​In a recent op-ed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio promises to “close the book” on “the weaponization of America’s own government to silence, censor, and suppress the free speech of ordinary Americans.” It’s a laudable objective and one for which Protect The 1st is immensely grateful. But Secretary Rubio and his colleagues should take into account the dangers that arise from the tendency to explore new ways to punish the speech of political opponents and media critics.   
 
Rubio’s choice of venue, The Federalist, was a shrewd one. This publication was one of ten “riskiest online news outlets” identified by the Global Disinformation Index, a British organization funded in part by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC). The intent was to discourage companies from advertising in these publications and platforms. Rubio announced the closure of the GEC in his editorial.
 
GEC’s efforts, as we’ve written, tried to kill conservative publications. It also constituted a “black box” that allowed federal agencies to filter content moderation requests to social media platforms under the guise of combating “disinformation.” We have no problem with official efforts to identify the propaganda of foreign terrorists and hostile regimes so long as officials are willing to make their case in public. But GEC was un-American, both in conception and in operation. It would be no less concerning if the government was policing liberal outlets like Mother Jones or The Nation.

So, good riddance to the GEC. But just because Secretary Rubio shut down one illiberal outfit doesn’t get the administration off the hook for its own efforts to coerce news outlets and organizations into toeing the official line.
 
This was brought to light in the controversy over 60 Minutes, facing a lawsuit from President Trump over alleged “voter interference” owing to its allegedly duplicitous editing of an interview with candidate Kamala Harris. CBS, the network which airs the show, is owned by Paramount Global – a company currently in merger negotiations with Skydance Media. Paramount’s controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, has urged a settlement with Trump, no doubt to pave the way for eventual FTC approval of the deal. In turn, Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes last night addressed the resignation of executive producer Bill Owens and admitted on his show that it is losing some of its journalistic discretion. By holding a lawsuit over the heads of a major media conglomerate, this administration has successfully exerted control over a formerly independent, and historically vaunted, news program. One may fairly judge CBS to be biased, but it is not the business of government to police speech, biases included.
 
Similarly, the Federal Communications Commission is taking jawboning to its extremes, threatening Comcast (owner of MSNBC) and Warner Bros. Discovery over coverage of the deportation of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.    
 
The administration would do well to remember that the First Amendment protects the people from government action – not the other way around. Conservatives would do well to continue to dismantle the censorship apparatus, not pioneer new forms that could, once again, be used to throttle conservative speech by the next administration. While we applaud Secretary Rubio for ridding us of the GEC and all its poisoned fruit, everyone who takes the First Amendment seriously should be willing to call out the current administration when it engages in the same sort of harassment it opposes.

​It was reading time at the U.S. Supreme Court today, though the oral argument in Mahmoud v. Taylor did not end with milk, cookies, and a nap. It did indicate, however, a likely victory for the plaintiffs.

Much of today’s oral argument centered around the storybooks included in the pre-K to 6th grade curriculum in Montgomery County schools. One such storybook, Prince & Knight, factored into the discussion.

Here’s a summary of that book written for children ages 4 to 8: Once upon a time, there was a prince who was urged by his royal parents to visit neighboring kingdoms to find a suitable bride. But the prince did not find the woman he loved. While on his journey, the prince was informed that a dragon was attacking his kingdom. He joined forces with a dashing knight, who used his shield to blind the monster. This allowed the prince to successfully ensnare the dragon. When the prince tripped, the knight came to his rescue and caught him in his arms. That’s when the prince realized that he was, in fact, in love. And soon prince and knight were warmly received into the kingdom, which joyfully celebrated their royal wedding.

Another such book, Love Violet, tells the story of a girl who harbors a secret crush for another girl in her class.

In the eyes of many, Prince & Knight and Love Violet spin tales that help children to grow up with respect and acceptance. In the eyes of families that are adherents of great world religions – from Roman Catholicism to Christian evangelicalism, to Islam and Orthodox Judaism – these stories indoctrinate children into celebrating relationships that their religions reject as sinful. Forcing this instruction, therefore, is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the parents’ free exercise of religion.

No one in this case is seeking suppression of these books and teachings. Religious parents of Montgomery County school children are merely seeking the right to opt out their children from the books and its related curriculum. The Montgomery County school board at first allowed such opt-outs, then denied them, claiming that allowing them would be impractical to manage. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the school board’s decision, finding that “simply hearing about other views does not necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than one’s religious faith requires.”

In today’s oral argument, Justice Samuel Alito pushed back on that notion. Given that these books are read to children as young as age four, he said many will lack the faculties to dispute or disagree with what they are being told.

“I don’t think anybody can read that and say, ‘Well, this is just telling children that there are occasions when men marry other men,” said Justice Alito. “It has a clear moral message, and it may be a good message. It’s just a message that a lot of religious people disagree with.”

Justice Elena Kagan acknowledged that what some Montgomery County principals had flagged – regardless of gender, the storybooks’ focus on romantic relationships was a questionable choice for children as young as four. “I too, was struck by these young kids picture books and, on matters concerning sexuality, I suspect there are a lot of non-religious parents who weren’t all that thrilled about this.”

But Justice Kagan stuck to the notion that if opt-outs are allowed in this instance, they will have to be allowed for a host of other objections, perhaps even to the teaching of evolution in biology class. Justice Kagan said: “Once we articulate a rule like that, it would be like opt-outs for everyone.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s questions centered around the point that an opt-out rule would “constitutionalize” local decisions on curricula best left to the communities. “Maybe in one community, one set of values, these books are fine, but in another community with a different set of values, they’re not,” she said.

Justice Alito returned to the point that the plaintiffs were not asking that the books be removed. “What’s the big deal about allowing them to opt out?” he asked. “I am not understanding why it’s not feasible,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Overall, the tone and tenor of today’s oral argument indicates a solid majority will come down on the side of observing the right of religious parents to opt-out their children.

Two minutes into this two-and-a-half hour-long hearing, Eric Baxter of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents the parents, drew on Protect The 1st’s own amicus brief for his presentation. In that brief, Protect The 1st declared: “Properly understood, the First Amendment forbids the government from imposing such coercive choices on parents as a precondition to participating in a public benefit, including public education.”
​
Though we rarely make predictions about how the Court will decide, we believe that will be the likely stance the Court majority will take.

​Many of the great warriors of history had beards. In the modern era, however, clean-shaven faces became the hallmark of the modern military. This is a problem for American men of the Sikh faith, who are forbidden to shave. Many Jewish and Muslim men are similarly required to maintain beards as an outward sign of their faithfulness.
 
In 2021, Edmund Di Liscia, a Hasidic Jew assigned to the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, testified before a federal judge that his beard is “a religious requirement and an expression of obedience and fidelity to God.” For years, many Americans adherents of several faiths were forced to choose between expulsion from military service or to violate their most closely held religious beliefs.
 
Thanks to the good work of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, federal courts have stayed military orders to force religiously observant men to shave off their beards. The military has also shown flexibility, allowing religious accommodation for servicemen who demonstrate the sincerity of their faith and are willing to accept limitations on their assignments.
 
This tolerance is now at risk. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently ordered the Pentagon to conduct a review of military standards related to health and appearance across the services. His memo pointedly noted that this review “includes but is not limited to beards.”
 
