House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is opening investigations into a reported flurry of political actions taken by President Joe Biden's lame-duck Department of Justice.
Jordan did an interview with Just The News on Friday and he raised the alarm about Biden's DOJ going wild with the limited time they have left before President-elect Donald Trump comes through to clean house.
One example that Jordan pointed out was the DOJ's targeting of Elon Musk and his companies after his overt support for Donald Trump’s campaign.
In fact, Biden's DOJ may have broken the law by sending a letter to Musk that essentially amounted to a threat from a federal agency against someone who was campaigning on behalf of a presidential candidate.
There are numerous other accusations of abusive antitrust inquiries as examples of potentially abusive DOJ behavior that may be the last gasp of the Biden administration to punish their political opponents.
Biden's DOJ has engaged in thuggery and intimidation against red states and conservatives for years but now they only have a couple of months before Trump is sworn into office and it will be game over for nearly everyone working there.
Jordan told JTN that, "This pattern of turning these agencies on the very people they're supposed to serve -- we the people, the taxpayers -- has been a concern from the get-go. We're concerned now with what they may be doing with the antitrust issue, going after companies as they're heading out the door."
Biden's DOJ was busy trying to stop Republican states from combating voter fraud and most notably tried to prevent non-citizens from being purged from voter rolls.
Jordan touched on this saying, "Of course, right prior to the elections, we saw the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department going after Virginia for simply keeping noncitizens from voting in our elections. Imagine that we got the same thing in Ohio, our Secretary of State was sent a letter three weeks before Election Day saying they were concerned about the good work he was doing. So we're always concerned about this. We're going to keep working.”
Jordan also wrote a letter to Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter warning him and the rest of Biden's DOJ that there political actions in the wake of the presidential election were inappropriate and would be punished.
Jordan stated, "We have received allegations that the Division sent demand letters to numerous businesses indicating an intention to start enforcement actions in the final days of the Biden-Harris Administration. With the American people clearly rejecting the failed policies of the Biden-Harris Administration, the Division's actions are inappropriate and inconsistent with the will of the American people."
With Trump making his return to the White House, federal agencies will be purged of leftists and other anti-American individuals who have targeted conservatives. Former Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) will be leading that effort.
Trump nominated Gaetz, who promptly resigned from his position in Congress, this past week and the announcement has already incited panic among both Democrats and establishment Republicans.
Gaetz himself has been hounded by Biden's DOJ and has a personal stake in clearing out leftists that used the Justice Department's power to target a political opponent.
Conservatives have been living in fear of Biden's DOJ for years and now that will be coming to an end. The leftists who corrupted our law enforcement systems for political gain will finally be held accountable for their actions.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Racism has become a popular agenda in America in recent years: There's the ultimate racism of Critical Race Theory agendas being taught in some schools, which states that all America is racist and the solution is more racism.
The "diversity" and "equity" agenda likewise has racist overtones.
But the blatant racism in a state program in Tennessee apparently is too much, and has drawn a lawsuit.
It is the Do No Harm association, a group of medical professions, who have filed, with the help of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a lawsuit over the state's use of race in making appointments to state boards and commissions.
"State medical boards are given important responsibilities to oversee the quality of care in their state and the safety of patients," explained Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb. "It is crucial that they be the most qualified physicians available. Like all aspects of healthcare, patient safety and patient concerns should be primary, not the skin color or the racial makeup of any oversight committee."
The problem is that Tennessee medical practitioners are under the purview of the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners and its chiropractors are under the state's Board of Chiropractic Examiners.
"A state requirement for membership on both boards, however, has nothing to do with medicine or chiropractic care, and everything to do with race. Three separate state laws force the governor to consider race when deciding who can serve on these boards," the legal team explained.
"Tennessee law forces governor after governor to engage in racial discrimination when making appointments to state boards and commissions," said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Caleb Trotter. "Using race to make appointments to government boards is not only demeaning and unconstitutional, but it undermines the distinctive spirit of the Volunteer State by precluding opportunities for Tennesseans to serve their local communities."
The case also challenges racial quotas for Tennessee's Board of Podiatric Medical Examiners.
The foundation explains that it already had reported that more than two dozen states actually have in their laws similar unconstitutional discrimination.
