A federal judge on Tuesday delivered an extraordinary 161-page rebuke of President Donald Trump, ruling that the administration impermissibly chilled the protected political speech of university professors and students by targeting non-citizens on college campuses who have spoken out in support of Palestinians.
Judge William G. Young lambasted Trump and his administration for attacking free speech “under the cover of an unconstitutionally broad definition of Anti-Semitism” used in efforts to deport non-citizen activists.
Notably, Young devoted more than a dozen pages of his decision to discussing in stark terms the president himself, the First Amendment and the state of the country, in ways seldom seen by any federal judge – let alone in a formal ruling.
Trump’s conduct, the judge wrote, violated the sacred oath of a president to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” and the actions of his administration represented a “full-throated assault on the First Amendment.”
Young cited President Ronald Reagan, who nominated him to the federal bench in Massachusetts in 1985, as saying that “freedom is a fragile thing” and must be fought for “constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.”
That warning, Young said, has been ignored.
“I fear (Trump
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