It is understandable – even commendable – that Secretary Hegseth wants to level up the fitness and appearance requirements of the services. But we hope that in this review, a line is drawn to protect beards as expressions of faith.
 
The Trump administration has shown great sensitivity to protecting religious liberty, including the establishment of a White House Faith Office to work with the Justice Department to protect the freedom of religious expression. As the Pentagon drafts new rules, the religious expression of Americans in uniform should also be respected.

​Kansas lawmakers have overridden Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto to enact a new law defending the rights of religious foster and adoptive parents. Effective immediately, the state can no longer deny licenses to families simply because they won’t affirm gender ideology or same-sex relationships. The law stops bureaucrats from turning personal belief into a disqualifier, and it sends a clear signal: faith-based convictions don’t bar you from opening your home to a child in need.

This victory for religious liberty won’t make headlines in major media, but it should. It directly answers a troubling trend where belief in traditional marriage or gender roles becomes an automatic disqualifier for otherwise qualified parents.

Kansas is an encouraging story, for similar religious discrimination against adoptive parents is happening around the country. In Massachusetts, Mike and Kitty Burke – a Catholic couple with years of experience caring for children – were denied the chance to foster because they wouldn’t recite the state’s preferred catechism on sex and identity. “Their faith is not supportive and neither are they,” wrote a social worker, as if belief in Christian doctrine was evidence of neglect.

That mindset is spreading. Oregon, Vermont, and other states are testing policies that require prospective foster parents to parrot gender orthodoxy before they can bring a child into their home. These policies don’t protect kids – they punish adults with unapproved beliefs. More to the point, these policies violate the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment. The state cannot make religious adherence a liability for civic participation. It cannot force a person to say what they do not believe. And it cannot close the door on loving homes simply because a couple affirms, as generations have, traditional religious beliefs.

That’s what makes Kansas so important. It stops the government from forcing people to either lie or lose out for holding traditional religious beliefs. Opponents say the bill opens the door to discrimination. It merely allows people to hold different beliefs without punishment. That’s not discrimination – that’s pluralism. You might disagree with traditional views on sexuality. But we all have a stake in this debate: A society that can’t handle differing views on sexuality has already lost its way.

There’s an old joke about a couple that was so progressive that they adopted a gay baby. Today, we’re watching the inverse: systems so rigidly ideological they’ll leave kids in hospitals and public homes rather than place them with a conservative family.
​
Kansas said no.

​A bill moving through the Illinois legislature has sparked fierce opposition from parents, educators, and civil liberties advocates across the state. Known as the “Homeschool Act,” House Bill 2827 would require families to register their homeschool with local districts, hand over teaching materials upon demand, and face criminal charges for paperwork violations. Critics say it’s not about oversight – it’s about control.
 
Registration isn’t just a formality. It would empower the state to monitor, investigate, and potentially prosecute families who choose to educate at home. Under HB 2827, if parents don’t file the required form within ten days, their children are labeled truant, and the parents could face jail time. That registration triggers new powers for school districts and truancy officers: they could demand educational portfolios, interrogate children without parental presence, and determine whether the family’s curriculum, potentially including religious content, is acceptable. It invites a regime of constant oversight, not based on any wrongdoing, but simply because a family chose to homeschool.
 
Lawmakers like Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Democrat, are sounding alarms. He called the bill a “pipeline to the criminal justice system for parents.” Others warn it would overwhelm child welfare agencies without helping at-risk children.
 
Backers point to cases of abuse in homeschool settings, but those tragedies were already known to state authorities. This bill doesn’t solve system failures. It punishes law-abiding families instead.
 
The opposition isn’t coming from one political camp. Tens of thousands of witness slips were filed. Between 5,000 and 8,000 people showed up at the state capitol. Homeschooling advocates point out that today’s homeschoolers come from across the political and socioeconomic spectrum, black, white, Republican, Democrat, low-income, and post-COVID converts. The message is simple: Our freedom is not up for negotiation.
 
Perhaps it’s no surprise that 33 counties in Illinois have voted to explore breaking away from the state. Proposals like HB 2827 only deepen the divide between urban lawmakers and rural families who feel increasingly sidelined and targeted.
 
HB 2827 is a line in the sand. Either lawmakers reject this overreach, or they invite a broader erosion of parental rights and educational freedom. The First Amendment demands more than lip service. This bill must be stopped.

Imagine you run a tax-exempt charity that houses, feeds, and cares for the poor and the homeless, or perhaps educates children from low-income families. You have the resources to operate your charity through the kindness of your donors. You also are grateful that your tax-exempt status helps you stretch those donor dollars for your social mission.

Then one day you begin to receive demands from the government to certify compliance with myriad federal regulations. The cost of painstakingly documenting compliance would make a huge dent in your budget. Worse, if you are found to be out of compliance with the bureaucracy’s elaborate standards, your tax-exempt status will be revoked.

This is the implied threat of the 2022 rulings by two federal district courts that held that the tax-exempt status of charities means that they should be considered recipients of federal financial assistance. One of these cases, Buettner-Hartsoe v. Baltimore Lutheran High School Association d/b/a Concordia Preparatory School, went to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Last year, the Fourth reversed the lower court’s ruling:

“Tax exemption is not ‘Federal financial assistance.’ This is not a novel concept. Indeed, since Title IX’s inception over fifty years ago, it has never been applied to organizations based solely on their tax-exempt status. And for good reason … Tax exemption, however, is the withholding of a tax burden, rather than the affirmative grant of funds. Thus, tax-exemption is not ‘Federal financial assistance.’”

You might brush your hands and say, ‘all well and good and that is that!’ But in American law these days, that is never that. The appetite for government control is as strong as ever. All it takes is the right case and the right judge to set this precedent on its ear and bind charities across the land to burdensome regulation.

We have certainly seen at the state level, from Wisconsin to Maine to California – a desire by regulators to treat charities, especially religious-based charities, in discriminatory ways. This impulse was occasionally on display during the previous administration in regulatory lurches toward increasing government control of charities.

To forestall this movement once and for all, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) have introduced the Safeguarding Charity Act to clarify that tax-exempt organizations should not be treated as recipients of federal financial assistance.

“Tax-exempt status is not the same as receiving federal funding, and it should be not used as political leverage against the nonprofits that feed, clothe, house, and counsel those in need in Oklahoma and across the nation,” Sen. Lankford said. “We should be focused on enabling the work of these organizations – not burdening them with unnecessary and costly federal requirements.”

“Radical judges should not have the authority to twist federal law and force religious institutions to choose between their convictions and their compliance,” Rep. Steube said. “This bill is about protecting churches, religious schools, and charities from federal overreach.”
​
Though prior versions of this bill failed to pass, the stars may be lining up for the 119th Congress to pass this bill and to put this question to rest for all time.

​Bangor, Michigan, population 2,113, bills itself as “The Gateway to the Lake.” But the town is anything but laid back lately. Local government officials are speaking loud and clear – prosecutions will continue until morale improves.
 
In January, the Bangor City Council unanimously approved a motion to allow “City Attorney (Scott) Graham to file charges with the court against all parties involved in statements that have caused harm to the city.”
 
The controversy apparently stems from accusations that Bangor resident Justin Weber is receiving two paychecks by virtue of his dual role as city manager and chief of police. City officials deny that this is happening. “This is America,” Bangor Mayor Lynne Farmer said. “You’re free to have your own opinion. But in America, you are not free, under the First Amendment, to keep repeating something that’s false that you knowingly know is.”
 
