Trump Faces 75 Free Speech Rulings

PHOTO CAPTION: FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions from the media after signing an executive order, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 3, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

Aug. 4 — President Donald Trump campaigned for a second term as a defender of free expression, promising in his January 2025 inaugural address to end what he described as years of government censorship.

Since then, federal judges in 75 cases have ruled that his administration infringed First Amendment rights, including freedoms of speech, religion and the press, a Reuters review found.

The rulings repeatedly concluded that the administration chilled or suppressed speech by citizens, universities, law firms, media organizations and groups opposing Trump’s agenda.

“The President’s palpable misunderstanding that the government simply cannot seek retribution for speech he disdains poses a great threat to Americans’ freedom of speech,” U.S. District Judge William Young wrote.

Young, a Boston-based judge appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, ruled in September that the administration unlawfully detained, deported and revoked the visas of foreign students and faculty members because of their pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Other judges found that federal agencies improperly canceled university grants for refusing to adopt the administration’s ideological positions, retaliated against law firms over their legal advocacy and used excessive force during protests.

Trump administration officials have repeatedly described judges ruling against them as activists interfering with presidential authority.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson criticized the decisions, saying the federal judiciary had “repeatedly endangered and obstructed the election choices of the American people with its unlawful rulings.”

Reuters identifies 75 adverse rulings

The 75 cases were among 93 lawsuits during Trump’s second term in which judges considered First Amendment arguments, Reuters found.

Most adverse rulings came from judges appointed by Democratic presidents, but Republican-appointed judges ruled against the administration in 10 cases.

For comparison, Reuters identified 27 cases during President Joe Biden’s term in which lower-court judges addressed First Amendment challenges to his administration.

Judges ruled against the Biden administration in 13 of those cases. Most involved challenges to vaccine mandates on religious-freedom grounds.

Reuters compiled the cases by searching federal court records and Westlaw, a legal research service. Reuters and Westlaw are both owned by Thomson Reuters.

Similar lawsuits consolidated by a court were counted as one case. Multiple rulings in the same lawsuit were also counted as a single case.

The review focused on civil lawsuits against the Trump administration and excluded cases filed by people representing themselves.

Some rulings were preliminary decisions made in response to requests for immediate relief before judges considered the full merits of the lawsuits.

Many cases were brought by Trump’s political opponents or news organizations.

The Associated Press and The New York Times, for example, won lower-court rulings challenging restrictions on their access to cover the White House or Pentagon.

Some of those decisions remain on hold during appeals.

Appeals altered some decisions

The Trump administration appealed about two-thirds of the adverse rulings while allowing others to stand.

It did not appeal some decisions barring the government from interfering with classroom discussions or cutting longstanding grants to legal and medical organizations that opposed administration policies.

In appeals involving 15 of the 75 rulings, the administration persuaded higher courts either to pause the First Amendment decisions or overturn them entirely.

Two appeals courts overturned rulings that had led to the release of pro-Palestinian Columbia University activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.

The appeals courts concluded that the lower courts lacked jurisdiction but did not rule on the underlying merits of the First Amendment claims.

Khalil’s lawyers have said he plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In February, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a decision that had blocked the administration from removing collective-bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

Unions argued that Trump acted in retaliation for their opposition to administration policies.

A three-judge panel concluded that Trump would have taken the same action regardless of whether he intended to punish the unions for their advocacy.

In May, however, the 9th Circuit agreed with a lower-court judge that canceling federal grants to University of California researchers as part of Trump’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion amounted to viewpoint discrimination.

Trump campaigned against alleged censorship

Trump returned to office after campaigning against what he called an online censorship system imposed by the Biden administration.

He accused the previous administration of pressuring technology and media companies to suppress alleged misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the 2020 election.

Hours after his January 2025 inauguration, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.”

The order directed federal agencies and employees not to unconstitutionally restrict Americans’ speech.

Critics said that promise was quickly undermined by other executive orders and policies targeting Trump’s opponents or viewpoints he opposed.

Those actions included directives ending federal support for programs the administration classified as promoting “gender ideology” or diversity, equity and inclusion.

Both issues became central to lawsuits accusing the administration of violating First Amendment protections.

Timothy Zick, a William & Mary Law School professor and author of Trump 2.0: Executive Power and the First Amendment, said no president had taken such broad action against speech since President Woodrow Wilson’s administration oversaw thousands of arrests and deportations during the First Red Scare.

Zick said First Amendment protections against government retaliation are now much clearer than they were in the early 20th century.

Courts examine actions against law firms

A federal appeals court in Washington appeared prepared, based on arguments heard in May, to uphold lower-court rulings that Trump’s campaign against law firms and attorneys violated free-speech protections.

One of those decisions came from U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Howell ruled in May 2025 against an executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie.

Trump’s order suspended security clearances held by the firm’s attorneys and barred them from federal buildings because of the firm’s previous work for his political opponents.

“Settling personal vendettas by targeting a disliked business or individual for punitive government action is not a legitimate use of the powers of the U.S. government or an American President,” Howell wrote.

(Source: Reuters)