Reuters reports:

U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly campaigned for his second term as a champion of free expression, vowing in his January 2025 inaugural address to stop what he described as years of “government censorship.”

Since then, a wave of court rulings has concluded his administration has done the opposite. Reuters identified 75 federal-judge rulings finding Trump’s government infringed on ​First-Amendment rights including freedoms of speech, religion, and the press.

The unprecedented pushback on constitutional grounds has included repeated findings that the administration chilled or squelched the speech of citizens and groups opposing the Republican’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,” Boston-based U.S. District Judge William Young wrote.

The judge, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, ruled in September that the administration illegally detained, deported and revoked visas of foreign students and faculty because of their pro-Palestinian advocacy. Other judges found federal agencies terminated grants awarded to universities including Harvard for refusing to align with his ideological agenda; retaliated against law firms based on their legal advocacy; and used excessive force at protests.

Trump administration officials have repeatedly called federal judges ruling against them “activists” who are interfering with the president’s executive authority. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson criticized the First-Amendment rulings in a statement, saying “the ​federal judiciary has repeatedly endangered and obstructed the election choices of the American people with its unlawful rulings.”

The 75 cases that produced lower-court rulings against the Trump administration were among 93 total cases during his second term in which judges addressed First-Amendment arguments, ​Reuters found. Trump’s losing streak mostly came from judges appointed by Democratic presidents, but Republican appointees delivered decisions in 10 cases.

By comparison, during Democratic President Joe Biden’s presidential term, Reuters identified just 27 cases in ⁠which lower-court judges weighed First-Amendment challenges to his agenda. Judges ruled against his administration in 13 of those. Most of the lower-court rulings against the Biden administration involved its vaccine mandates, which were challenged on religious-freedom grounds. [Continue reading…]