The city is merely targeting “known untruths,” she said. 
 
Why do so many Americans these days in positions of authority lack an understanding of the First Amendment? Mayor Farmer’s statement should be in law school textbooks as a classic example of getting the First Amendment wrong. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression wrote in a letter to the city, “The First Amendment flatly prohibits government entities from bringing defamation actions, even against speakers who make knowingly false statements.” If it didn’t, as the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1972, “every criticism of public expenditure, policy, management or conduct of public affairs would place its utterer in jeopardy. It is difficult to imagine anything more destructive of democratic government than the power in the hands of a corrupt government to stifle all opposition by free use of the public treasury to silence critics by suit.”
 
If this standard were overturned, any bureaucrat could decide what is truth and a “known untruth.” If Bangor city officials want redress, they can always file a defamation lawsuit for themselves. But they cannot have the city lean on their critics for them.
 
The Bangor City Council should revoke Graham’s authority to bring suits against its citizens for speaking their mind. Not long ago, Police Chief Weber was caught on camera calling upset residents “pansies.” It should be enough to dismiss that slur as offensive. But if the city council has its way, the prosecutor could go after the police chief because humans, after all, aren’t flowers; therefore, that characterization is knowingly false. Or we could all just take a civics refresher and step away from the ledge.  

On Thursday, in a rare sign of political health, the House managed to squeak out a budget resolution, 216-214. Producing this blueprint was a monumental lift for the Republicans’ razor-thin majority, but they achieved it just the same. Big challenges remain. In coming weeks, the majority in Congress must now agree on balancing the budgetary costs of President Trump’s proposed tax cuts against spending in defense, border control, and other major priorities.
 
Amid these gigantic programs, there is a smaller one that must not hit the cutting room floor – the well-being of children and the future of American education. Congress should make sure that two relatively small items, the Educational Choice for Children Act and the Student Empowerment Act, are kept in the coming budget reconciliation bill.
 
Urgent action is needed to address the nation’s near-catastrophic, not-very-good report card on education. The National Assessment of Educational Progress tests American students every two years. It found that the average reading scores for fourth- and eighth-grade students fell by 2 points since 2022. Math proficiency for fourth graders fell by three percent from 2019. For American eighth graders, it fell by a whopping 9 percent. There are bright spots, with improvement for students in the top tier of performance. Overall, American education saw a continuation of a decline that preceded the pandemic.
 
Clearly, traditional public-school systems in many parts of the United States need help. America’s educational mediocrity has been a crisis since the 1980s, although mediocrity might be an improvement over current performance in some school districts. A large body of research shows that educational choice can help improve the performance of public schools, as well as students overall. We’ve previously reported that economics professor William Alexander Salter of Texas Tech University has demonstrated that on the question of the impact of school choice: “Out of 28 studies that explore this question, 25 found that school choice improves educational attainment in traditional school systems. In terms of social-scientific validity, that’s a slam dunk.”

• The Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) would improve both public and private schools in this way, providing tax credits for charitable donations to expand choices in quality education. Introduced by Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE), Rep. Burgess Owen (R-UT) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the ECCA permits tax-free private donations to help students, especially low-income ones, to take advantage of quality private education, including both secular and religious schools.

The ECCA offers $10 billion in tax credits to be divided among the states, surely an amount that can fit into this budget. Speaking to the need for this bill, Sen. Cassidy said: “More freedom empowers parents and allows American children to thrive in school.”
​

• The Student Empowerment Act, sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) would expand school choice by increasing the availability of 529 Education Savings Plans to include not only K-12 elementary and secondary school tuition, but also many K-12 educational expenses for public, private, and homeschool students.

“The Student Empowerment Act is commonsense legislation that will expand access to 529 savings accounts and empower American families to best meet their children’s learning needs,” Sen. Cruz said.
 
Both programs would respect American pluralism, allowing parents to make choices for their children and to express their values across generations by choosing secular or religious schools consistent with broader First Amendment protections. Amid hundreds of billions of dollars spent on other programs, these two bills are small but impactful. Kept in the budget for the president to sign, the ECCA and Student Empowerment Act will generate benefits that will resonate for the rest of the century.

​The U.S. Supreme Court will soon weigh in on Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case that could reshape the boundaries of parental rights in public education. At stake is a basic but powerful question: Can the state force parents to expose their children to teachings that contradict their deepest moral and religious beliefs? A win for the parents wouldn’t just vindicate religious freedom – it could also throw a lifeline to secular and non-Christian families in red states, where public school curricula are starting to blur the line between education and religious endorsement.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, parents were initially allowed to opt out of new “LGBTQ+-inclusive” texts introduced in 2022. These included books such as Pride Puppy, with some curricula introducing drag queens and leather fetish gear to pre-K students. Born Ready presents gender transition as a personal decision that doesn’t need to “make sense.” Then the school board reversed course, eliminating the opt-out and mandating full participation, even for families whose religious teachings directly conflict with these lessons.

Protect The 1st filed an amicus brief urging the Court to recognize this as a violation of the Free Exercise Clause. This case echoes the foundational rulings in Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Wisconsin v. Yoder, in which the Court affirmed that the right to direct a child’s moral and religious upbringing rests with the family – not the state.

What is often missed in media commentary is how a win in Mahmoud would also defend secular families and minority faiths in red states from forced exposure to Christian-centric teachings. Consider Texas. The state’s new Bluebonnet Learning curriculum is approved for adoption in 2025 and incentivized with $60 per student. While it claims to be academically neutral, watchdog groups have documented how some lessons treat the Bible as literal history and ask students to repeat phrases from Genesis​.

Texas Education Agency officials insist these materials are educational, not devotional, and that schools may use or omit parts as they see fit. But once a district accepts this curriculum, parents will be allowed no opt-out for their children. That’s cold comfort to Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or secular families in districts that decide to lean hard into biblical framing. What’s being described as “contextual” exposure often amounts to uncritical celebration of one religious tradition. At minimum, there is no need to push this curriculum without parental opt-outs for their children.

We ardently agree that you cannot teach American history without appreciating the role of religion, from the Pilgrims to the civil rights era. But you can – and must – do it without crossing the line into indoctrination. The same principle that protects a Muslim family in Maryland from state-imposed gender ideology also protects a secular family in Texas from state-imposed Christianity.
​
A ruling in favor of the Mahmoud plaintiffs won’t just be a win for religious liberty. It’ll be a win for pluralism – ensuring that no matter where you live or what you believe, the public school system doesn’t get to decide what your child’s faith tradition will be.

​Is a Georgia statute, which imposes a special assessment on strip clubs, a restriction on expressive activity? This law provides that “adult entertainment establishments” must each year remit a “state operation assessment equal to the greater of 1 percent of the previous calendar year’s gross revenue or $5,000.” The state argues – and the Georgia Supreme Court agrees – that the tax is not a content-based restriction on speech because it endeavors to address these business’ negative “secondary effects.”
 
The Georgia Association of Club Executives, which represents the Peach State’s adult entertainment establishments, begs to disagree. The association argues that the tax directly targets their expressive content, and should thus be subject to strict scrutiny – among the most exacting standards of legal review.
 
Unfortunately, resolving these conflicting arguments will require some legal acrobatics rivaling those of any stage show. But the resolution could clarify the law for a range of First Amendment concerns.
 