The complaint, in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, in Nashville, explains state law "requires the governor to prefer some potential board members over others solely on account of their race when making appointments to the Boards. Such blatant racial discrimination against individuals who could sit on Tennessee's Chiropractic Board or Medical Board serves no legitimate government purpose. It is demeaning, patronizing, un-American, and unconstitutional."
It explains the dilemma facing the state right now:
There is currently one opening on the Chiropractic Board for a licensed chiropractor. That seat became available on May 1, 2024, and currently has a holdover until a successor is appointed by the Governor and qualifies. The Chiropractic Board's other six members are all Caucasian. Thus, the Governor must consider a potential board member's race as a factor in making his appointment decision. Specifically, when considering who to appoint to the Chiropractic Board that is currently composed only of Caucasian members, the Governor must give preference to candidates who are a racial minority. In addition to the current vacancy, the Chiropractic Board is scheduled to have vacancies open for licensed chiropractors on May 1 of 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028.
It cites violations of the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution, and it seeks an injunction prohibiting the enforcement of the racial quotas.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
The state of Texas, like the rest of America, is confronted now with an exploding mental health and substance abuse crisis, with what has been called a "dire shortage" of professional social workers to help people cope.
So it banned two workers, grandmothers with master's degrees, from the industry, because they'd been involved in assault cases years ago when they both were fighting substance abuse problems.
And the state is getting sued over its restrictions.
It is the Institute for Justice that has sued the state on behalf of Katherin Youniacutt and Tammy Thompson, saying they should not be punished permanently for past mistakes during troubled times from which they have fled.
It is the Texas Constitution that protects Texans' right to earn an honest living in an occupation of their choosing without unreasonable government interference, and a state ban on them pursuing social work that appears to conflict.
"No one should be permanently barred from a job because of irrelevant criminal convictions," said IJ lawyer James Knight. "Katherin and Tammy made mistakes and paid for them. Permanently punishing them doesn't protect the public. It just makes it harder for people to pull themselves up and provide for their families. That's unconstitutional."
The substance abuse issues and related problems all came about more than a decade ago.
The institute said they have "turned their lives around and want to help people who have faced similar problems."
The lawyers noted it is a 2019 law adopted in the state that "permanently bars people with an assault conviction from obtaining a social work license," and that has destroyed plans by the two for helping people after the two worked on their dreams.
"Previously, the board in charge of licensing had the discretion to award licenses to those with convictions based on evidence presented to them. Now, its hands are tied, and even people like Katherin and Tammy with over a decade of good behavior and years of training must be categorically denied without a hearing," the IJ explained.
Youniacutt explained, "All I want is to help people so they won't make the same mistakes I did. Texas isn't just punishing me, it's punishing all the people I could be helping right now."
Thompson, in a statement released by her lawyers, said, "I've spent decades turning my life around and years preparing for the chance to work as a social worker. People should be able to prove they've moved on, but in Texas, the past is all that seems to matter."
The IJ said its work includes fighting those "permanent punishment laws" across the nation, and it already has handled battles in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Maryland.
A federal judge overseeing the exonerated Central Park Five’s defamation lawsuit against President-elect Trump has recused himself after it was discovered he had close ties to the plaintiff's lead attorney.
The Hill reported that U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson was asked to recuse himself by Trump's lawyers after it was discovered that Baylson and Shanin Specter, the Central Park Five’s lead attorney, had close ties.
Baylson and Specter have been friends since childhood and Specter had represented Baylson and his wife in legal matters.
This represented a serious conflict of interest and Baylson could not be trusted to function as an impartial judge in this matter and as such has recused himself from the case.
This led to a motion from Trump's attorney which read, "Defendant respectfully submits that a reasonable person would question the Court’s impartiality in this matter, and therefore seeks recusal."
Baylson, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, quickly stepped aside but interestingly he first consulted plaintiffs who declined to oppose his recusal.
This begs the question of what Baylson would have done if the plaintiffs had opposed his recusal. Would Judge Baylson have stayed on the case despite his close relationship with his plaintiff's lead attorney if the plaintiffs wanted him to?
However, thankfully this situation was avoided and the case will be assigned to a different judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The case was filed against Trump by the Central Park 5 in response to comments made by Trump during September’s presidential debate about the circumstances around the group’s wrongful conviction.
