevent.' School officials described receiving strongly-worded emails from Foote in which he called himself a 'real leader' who was prepared to take action and seeing his social media posts urging others to attend the game. In the days leading up to the game, another parent told school officials she overheard others talk about showing up to the game wearing dresses and heckling Tirrell. 'This was organized and targeted,' Superintendent Marcy Kelley said. Brian Cullen, an attorney for the school district, said Monday he was pleased with what he called a well-reasoned ruling that affirms that school districts can and should protect students from harassment from adults on school grounds. And he noted that the ruling doesn't prevent the plaintiffs from expressing their views in other ways. 'It simply prevents them from bringing their protest to the sidelines of a game being played by kids. That should not be a controversial limitation,' he said. Del Kolde, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he strongly disagrees with the ruling. 'This was adult speech in a limited public forum, which enjoys greater First Amendment protection than student speech in the classroom,' said Kolde, senior attorney for the Institute for Free Speech. 'Bow School District officials were obviously discriminating based on viewpoint because they perceived the XX wristbands to be 'trans-exclusionary.'' After the ruling was issued, the plaintiffs filed a notice saying they do not intend to enter more evidence before the judge makes a final decision. Meanwhile, Tirrell and another student athlete are challenging the state law that bans transgender athletes in grades 5 to 12 from teams that align with their gender identity, as well as President Donald Trump's Feb. 5 executive order, 'Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports.' A federal judge ruled in their case that they can play sports during the ongoing lawsuit that seeks to overturn the law.