At issue is a distinct split in legal thought surrounding content-based restrictions on speech. In Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the longstanding principle that content-based restrictions on speech are subject to strict scrutiny, and that content-neutral justifications for a law implicating the content of speech do not suffice to remove that law from strict scrutiny analysis.
 
But in City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres (1986), the Court found that regulations implicating content may be treated as content-neutral “time, place, and manner” restrictions subject to intermediate scrutiny where they are justified without reference to content. That case, like the present one, dealt with adult establishments. But in Hill v. Colorado (2000), the Court’s holding was expanded to other areas such as permitting a prohibition against family counseling or any other message to persons within 100 feet of a healthcare facility.
 
Over the years, courts have performed ever more convoluted jurisprudential dance routines when it comes to the clear conflicts between these two doctrines. And even if cases like Renton and Hill remain good law, the Court has never clarified where the line is when it comes to applying Reed versus Renton/Hill.
 
Under Reed, the content-based restrictions at issue in Renton/Hill might very well have been considered content-based and therefore subject to strict scrutiny. Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett have, for example, called Hill “defunct.”
 
That’s why the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is weighing in on the case in an amicus brief supporting a certiorari petition to our nation’s highest court. When it comes to First Amendment jurisprudence, clarity in the law is critical, and uncertainty can chill speech just as thoroughly as any naked prohibition.
 
FIRE argues that the Georgia statute directly targets “adult entertainment establishments” based on their expressive content. It does so not through zoning or buffer regulations (as in Renton and Hill), but through a special tax on the economic activity associated with the expressive content in question. Further, it must be enforced by government officials who must examine (regrettably, we’re sure) whether the “dancing is nude, whether movements are sexual in nature, and whether these elements constitute ‘entertainment.’” As FIRE points out, this is a decidedly different proposition that broad, content-neutral laws against public nudity.
 
FIRE writes:
 
“The Court should end the confusion and clarify that Reed means what it says: laws that distinguish based on content are content-based, regardless of the government’s purported intent or justifications. The Court should in doing so explicitly acknowledge and resolve in favor of Reed the doctrinal inconsistencies that Renton and Hill introduced.”
 
Protect The 1st is inclined to agree with FIRE that the Court should resolve the divergent lines of caselaw at issue here. Coming to such a resolution need not be a Dance of the Seven Veils.

​You can get arrested in Moscow, Idaho, where one Rory Wilson was convicted for posting stickers opposing the city’s COVID-19 response without first getting official approval.
 
Moscow City Code Section 10-1-22 prohibits anyone from posting a “notice, sign, announcement, or other advertising matter” on public property “without prior approval, in writing” of the “governmental entity owning or controlling such property.”
 
The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that such schemes are inherently suspect. In City of Lakewood v. Plain Dealer Publishing Company (1988), the Court held that when the government has “unbridled discretion” to grant someone the right to speak, it constitutes a “prior restraint” that “may result in censorship.” It may also result in self-censorship out of fear of an adverse government action, which should be as much of an anathema to principles of free speech as any overt prohibition.
 
Here, we have an example of a local government blatantly weaponizing the law to crack down on disfavored speech. Prior to Wilson’s arrest, the City of Moscow had never before enforced the code provision in question, and Moscow police admitted they were doing so in this case because they did not “agree” with the stickers’ “messaging.” Prior to the incident with Wilson, government officials had also repeatedly criticized his church for advocating against the city’s COVID-19 restrictions. The city prosecutor, specifically, called Wilson’s fellow congregants “religious idiots.”
 
The Supreme Court has repeatedly addressed similar discretionary permitting schemes. In Saia v. People of State of New York (1948), the Court found unconstitutional an ordinance requiring government permission before relaying “news and matters of public concern” over sound amplification equipment. In Largent v. State of Texas (1943), the Court likewise overturned an ordinance that required the mayor’s approval to sell certain books. And in Kunz v. People of State of New York (1951), the Court struck down an ordinance making “it unlawful to hold public worship meetings on the streets without first obtaining a permit from the city police commissioner.”
 
All of these schemes constituted prior restraints on speech. The present controversy in Moscow is no different. Unfortunately, Idaho courts didn’t see it that way, upholding Moscow’s law in contravention of well-established precedent. As a result, Protect The 1st will file an amicus brief in support of Wilson’s certiorari petition to the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
U.S. citizens have the right to voice their views in the public square without government approval. It is one of our nation’s longest held traditions, a defining principle of our democratic traditions. Giving the government discretionary power to approve or deny the exercise of that right is an affront to the First Amendment.
 
We’ll follow up soon with our brief.

​It is considered bad form and bad luck to anticipate how the U.S. Supreme Court will decide a given case. But Adam Liptak of The New York Times just went ahead and called it: “The Supreme Court on Monday seemed ready to rule that a Catholic charity in Wisconsin was entitled to a tax exemption that had been denied by a state court on the grounds that its activities were not primarily religious.”

To say that Colin T. Roth, lawyer for the state, had a rough morning would be an understatement. It was Roth’s task to defend the Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, which found that Catholic charities that serve the poor are not exempted from state unemployment taxes as a religious organization.
 
The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the flawed reasoning that Catholic Charities – which has provided aid to the disabled, the elderly, and the poor for over a century – is not operated primarily for religious purposes because it provides services to people of all faiths.
 
When asked what it would take for Catholic Charities to be considered religious, Roth replied they might say the Lord’s Prayer when spooning soup. We’ll be sure to pass that advice along to the Catholic lay volunteers, nuns, priests, bishops, cardinals, and the Pope. Thanks, Wisconsin!
 
“Isn’t it a fundamental premise of the First Amendment that the state shouldn’t be picking and choosing between religions?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked. “Doesn’t it entangle the state tremendously when it has to go into a soup kitchen, send an inspector in, to see how much prayer is going on?”
 
“Some religions proselytize, other religions don’t,” said Justice Elena Kagan. “Why are we treating some religions better than others based on that element of religious doctrine?”
 
Justice Amy Comey Barrett followed up by asking if a Jewish charity would be disqualified given her understanding that Judaism is largely a non-proselytizing religion. Roth replied that such a Jewish charity would have to engage in worship or religious education.
 
What the Wisconsin Supreme Court overlooked is that in Judaism and Christianity, as well as in Islam and Eastern religions, charity is a religious obligation. Jesus said we should feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and clothe the naked. He did not add, “unless, of course, they’re not members of your congregation. Then they’re on their own.”
 
An adverse ruling for Catholic Charities would enable government inspectors and bureaucrats to decide which religious practices are religious. Based on the tenor of today’s oral arguments, that does not seem likely. This was a good day for religious liberty.

​Imagine you’re a barber. Your professional mission is to cut hair and make people look good. In walks Chewbacca, the Wookiee from Star Wars, looking for a job. Chewbacca never has had his hair cut. Sure, he’s a good space pilot, but he’s unkempt and ungroomed. Heck, Chewbacca doesn’t even believe in grooming – it’s not part of the Wookiee lifestyle. Hiring Chewbacca as a barber would reflect poorly on your business. It might even undermine your whole mission, because Chewbacca actively advocates against haircuts. Yet, if you don’t hire this anti-grooming, 8-foot canine, the government’s going to come after you.
 