The Central Park 5 were found guilty of the 1989 rape and assault of a woman jogging in New York City’s Central Park in a case that shocked America for its brutality and violence.
Their conviction was overturned later but the circumstances around both their overturned conviction and the original case are still being debated. Trump pointed out how all five teens had "pled guilty” and they “killed a person ultimately” in a brutal rape.
Trump has long been vocal about the Central Park 5 and believes their conviction was wrongfully overturned thanks to political reasons. Now the Central Park 5 are doing their best to drag Trump into court on defamation charges.
The Central Park 5 are going to have serious issues dragging Trump into court now that he is the President-elect and will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States in January.
Like the other legal actions against Trump, his ascendency to the presidency all but crushes any hopes that his opponents had. Democrats launched multiple indictments against Trump all of which are in the process of winding down now that Trump is back in the White House.
Nonetheless, as the Central Park 5's case is a civil lawsuit not brought by the Department of Justice, this case could carry on for a while but is unlikely to be of consequence.
As he faces the end of his one-term presidency, Joe Biden is coming under pressure to issue a mass pardon for death row inmates - before President-elect Donald Trump has the chance to serve justice.
Left-wing groups are calling on Biden to commute the sentences of all 40 federal inmates facing execution, including terrorists like the Boston Bomber, The Daily Caller reported.
President-elect Trump ended his first term with the largest spree of executions in a century, before Biden reversed course and placed a moratorium on the practice in 2021.
There have been far more executions by the states than by the U.S. government, which has carried out just 50 death sentences since 1927.
Known for his "law and order" approach to criminal justice, Trump has proposed adding the death penalty for new categories of criminals including migrants who murder U.S. citizens - and he can be expected to quickly resume executions of death row inmates when he returns to power.
A coalition of left-wing and religious groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, has released a petition urging Biden to grant a mass pardon of those sentenced to death for horrific crimes. Some religious groups joined the call, including the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests, the Catholic Mobilizing Network and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.
“As you are aware, this abhorrent and outdated punishment raises profound concerns, including the arbitrariness of its application, its inherent racial bias, and the alarming rate of innocence among those sentenced to death,” the petition states.
The inmates include Neo-Nazi Dylan Roof, who gunned down black parishioners in Charleston in 2015, and Dhzokar Tsarnaev, who with his brother Tamerlan planted explosives that killed three, including a child, and injured hundreds at the Boston Marathon in 2013.
Despite promising to end the death penalty in 2020, Biden backed away from the campaign pledge during his presidency.
After Trump won re-election with a historic mandate from the people, some argue it would be inappropriate for Biden to extend a dramatic pardon at this stage.
"Joe Biden had four years to enact a mass executive clemency,” Manhattan Institute fellow Charles Fain Lehman told the Daily Caller.
“He did not do it. To do it on his way out would be preposterous. It would be particularly preposterous because it would mean giving executive clemency to people that every right thinking American agrees deserves to be put to death.”
While Biden spent most of his presidency being bullied by progressives, it looks like they aren't finished trying to use his time left in power to pursue a radical agenda.
Will Biden finally put his foot down and go out with some dignity?
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A parent's criticism of a school teacher's decision to spout anti-Semitic comments about Israel is protected by the Constitution as well as state law, a top-flight legal team is arguing in defense of the parent in a defamation claim by the teacher.
A report from the American Center and Law and Justice explained the fight is over comments by Michelle Bernstein, a parent in an Illinois school district, about the anti-Semitic claims from the local school theater director.
"Our Founders recognized the paramount importance of free speech and a free press when they enshrined those liberties in the First Amendment. They understood that unfettered debate on public issues is essential for self-governance and that the free exchange of ideas is the best antidote to the darkness of censorship and tyranny," the ACLJ explained in its report.
"Yet today we see troubling efforts to undermine these fundamental freedoms. Powerful interests, whether in government, business, or elsewhere, are increasingly turning to the courts in a cynical attempt to punish, bankrupt, and silence those who support Israel. By filing meritless lawsuits, they seek to exploit the time and expense of litigation to censor opposing viewpoints. This 'lawfare' tactic is a direct assault on the First Amendment. Instead of engaging in the arena of public debate, these bad actors weaponize the legal system to intimidate and oppress those who dare to challenge the status quo."
