Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell joined 19 other state attorneys general Oct. 15 in filing a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Stanford University’s student newspaper.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued the Trump administration in August on behalf of The Stanford Daily, Stanford’s independent student newspaper. The lawsuit claims the government is unfairly punishing noncitizens who express political beliefs against the administration.
“No student, regardless of immigration status, should live in fear of deportation or retaliation by the federal government simply for expressing an opposing political view or belief,” Campbell said in a statement Oct. 15. “I will continue to defend the Constitution and the rights of our international students and faculty who contribute to Massachusetts’ culture, economy, and global competitiveness.”
The amicus brief cites two executive orders as a basis for what the attorney generals call the “Ideological Deportation Policy.” They claim the policy unfairly targeted noncitizen students who expressed pro-Palestinian and anti-administration beliefs, therefore going against their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.
“The policy is antithetical to the principle of free expression that is supposed to define American higher education,” the brief says. “It creates a pernicious dynamic whereby noncitizens may self-censor for fear of losing their immigration status, and campus community members are thereby deprived of hearing their voices.”
The Stanford Daily’s lawsuit, filed against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, claims writers for student newspapers are especially vulnerable to the policy. Noncitizen writers have reportedly self-censored when reporting on the Israel-Palestine conflict, fearing potential punishment from the administration. The lawsuit also cited the cases of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, two students who expressed opinions about the Israel-Palestine conflict and were later detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“The Secretary of State and the President claim to possess unreviewable statutory authority to deport any lawfully present noncitizen for speech the government deems anti-American or anti-Israel,” the lawsuit says. “They are wrong.”
Rubio released a statement in April claiming noncitizens or visa holders cannot use the First Amendment to “support designated foreign terrorist organizations.” However, the lawsuit cites other cases in which the Supreme Court ruled in support of noncitizens’ free speech. In a 1945 case, Bridges v. Wixon, the Supreme Court held that “freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country.” In the 1989 case Texas v. Johnson, the court held that “the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”
In September, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled in favor of the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association on the same ideological deportation policy. Judge William G. Young wrote a scathing opinion finding that noncitizens have the same First Amendment rights as citizens, and that those rights are violated by the administration’s policies.
“Secretaries Noem and Rubio and their several agents and subordinates acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target noncitizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech,” Young wrote. “We are not, and we must not become, a nation that imprisons and deports people because we are afraid of what they have to tell us.”
The Mass Media wrote in an Oct. 17 press release that it joined the Student Press Law Center and 54 other outlets in an amicus brief in support of The Stanford Daily.
“Since April, we have received an unprecedented number of phone calls and emails from former contributors, in some cases audibly crying, asking us to take down their work or remove their names because they are afraid they will be subject to government retribution for the constitutionally protected reporting and opinions they published,” said Joshua Levin, the managing editor of the Mass Media. “We are compelled to act to prevent that imminent harm despite the irreparable damage it does to the historical record and to decades of future student journalists and historians. We are proud to join the SPLC and our colleagues across the country in urging the court to right this wrong.”
“We have seen firsthand the culture of fear that threats of visa revocation, deportation, and worse have created on our campus,” said Elijah Horwath, the editor in chief of the Mass Media. “It’s our duty as not just journalists, but as members of the university, to make a stand.”