Sounds ridiculous, right? That’s not too far from what’s actually happening in Illinois.
 
Two weeks ago, the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a lawsuit challenging a state law that forces religious organizations to hire employees who disagree with – or act in conflict with – those organizations’ deeply held religious beliefs.
 
The Illinois Human Rights Act, as amended in 2024, prohibits employers from refusing to hire employees based on their reproductive decisions. Fair enough. That law includes a religious exemption, but the state attorney general has made the argument that such an exemption does not permit discrimination in hiring “even if such discrimination is consistent with (or mandated by) religious tenets.”
 
The plaintiff, the Pregnancy Care Center of Rockford, is a Christian organization that “affirms, proclaims, and strives to live out Christian beliefs about the dignity of human life and the nature of marriage by sharing the Gospel, promoting Christian beliefs on reproduction, opposing abortion, and providing free resources.” 
 
Similarly, the Diocese of Springfield, also a plaintiff, “affirms, proclaims, and strives to live out the teachings of the Catholic Church, including indispensable teachings about reproduction and marriage.” 
 
Together, these organizations seek to employ people who will advance their religious missions. Yet, the Human Rights Act is interpreted to make it an actionable offense to engage in speech that employees might deem “offensive” or “unwelcome.” It requires these organizations to proactively support employees’ reproductive decisions, even if they involve terminating a pregnancy. It further requires employers to relay these requirements in employee handbooks and workplace posters.
 
Obviously, such requirements are oppressive in their application to religious organizations. As ADF explains in their complaint, the act violates the plaintiffs “freedom of expressive association by forcing them to form associations and assemblies with employees whose reproductive decisions undermine their mission and message ...” It burdens their right to free exercise of religion by effectively “prohibiting faith-based speech and conduct related to reproduction.” And it violates their right to free speech “because it compels them to speak a message contrary to their beliefs not only to their current employees but also to prospective employees and the public in general.”
 
If this offends you, imagine if the law forced Planned Parenthood to hire people who told every person who walked in about the evils of abortion.
 
This Illinois law’s wide array of exemptions includes landlords, financial institutions, private clubs, and more. Yet, the government has made clear that it will not afford these plaintiffs a religious exemption based on their assessment of whether their hiring preferences reflect “bona fide occupational qualification[s].”
 
In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a law burdening religion triggers strict scrutiny if it allows for discretionary exemptions. It’s hard to see how Illinois’ Human Rights Act, as applied, would survive such an analysis.
 
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.

​As Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas reports, Utah’s year-old Religious Freedom Restoration Act is facing its first serious test. A new, purportedly faith-based group, Singularism, uses psilocybin-infused tea to guide practitioners on altered-state voyages. The records of those journeys are then enshrined as canon, effectively serving as scripture for the group.

Taking a rather dim view of this approach to enlightenment, Provo officials launched a raid and seized the group’s mushrooms – and, for some reason, their scriptures. Singularism, they argue, is in it for the money, and distributing illegal drugs is, well, illegal, under the state’s Controlled Substances Act. The regulation of food and drugs is, for better and for worse, a recognized governmental authority. Later, and in a move that they have perhaps already come to regret, officials moved the case to the federal bench. District Court Judge Jill Parrish granted the defendants a temporary injunction, ordering the return of their scriptures. Judge Parrish declared:

“[I]t is ironic then that not long after enacting its RFRA to provide special protections for religious exercise, that the State of Utah should so vigorously deploy its resources, particularly the coercive power of its criminal-justice system, to harass and shut down a new religion it finds offensive practically without any evidence that the religion’s practices have imposed any harms on its own practitioners or anyone else.”

It is important to remember, however, that is a temporary injunction. It remains to be seen how the competing interests of law enforcement and religious freedom will play out in this case.

At the federal level, the case evokes the landmark Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, which in the years since has become the bedrock of modern religious liberty. To date, 29 states have agreed with the federal government by creating their own equivalent statutes. Utah is the latest.

Faith is faith, argues Singularism founder Bridger Jensen. Judge Parrish seems to agree, ruling that the law must protect “unfamiliar religions equally with familiar ones, both in design and in practice.” Entheogens, or drugs that are used to induce transformational – quite readily spiritual – experiences are nothing new, and now more than ever psilocybin is gaining traction as a serious vehicle for healing, especially for victims of PTSD.

Bridger Jensen for his part appears to be no fly-by-night guru, con artist, or drug dealer. A product of Provo, Jensen formerly worked as a mental health therapist. He also took the decidedly non-dodgy approach of locating Singularism in an office park adjacent to Utah Valley Hospital, then invited public officials to tour the facility (none did).

“A drug-distribution enterprise that’s cloaked in religion,” is how Harvard professor Josh McDaniel summarizes Provo’s perspective on the case. But McDaniel and others point out that the power of the federal RFRA since its passage has been the protection of exactly these kinds of obscure religious practices, especially seemingly exotic ones that cut against the grain of traditional mores.

Knowing this, the framers of the Constitution made the free exercise of religious practice central to our identity as Americans by enshrining it as “first among equals” of the five liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment. Nothing precedes it in the entire Bill of Rights.
​
Are some drugs illegal for a reason? Yes. Is Singularism strange? You bet. Is it for everybody? Most certainly not. Does it have a right to exist and even flourish in a free society? We shall see.

By now, most Americans have seen video of the arrest of Tufts PhD student Rumeysa Orturk, a 30-year-old Turkish national studying in the United States on an F-1 student visa. She was swarmed by six plainclothes officers, manhandled, and arrested before any of the federal agents bothered to show her a badge.
 
Orturk was then whisked away from that sidewalk in Somerville, Massachusetts, to a detention center in Louisiana before her attorney could file a petition for writ of habeas corpus and a federal judge issue an order telling the government to not to take her out of state. If Orturk is subsequently deported without being given due process, it will be an outrage that threatens to compromise the freedom of speech of every American.
 
When it comes to stopping antisemitic protesters who established “Jew Free” zones on campus, and terrorized Jewish students and faculty, Protect The 1st takes a backseat to no one. We won’t shrink from saying, even as an organization dedicated to the First Amendment, that foreign students who violently support Hamas – which invaded Israel and murdered more than a thousand people, including babies – should not be coddled by university administrators or ignored by immigration authorities.
 
Where is the law on this case? Visa holders have almost the same First Amendment rights as American citizens. But the law does stipulate that they can be deported for endorsing or espousing terrorist activities. To international students who come to the United States and agitate in favor of Hamas and other radical terrorists, we can only wish them a one-way ticket to those regimes.
 
This is a popular sentiment. More Americans – 43 percent – “strongly” or “somewhat” support deporting international students studying in the United States under some circumstances, according to a recent Economist and YouGov poll. Some 35 percent of Americans strongly or somewhat oppose these deportations. But this particular arrest is a consequence of the lack of precision in a presidential executive order to deport foreign students who engaged in “pro-jihadist” protests or “antisemitism.”
 
As far as any journalist has been able to tell, Ozturk’s only infraction was to cosign with a number of other students a March 26 student newspaper op-ed telling Tuft’s University President Sunil Kumar that the university should divest from companies that do business in Israel. The letter accuses Israel of fomenting “deliberate starvation” and “indiscriminate slaughter” of Palestinian civilians in a way that is a “plausible genocide.”
 