The ACLJ said the war erupted after the public employee posted a story on her personal Instagram account "that accused the Israeli military of 'crimes against humanity' and 'ethnic cleansing.'"
In response Bernstein, a parent in the district, learned about the post and commented on social media about what the play director said.
She "shared her opinion that these statements were 'slandering the IDF and Israel' and 'anti-Semitic.' In other words, Bernstein learned about this teacher's post, which was circulating the social media of the high school community and was disseminated to many students, and viewed the teacher's statements to be anti-Semitic, slanderous of Israel, and inappropriate for a public employee who is shaping the young minds of students."
The case then was brought by Britnee Kenyon, the play official.
"This case is not only important for defending free speech and stopping anti-Israel lawfare, but also for defending the right of parents to advocate for appropriate action in their local schools," the legal team said.
"Anti-Semitism is on the rise around the world. The problem is everywhere, from attacks on Jews in Amsterdam, where a mob attacked Jews with knives and bats, chasing them and shouting anti-Israel slogans, to college campuses that 'overwhelmingly failed' to address anti-Semitism on their campuses," explained the ACLJ.
The teacher brought state-law claims of defamation, false light, and tortious interference with contractual relations and the ACLJ confirmed it is defending Bernstein in federal court.
"First, our client is protected by the Illinois Citizen Participation Act (ICPA), which immunizes a citizen's acts in furtherance of the constitutional rights of speech, petition, and participation in government. Bernstein's statements on social media criticizing this post and urging the community to contact the school board fall squarely within the ICPA's protections. Further, Bernstein's statements were opinions, not statements of fact, and thus cannot be the basis for defamation liability under Illinois law," the legal team said.
Then, too, the "First Amendment bars Kenyon's claims. Bernstein's speech, which constitutes an opinion, is protected. The First Amendment prohibits liability for such expressions of opinion, even if they are 'harsh, critical, or even abusive.' Courts have routinely held that accusations of racism, fascism, or anti-Semitism are not actionable because they are inherently subjective and not provably false."
The lawyers wrote, "This case is an example of such lawfare: A lawsuit is being used as a tactic to try to stifle pro-Israeli speech."
Florida congressman Matt Gaetz (R) abruptly resigned Wednesday after being named President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Justice Department.
Gaetz, a Trump loyalist, is a controversial figure with a reputation for stirring up Washington.
Trump's nomination of Gaetz stunned D.C. and led to immediate pushback from establishment Republicans, raising questions about whether Gaetz has enough Senate support to be confirmed.
The MAGA firebrand has made few friends during his time in Washington, especially after his role in triggering the historic vote to remove former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Gaetz's resignation ends a House Ethics Committee investigation into alleged sexual misconduct. The same claims were at the heart of a years-long Justice Department probe that ended last year with no charges.
Members of both parties have called for the House Ethics committee to release its findings, anyway, although the panel no longer has jurisdiction to investigate a former lawmaker - ahead of what is certain to be a dramatic confirmation hearing.
McCarthy's successor, Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed Wednesday that Gaetz had resigned. Johnson said Gaetz did so to give enough time to appoint a temporary successor before the next Congress is sworn in.
"If you start the clock now, if you do the math, we may be able to fill that seat as early as Jan. 3 when we take the new oath of office for the new Congress,” Johnson said.
“He’s a reformer in his mind and heart, and I think he’ll bring a lot to the table on that,” Johnson added.
Trump has made it clear that he chose Gaetz to reform the "weaponized" Justice Department, which has spent years pursuing Trump and his supporters.
In his statement, Trump credited Gaetz with helping to neutralize the Trump-Russia collusion hoax "and exposing alarming and systemic Government Corruption and Weaponization."
“Few issues in America are more important than ending the partisan Weaponization of our Justice System. Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department,” he said.
Gaetz is one of several House Republicans to be nominated by Trump for a Cabinet position, raising concern that Trump's picks could jeopardize the party's narrow House majority.
However, Gaetz's district is seen as solidly Republican, so his resignation likely will not affect the balance of power.
The Supreme Court rejected the appeal of a January 6th defendant who challenged his conviction for “parading, picketing, and demonstrating” at the Capitol.
