A federal judge ruled that the mass termination of grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities that were supposedly related to “diversity, equity and inclusion” violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment because it targeted grants based on the viewpoints they expressed. The judge used additional rationales to enjoin the government from additional
Government Speech Doctrine Cases
The issue of censorship usually involves First Amendment protections for freedom of speech and press. However, as Federalists once argued, the entire Constitution was intended to protect fundamental rights through such mechanisms as the division of national powers among three distinct branches of government (separation of powers) and between local, state, and national authorities (federalism). Although
This case deals with the right of public libraries to withdraw books from circulation. The case arose when seven library patrons sued the librarian and other officials for removing 17 books from the Llano County, Texas, public library, guided in part by a list of offensive books that a state legislator had identified. Relying in
In National Rifle Association v. Vullo, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the National Rifle Association (NRA) stated a plausible First Amendment claim when it alleged that Mario Vullo, the superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, pressured insurance companies and executives to cease dealing with the NRA or face governmental scrutiny.
Will Rosenzweig is an attorney who had been working for just over five years as a U.S. prosecutor for the Southern District of Florida. On Sept. 23, 2025, he was fired from his job without explanation. This occurred approximately three hours after an online right-wing blogger named Natalie Winters (who later took credit for bringing him