No statement to date has linked Ozturk to Hamas, or to defending Hamas. Her op-ed makes no mention of Hamas. Many reasonable people see charges of “genocide” against Israel and calls to divest from that country as expressions of antisemitism. Many others, also reasonable people, point out that Israeli bombs and bullets have recently surpassed the threshold of 50,000 men, women, and children killed. Supporters of Israel reply that it is Hamas that is using these innocents as human shields… and so on.
 
All this back-and-forth falls within the sphere of debatable facts and heated interpretations. The government’s actions against Ozturk, so far, do not.
 
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when asked about this arrest, told CNN that if you are “involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa.”
 
We couldn’t agree more, but we have to again ask: What does any of this have to do with Ozturk, student op-ed signer? What image are we broadcasting to the world about America as the beacon of liberty if she is deported without due process? Take a look at the reaction in Turkey and ask how this story serves American foreign policy? This is certainly a made-to-order issue for Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, a demagogue who often resorts to anti-American diatribes.
 
Worst of all, a denial of due process would give permission for the government to deconstruct speech of all sorts in search of a crime.
 
For all these reason, Protect The 1st urges the government to ensure that Rumeysa Orturk is afforded due process so the facts of her case can be made known, and a proper decision made on that basis.

​On this rock, you may build your church – so long as it is zoned properly.
 
The U.S. Department of Justice recently weighed in on a controversy between the City of Santa Ana, California, and Anchor Stone Christian Church. The Justice Department alleges the city violated the church’s rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) when it denied the church’s zoning application to use space in the city’s professional district as a house of worship.
 
The Chinese-American church Anchor Stone purchased a property in 2022 in Santa Ana, intending to create a new, 99-seat house of worship. But because the district is zoned for professional uses, the church was required to obtain a conditional use permit (CUP). The city planning commission denied Anchor Stone’s request, despite the fact that, in the words of the Justice Department, “comparable secular assemblies like museums, science centers, and art galleries, are allowed to operate there by right without a discretionary permit.” There is even another church, operating under an approved CUP, right across the street in the same zoning district.
 
A subsequent appeal to the city council also failed.
 
Why the City of Santa Ana denied Anchor Stone’s application is less important here than the overall zoning scheme itself. That scheme places an enhanced burden on houses of worship relative to similar assemblies.
 
This flies in the face of RLUIPA, a federal law that prohibits local governments from "impos[ing] or implement[ing] a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution." Yet, that seems to be exactly what Santa Ana’s land use regime entails.
 
According to the statement of interest filed by the Justice Department, a prima facie RLUIPA claim must show “that the challenged regulation makes an express distinction between religious and nonreligious assemblies, regardless of whether those assemblies are similarly situated.” The burden then shifts to the local government to show why such unequal treatment is justified.
 
The Santa Ana zoning plan specifically allows nonreligious assemblies like “art galleries" and "museums and science centers,” which are – along with churches – defined as “assembly uses” under the California Building Code.
 
Anyone who’s dealt with zoning laws – particularly in heavily populated areas like Orange County – will understand how difficult and onerous they can be. But there’s a difference between having to jump through hoops and facing seemingly arbitrary and capricious discrimination on the basis of religion (as opposed to art), which seems to be viewpoint discrimination. Such bureaucratic adjudications can be a slippery slope, and they’re the very reason laws like RLUIPA exist in the first place.
 
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this controversy and its implications for the First Amendment.

New York state government came under the scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024 after Financial Services superintendent Maria Vullo pushed Lloyd’s of London and other insurers to cut ties with the National Rifle Association. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court said that “Vullo’s communications with Lloyd’s can be reasonably understood as a threat or as an inducement. Either of those can be coercive.” 
 
The Empire State is at it again, weaponizing New York’s business fraud statutes to bring an enforcement action against 11 crisis pregnancy centers for speaking about “progesterone therapy,” which some studies suggest may be effective in reversing the effects of mifepristone in chemically induced abortions.
 
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is spearheading the case, has called such centers “fake clinics.”
 
In August, three of those clinics sued in federal court to protect their First Amendment right to speak about progesterone. The court ruled in their favor, issuing a preliminary injunction and writing:
 
“…[T]he ‘very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion.’ To ‘this end, the government, even with the purest of motives, may not substitute its judgment as to how best to speak for that of speakers and listeners; free and robust debate cannot thrive if directed by the government.’ And this is particularly true ‘in the fields of medicine and public health, where information can save lives.’”
 
Now, the attorney general has appealed to the Second Circuit, and groups like Alliance Defending Freedom are stepping up in defense of crisis pregnancy centers and the First Amendment.
 
The attorney general’s actions certainly seem to constitute content and viewpoint-based discrimination. Perhaps conceding that point, General James argues that progesterone-therapy advocacy constitutes false or misleading commercial speech, despite the fact that, to quote ADF’s brief, the non-profit pregnancy centers’ speech “neither proposes a transaction nor bears any relation to the economic interests of the … plaintiffs or the women they serve….” As such, “the speech is wholly noncommercial and entitled to full First Amendment protection.”
 
As for whether or not advocating for progesterone therapy is effective against mifepristone, reasonable minds may disagree – but that doesn’t change the fact that there is peer-reviewed scientific literature supporting the claim. As the Second Circuit itself has held, “to the extent a speaker or author draws conclusions from non-fraudulent data, based on accurate descriptions of the data and methodology underlying those conclusions, on subjects about which there is legitimate ongoing scientific disagreement,” such statements cannot be deemed false under the First Amendment.
 
It seems reasonable, given New York’s recent track record and James’ outspokenness on the issue, to question whether prosecuting crisis pregnancy centers is politically motivated. But our concern at Protect The 1st is not ideological. It is that we cannot allow the use of our justice system to crack down on disfavored speech – and that would apply just as fervently to pro-choice speech in a red state as pro-life speech in a blue one. We will not stop until everyone in government appreciates that when the First Amendment says “shall make no law” prohibiting free speech, it actually means make no law.

​The mindfulness movement encourages people to focus on the now, to be in the moment as they work, but also as they walk, trim the shrubs, drive the kids to school, and boil the spaghetti.
 
How about mindfulness at the moment of one’s execution?
 
In Buddhism, the practice of Maranasati is to use mindful breathing to reach the deepest level of contemplation. Many Buddhists engage in meditation and other spiritual practices as they actually are dying.
 
One person who sought to do this was the recently departed Jessie Hoffman, 46, a convert to Buddhism who wished to engage in meditative breathing as he died. He was prevented from doing so, however, because of the manner of his death, which happened Tuesday night. Hoffman had been sentenced to be lawfully executed for first-degree murder and became the first person in Louisiana to have a mask strapped on his face to be asphyxiated by breathing nitrogen gas.
 
Hoffman faced the death penalty because he had, at age 18, kidnapped 28-year-old Molly Elliott, raped her, shot her in the head, and left her naked body by a river.
 
After 27 years of appeals, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a stay of Hoffman’s execution, dismissing the claim that death by nitrogen amounted to a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
 
Four Supreme Court Justices, including Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have granted Hoffman’s application for a stay. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a short dissent explaining his reasoning.
 
Justice Gorsuch noted that no one “has questioned the sincerity of Mr. Hoffman’s religious beliefs.” This is relevant to the application of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which forbids the government from violating a prisoner’s sincerely held religious beliefs. Justice Gorsuch took a lower court to task for issuing its own “find[ing] about the kind of breathing that Mr. Hoffman’s faith requires.”
 