The misdemeanor charge is one of the most common in hundreds of January 6th cases. John Nassif, the defendant who filed the appeal, was sentenced to seven months in prison on four misdemeanor convictions, including parading and violent entry, the Washington Examiner reported.
Nassif's public defenders said he has a First Amendment right to demonstrate at the Capitol, but lower courts have disagreed.
According to Nassif's defenders, he was inside the Capitol briefly, for about 10 minutes, and he only entered an hour after the initial, violent breach of the building.
His defenders say the parading charge criminalizes First Amendment expression that bears no comparison to the violent conduct of some other January 6th defendants and is "in no way disruptive."
Lower courts, including the federal appeals court of D.C., have ruled that "The People's House" is not a forum for the public to air grievances with their government, despite what some may think.
“Nassif has not established that the Capitol buildings are, by policy or practice, generally open for use by members of the public to voice whatever concerns they may have — much less to use for protests, pickets, or demonstrations,” a three-judge panel of the appeals court said.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Nassif's appeal, sparing the DOJ a potentially massive setback in hundreds of cases. But it may be a temporary victory.
President-elect Donald Trump has often described the January 6th participants as "patriots" who have been treated unfairly, and he has promised to pardon many of them.
Hundreds of January 6th defendants have been charged with assaulting police, but many others did not spend much time inside the Capitol or otherwise remained peaceful.
"I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can't say for every single one because a couple of them, probably they got out of control," Trump said previously.
The Supreme Court rebuked the Justice Department earlier this year for its sweeping interpretation of a felony obstruction law that prosecutors used in hundreds of January 6th cases.
The justices expressed concern in that case, Fischer v. United States, about overzealous prosecution chilling the right to protest.
The court held that the DOJ requires evidence of physical destruction of documents to bring charges for obstruction of an official proceeding, which had never been used against protesters before January 6th.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Two judges in the Washington, D.C., region are pressing pause on various trials for Jan. 6, 2021, case defendants amid President-elect Donald Trump's confirmation he'll consider pardons for them.
Multiple thousands of individuals who were part of a protest against suspicious developments in the 2020 presidential election have been charged and convicted of offenses like trespassing for walking into the Capitol building when authorities said it was "closed."
They sometimes walked past security guards who were holding the doors open for them, but nonetheless were charged anyway.
About 600 already have been given, and many have served, prison terms.
Many others have remained in jail for years awaiting the resolution of their cases.
Now it is Politico that has reported U.S. District Judges Rudolph Contreras and Carl Nichols have suspended action on those pending cases, to avoid calling in dozens of possible jurors for cases that will end.
The judges have, after multiple requests, agreed that Trump's coming inauguration could make the proceedings fruitless.
The federal Department of Justice has objected to the moves, insisting on sending as many Trump supporters to jail as possible in what has come to be seen as primary evidence of the weaponization of the Department of Justice by Democrats against Trump and his supporters.
Politico reported, "It's the first time federal judges have acquiesced to the demands of Jan. 6 defendants for delays in anticipation of potential pardons from Trump, who has pledged to grant clemency to many people charged for their role in the attack on the Capitol."
Trump has said several times that he thinks most of those defendants did nothing to deserve prison time, but that there are a few who vandalized the Capitol that do need to be punished.
One case defendant, William Pope, representing himself, had been scheduled for trial next month on misdemeanor charges, and Contreras agreed to consider a trial, if necessary, in February.
"Nichols, similarly, declined to set an imminent trial date for three Jan. 6 defendants charged with misdemeanors for trespassing in the Capitol. Without prompting, he asked prosecutors whether they expected the trial would go on even after Trump took over the Justice Department. When the prosecutor in the case could not confirm either way, Nichols opted to set an April trial date and postpone all other deadlines, allowing time for the Justice Department to recalibrate after Trump takes office," the report added.
Multitudes of the defendants already have had their cases changed, after the Supreme Court ruled prosecutors had incorrectly used a specific charge against them that was not allowed.
Other judges have claimed that Trump's commitment to the defendants is "speculative."
One judge, Paul Friedman, claimed that whatever the president would do "is irrelevant to the court's" own obligations.
