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First Amendment Likely Precludes Trump Administration's Canceling DEI

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The Volokh Conspiracy Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent First Amendment Likely Precludes Trump Administration's Canceling DEI-Promoting Contracts, Ninth Circuit Rules There's a lot happening in today's decision in Thakur v. Trump, by Ninth Circuit Judges Richard Paez, Morgan Christen, and Roopali Desai, but I thought I'd focus on the First Amendm...
The Ninth Circuit's ruling in *Thakur v. Trump* reinforces a critical First Amendment principle: the government cannot weaponize funding decisions to suppress disfavored ideological viewpoints, even when those viewpoints are expressed within subsidized programs. The court's distinction between program design and viewpoint discrimination is legally sound but raises practical questions about how future administrations will navigate the line between policy priorities and ideological censorship. The...