Given the failure of the lower court to fully vet Hoffman’s claim – and the “Fifth Circuit’s unexplained omission” in doing so – Justice Gorsuch announced that he would have granted the stay and vacated the judgment. He would also have remanded the case for the Fifth Circuit to address Hoffman’s RLUIPA claim.
 
This is reminiscent of another case, Ramirez v. Collier (2020), in which the Court ruled in favor of John Henry Ramirez, a man on death row in Texas who petitioned to have his minister lay a hand on him as he received a lethal injection. The Court sided with Ramirez, 8-1. The prisoner’s minister was permitted, in fact, to place his right hand on Ramirez as he died.
 
On its face, the idea of being able to engage in meditative breathing while ceasing to breathe altogether sounds a bit absurd. Prosecutors are always alert to prisoners who manufacture religious objections to extend their lives. Hoffman had requested that he be executed by firing squad, which would, to say the least, have also interfered with his meditative breathing.
 
But Justice Gorsuch reminds us that the free practice of religion, at the most solemn moment of a person’s life, should command sufficient respect to fully explore an RLUIPA claim. At the very least, Hoffman’s claim deserved more consideration, even if it was ultimately rejected.

Ramirez’s attorney, Seth Kretzer, said it best: “The First Amendment applies in the most glorified halls of power and also in the hell of the execution chamber.”

​Last week, Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner threatened to terminate a lease agreement between the city and an art house film cinema after it screened the pro-Palestine film, No Other Land (which recently won the Oscar for best documentary).
 
In a newsletter to city residents, Meiner said, "I am a staunch believer in free speech. But normalizing hate and then disseminating antisemitism in a facility owned by the taxpayers of Miami Beach … is unjust to the values of our city and residents and should not be tolerated."
 
Meiner introduced a resolution before the city council to cancel the lease for O Cinema, which rents space from the city, and also terminate roughly $80,000 in grant funding that the city agreed to give the theater. The mayor pulled the resolution when only one commissioner supported it, and five opposed it.
 
We congratulate the mayor and the council for ultimately making the right call.
 
Regardless of whether No Other Land constitutes antisemitism (the film depicts the Palestinian experience in the occupied West Bank), Meiner’s stated intentions run directly into the First Amendment’s prohibition on “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” Supreme Court opinions have long held that the First Amendment applies to government at all levels – federal agencies, states, and yes, city governments.
 
But what happens when government subsidizes speech, as Miami Beach does with its grant to the theater? Government subsidies often lead to the inevitable temptation toward viewpoint discrimination. The issue of restrictions on government-paid speech is one of the thorniest – and most poorly adjudicated issues in First Amendment jurisprudence.

Generally speaking, the government is permitted to “speak for itself” without necessarily being required to do so neutrally. In Rust v. Sullivan, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the government could fund family planning programs while also prohibiting providers from discussing abortions. By contrast, in Legal Services Corp. v. Velasquez, the Court said a government program funding legal representation for indigent parties could not prohibit lawyers from helping those parties challenge welfare laws.
 
Amid these divergent cases, another one seems more on point than others. In Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va, the Court distinguished between government speech and instances in which the government “does not itself speak or subsidize transmittal of a message it favors but instead expends funds to encourage a diversity of views from private speakers.”
 
In other words, when the government acts as patron, it may not prefer one lawfully stated view over another. That would seem to be the case here.
 
Initially, O Cinema CEO Vivian Marthell agree to cancel screenings of the film, noting “concerns of antisemitic rhetoric.” She later changed her mind, and it’s a decision which – agree or disagree with it – we support her right to make. ACLU of Florida legal director Daniel Tilley said, "The government does not get to pick and choose which viewpoints the public is allowed to hear, however controversial some might find them.”
 
That’s correct, but the issue of government speech remains tricky, as is the corollary issue of government subsidies for speech. It would help to get additional clarity on such cases in the future. One thing is clear – the best way to oppose a view you dislike is to speak out, not sue.

​Today, the Lone Star State is poised to embrace universal school choice. Is that a good idea?
 
With debate in Austin now underway, Texas legislators – who serve the nation’s second most populous state – might look to the third most populous state for answers to that question.
 
In 2023 Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed House Bill HB1, which established universal school choice. Today, Florida has more than 524,000 children participating in Florida’s school choice scholarship program for private school or home schooling. Florida also supports the expansion of charter schools, now enrolling more than 400,000 Florida youth.
 
Protect The 1st supports the school choice movement’s rapid expansion rolling across the states. We do so because we believe this policy gives parents something precious – the ability to choose schools that allow them to express their values across generations. Thus choice enhances the ultimate protection of free expression, as guaranteed by the First Amendment. We also hope it will return American school children to a solid appreciation of American history and civics – lessons lacking today in many public schools – that are essential to a healthy First Amendment society.
 
But none of this matters if – as we’ve asked before – school choice doesn’t work. Does it actually improve educational outcomes?
 
Gov. DeSantis writes in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal that charter school students, a population that is majority low-income, perform above their peers in traditional school districts. The return of core principles in teaching math, science, history, and reading has allowed the Sunshine State to see marked improvement in test scores, so much so that The U.S. News & World Report ranks Florida first in the nation in education among the states for the past two years.
 
That’s something to emulate as well as celebrate. Tennessee and Wyoming recently joined the universal school choice club. With the addition of Texas, the school choice movement should be well on its way to becoming a nationwide policy.

​We recently reported on the results of a Becket Fund for Religious Liberty survey, the Religious Freedom Index finding that 75 percent of Americans accept and support the freedom for people to choose (or not choose) a religion – up nearly 20 points since 2020. Now the Pew Research Center’s recently released Religious Landscape Study, raises a few red flags about the future of continued support for the free exercise of religion in America.  

While Pew’s findings are something of a mixed bag for the prospect of religious affiliation, Protect The 1st is concerned with the implications of declining religiosity for the protections of the First Amendment. When fewer people value faith, the less likely it becomes that our country will steadfastly honor expressions of religious beliefs in accordance with the Constitution. In fact, as religious adherents become a minority, the more vital it becomes that we protect them and their activities.

First, here are some top-line findings from Pew, many of which religious people may find somewhat reassuring:

• Following years of decline, the number of Americans identifying as Christian is around 62 percent. The figure constitutes a marked decrease from the first such study concerning the nation’s majority religion. In 2007, 78 percent of Americans viewed themselves as Christian.

 

• At the same time, over the last five years, “the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable,” oscillating between 60 percent and 64 percent. The latest figure falls squarely in the middle of that range.

 

• Spiritual beliefs are far more common, with 86 percent of respondents affirming belief in a soul and 83 percent of respondents attesting to a faith in God or in a “universal spirit.”

Now for the red flags – despite indicators suggesting a stabilization in patterns of religious affiliation, Pew’s findings suggest a real possibility of continued declines over the coming years because young people are significantly less likely to be religious than older generations. According to the survey, only 46 percent of respondents in the 18-24 demographic identify as Christian versus 80 percent of adults in the 74+ demographic.

“Generational replacement,” the study notes, could have the effect of upending recent stabilization patterns.  