A report at the Gateway Pundit said Joe Biden's Department of Justice, under Merrick Garland, already has pushed to have sentenced 944 individuals from events that day.
More than 560 have been sent to prison.
Most of the judges hearing the cases, leftist in their own ideologies, "remained defiant after the Supreme Court reversed the 'obstruction' statute," the report said.
That was when the Supreme Court delivered a stunning blow to the DOJ by rejecting its use of a specific statute regarding obstruction of an official proceeding in the J6 cases.
The judges responded to that correction by their own judiciary superiors by threatening to add "enhancements" to J6 cases against defendants.
This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
A coalition of many groups, organizations and states is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a school's decision to apply its own political ideology to students' speech, and censor by ejecting from class those with other perspectives.
It's all over a student who wore a T-shirt stating "There are only two genders," and was tossed from his school. Then he tried to wear one that said "There are CENSORED genders" and he got the same result.
The fight revolves around the ideology that has become prominent under the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration's activism for the LGBT lifestyle choices that focuses on the simple definitions of words.
"Sex" and "gender," according to Merriam-Webster, for some 500 years referred to biology, "Phrases like 'the male sex' and 'the female gender'" were commonly understood to mean those with DNA containing XX or XY chromosomes.
"Gender," now, according to progressives and other leftists, can mean "a person's internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female," the dictionary alleges.
"Sex" often now is used to refer to biology while "gender" means "behavioral, cultural, and psychological traits," it says.
"But in nonmedical and nontechnical contexts, there is no clear delineation, and the status of the words remains complicated," it explains. "Usage of 'sex' and 'gender' is by no means settled."
Then came student "L.M.," Liam Morrison, and his shirts.
One of the supporting briefs, filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, pointed out that the lower courts couldn't even agree on why they were attacking the student's rights.
"The district court denied L.M.'s request for a preliminary injunction and later entered final judgment against him, reasoning that the shirt constituted an impermissible 'invasion of the rights of others'… The First Circuit affirmed on alternative grounds, adopting a novel test that would allow schools to censor speech that neither targets nor harasses a specific student," the brief charges.
That precedent, FIRE said, allows schools to target "passive, silently expressed speech that targets no student in particular if the student's expression (1) is reasonably interpreted to demean one of those characteristics of personal identity, given the common understanding that such characteristics are unalterable or otherwise deeply rooted and that demeaning them strikes a person at the core of his being, and (2) the demeaning message is reasonably forecasted to poison the educational atmosphere due to its serious negative psychological impact on students with the demeaned characteristic and thereby lead to symptoms of a sick school – symptoms therefore of substantial disruption."
Essentially, such a ruling would allow virtually unlimited censorship based on the reaction of others to the speech involved, long described as a "heckler's veto" which has been disapproved at the Supreme Court level.
The ADF, representing the student, applauded the support for the student from education experts, free speech advocates, and 18 states.
It explained, "In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit affirmed the school's decision, prompting Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, who represent the student, to ask the high court to review the case and rule that Nichols Middle School in Middleborough violated the First Amendment when it stopped the student from wearing his shirts to school."
"Students don't lose their free speech rights the moment they walk into a school building," said ADF lawyer David Cortman. "This case isn't about T-shirts; it's about a public school telling a middle-schooler that he isn't allowed to express a view that differs from their own. The school actively promotes its view about gender through posters and 'Pride' events, and it encourages students to wear clothing with messages on the same topic—so long as that clothing expresses the school's preferred views on the subject. Our legal system is built on the truth that the government cannot silence any speaker just because it disapproves of what they say. We appreciate the many states and organizations that have joined us in urging the Supreme Court to take this critical free speech case."
A brief filed by South Carolina and West Virginia explains, "By silencing L.M., the First Circuit created a speech-hostile standard that—contrary to [Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District]—allows schools to restrain even silent, passive displays of speech that cause no actual disruption. …It split from other circuits on issues like what facts a school must show to justify a restriction on student speech. And it effectively sanctioned viewpoint discrimination in public schools."
The FIRE warned, "If the First Circuit's broad expansion of Tinker's 'invasion of the rights of others' exception is allowed to stand, school administrators nationwide will wield it to censor unpopular or dissenting viewpoints—miseducating students about their expressive rights in our pluralist society."