A newsletter by Reuters and Westlaw |
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A two-week, non-jury trial will begin today in a lawsuit by university professors who are seeking to bar the Trump administration from arresting and deporting non-citizen students and faculty who engage in pro-Palestinian advocacy on campuses. Here’s what to know: |
- U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston will preside over the trial, which is a rarity in the hundreds of lawsuits that have been filed nationally challenging President Trump’s policies. Young said that a trial was the “best way to get at the truth.”
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The lawsuit at the center of the trial was filed in March by the American Association of University Professors and its chapters at Harvard, Rutgers and New York University. Read the complaint.
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It came after immigration authorities arrested Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, the first target of Trump's effort to deport non-citizen students with pro-Palestinian views. Since then, the administration has canceled the visas of hundreds of other students and scholars and arrested others, including Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was arrested in Massachusetts after co-writing an opinion piece criticizing her school's response to Israel's war in Gaza.
- In those and other cases, judges have ordered detained students released after they argued their arrests were retaliation and a violation of free speech rights. The arrests form the basis of today’s trial.
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The administration says the plaintiffs are challenging a deportation policy that does not exist in any statute, rule, regulation or directive and that the immigration arrests relied upon practices "rooted in long-standing law enforcement protocols and public safety measures."
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The case is the second Trump-era legal challenge so far that has gone to trial before Young, an 84-year-old appointee of President Ronald Reagan. Last month Young ordered the reinstatement of hundreds of NIH research grants that he found were unlawfully terminated because of their perceived promotion of DEI.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes. |
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The U.S. litigation funding industry is basking in a string of favorable developments, including a major legislative reprieve in D.C. and courtroom victories for its most prominent player, Burford Capital. Read more here.
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One move this morning from across the pond: Partner Phil Baynes returned to Weil’s private funds group in London from A&O Shearman.
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"The only question is this: Can the liberals convince their colleagues, on occasion, that they're wildly out of step with the public and need to pull back on some decisions? And do two of their conservative colleagues even care?"
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—Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis. The U.S. Supreme Court’s three liberal justices exerted little influence during its recently concluded term, and their frustrations with the conservative majority were seen mostly in their dissents. Jan Wolfe has more.
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