On March 25, 2025, the Knight First Amendment Institute filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Massachusetts challenging the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty based on their beliefs and associations, particularly their participation in pro-Palestinian activism and scholarship. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), AAUP’s Harvard, NYU, and Rutgers campus chapters, and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA).
Following a two-week trial, the district court concluded that the administration’s policy violated the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The government appealed the court’s ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
On August 12, 2026, the Brennan Center, together with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and McDermott Will & Schulte LLP, filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of historians Ellen Schrecker, Julia Rose Kraut, and Sam Lebovic. The brief argues that today’s crackdown echoes recurring episodes of American political repression, from the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 through the anti-anarchist crackdowns of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the Red Scares around 1917 and after the Second World War. During these periods, the government targeted people for unpopular ideas, associations, and viewpoints. While First Amendment protections were strengthened over the course of the 20th century, progress was uneven, with courts often ratifying the government’s conduct rather than acting as a shield against it. Nevertheless, courts eventually rebuked the government’s actions, ultimately affirming both constitutional speech protections for noncitizens and the dangers of government suppression of disfavored expression and associations.
The historians thus urge the appeals court to “take heed of the damage that was done through governmental excesses, the judicial opinions that ultimately enforced the promises of the First Amendment, and the voices in American society that attempted to sound the alarm.”