Pew’s survey surprisingly found that more than one-half of Americans believe religion either does more harm than good, or only does good and harm in equal amounts. Only 44 percent believed it was a clear force for good – no doubt a deep decline in historical terms. A whopping 83 percent of religiously unaffiliated people say that religion does at least as much harm as good. Pew’s study further provides that “[c]ompared with 2014, Americans now express less positive views of churches and other religious organizations.”

These are trends that could inspire infringements on the free exercise of religion. As public perceptions of religious organizations worsen, these perceptions create an unfavorable environment for religious expression of all sorts – even if religious organizations ultimately prevail against legal challenges in court.

For those of us who defend the free exercise of religion – the right to practice any religion or hold no religion at all – it seems clear that we must navigate a complex landscape with growing cultural antipathy towards religious institutions. This makes it more important than ever that we continue to honor our foundational precepts by educating people about the Bill of Rights and opposing those who would use state power to scale those rights back.
​
The Supreme Court of the United States will soon hear Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case that concerns the rights of parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, to opt their children out of teachings about sexuality contrary to their religion. The Court is also still considering whether to take up the case of Apache Stronghold v. United States, which seeks protection for the long-recognized sacred site of the Apaches in Arizona, whose very existence is under threat by a mining project that would obliterate this site.
 
We hope these and other cases will be resolved in favor of the First Amendment. In the meantime, Protect The 1st will keep following the trend lines, while continuing to unwaveringly advocate for the future of free exercise.

​In 1927, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that the best remedy for “falsehood and fallacies,” besides education, “is more speech, not enforced silence.”
 
Almost a century later, enforced silence became the favored solution of government censors, from the FBI to the State Department, who secretly jawboned social media platforms to remove posts the government believed to be disinformation from Russia, misinformation, or dangerous information. As Mark Zuckerberg made clear in his recent interview with Joe Rogan, when a highly regulated industry gets angry calls demanding removal of content from the government, it is not taken as a gentle suggestion. Thus for several years threads of the national discussion were quietly pulled, with millions of social media consumers none the wiser.
 
That era is now over.
 
President Trump’s executive order forbidding censorship and the shuttering of government agencies, like the State Department’s infamous Global Engagement Center, prevent a restart of the government censorship regime, at least for the foreseeable future.
 
But the complex problems of content moderation still remain. The First Amendment restricts government control of speech, but it does not forbid social media companies from moderating the content they host. Meta says it will continue the content moderation for material that is obscene, violent, and extreme. But otherwise, the way is open for controversial speech of all sorts.
 
How, then, will assertions be vetted? Not by third-party fact-checkers. That model, too, is broken. Zuckerberg agreed that the fact-checking process was subjective and often warped by partisan bias. The way forward for Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, then, is to promote more speech, by allowing the public to test ideas. Meta is doing this with the incorporation of the same open-source algorithm that powers X’s community notes. That technology is now being tested by Meta across the country, with 200,000 people already signed up to become Community Notes contributors.
 
Crowd-sourced factchecking will undoubtedly be imperfect. Social media platforms will have to be on guard for organized efforts to game the new system. But overall, Community Notes is the superior solution. It follows speech with more speech – and then leaves it up to us to decide what is fair and true, just as we do all the time at the American dinner table.

​Should anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil have his green card pulled so he can be deported? Only if he is given due process before a judge or other government official, as a legal resident of the United States.
 
Expelling Khalil is what the Trump Administration has set out to do for his leading role in protests last spring on the Columbia University campus attacking Israel and purportedly praising Hamas. And, as the lead negotiator and spokesman for the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), Khalil might be deportable for violating the law governing green card holders. The law makes a green card holder inadmissible for residency if he “endorses or espouses terrorist activity” or represents a group with the same goal.
 
An appearance before a judge or other unbiased official is the only way to winnow out the facts of this case, namely the degree of Khalil’s participation that led to the illicit occupation of parts of Columbia University as a “Jew-free” zone, and giving Jewish students and faculty legitimate reason to fear for their safety. And what, specifically, did he say and endorse? Only an unbiased decision-maker can determine if Khalil’s anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protests veered into endorsement of terrorism, which would lead to his ejection from this country, or were simply political speech protected by the First Amendment.
 
We appreciate that due process for a Hamas-sympathizer is the tiniest of violins. But it must be played. As a legal resident, Khalil deserves only one thing – a fair opportunity to account for his actions and to answer accusations. We cannot lose sight of the bigger picture: If Khalil loses those due process rights, we all lose something precious.

​Federal Judge Beryl Howell made a necessary call Wednesday when she issued a temporary restraining order blocking parts of the March 6 executive order that sanctioned the entire Perkins Coie law firm.
 
“We can’t recall a similar White House order from any president,” The Wall Street Journal opinion editors wrote. We can’t either. If the massive enforcement powers of the federal government can be used for such blunderbuss political retaliation, it would violate the First Amendment rights of law firm personnel and harm the due process rights of their clients. It would also set a precedent that conservatives and MAGA supporters would surely live to regret whenever a progressive administration returns to office.
 
To be fair to the White House, some former Perkins Coie lawyers attracted justifiable criticism for facilitating the dubious dossier and false reports to the FBI general counsel that cast then-candidate Donald Trump as a Russian agent. An investigation by the Justice Department Inspector found that the dossier was a sloppy, gossip-laden compendium of misstatements, used by the FBI (which knew the dossier was unreliable) to obtain four warrants to surveil Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, and through him, the campaign itself.
 
Still, this doesn’t begin to justify an executive order that bars more than 1,000 Perkins Coie lawyers from entering federal buildings and restricts government contractors from working with their firm. The vast majority (if not all) of the current Perkins Coie attorneys working on thousands of cases today had nothing to do with the controversies surrounding the Trump-Russia accusations. And the two Perkins-Coie partners who were responsible for the creation and spreading of these accusations left the firm in 2021. So the executive order plainly overreaches.
 
Indeed, if the full executive order had been kept in place, Perkins Coie lawyers would have been barred from all federal buildings, harming their ability to represent clients. And if the order included courthouses, it would have essentially disbarred them as litigators – all without any legal process to determine whether any particular lawyer merited such punishment. Such orders harm not just the firm’s lawyers, but also their thousands of clients who depend on them for effective representation.
 
All Americans deserve representation. And law firms – even if you detest their politics – have a First Amendment right to lean woke, MAGA, libertarian, or vegetarian.
 
This controversy brings to mind Paul Giamatti’s portrayal of John Adams, in HBO’s magnificent series of the same name. Giamatti portrayed Adams stepping forward to defend British soldiers standing trial for murder after the Boston massacre. When challenged by Sam Adams that “this is a time for choosing sides,” John Adams replied, “I am for the law, cousin. Is there another side?”

​Houston’s Discovery Green Park is an urban jewel, a 12-acre site with playgrounds, skating rinks, a jogging trail, a music venue, yoga classes, and more. It has everything, except respect for the free exercise of religion.
 
This park has seen no lack of other kinds of protests, from pro-choice demonstrations to anti-NRA protests. But when Dr. Faraz Harsini and Daraius Dubash dared to hold an educational series about factory farming, they each acquired a pair of shiny new handcuffs. Their crime? They showed eye-catching but harmless images of industrial farming practices.
 
Dr. Harsini’s work on animal rights emerges from his work as a scientist. Dubash’s advocacy springs from the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta. For him, ahimsa, or nonviolence against other living things, is a holy teaching. His invitation to tell passersby about animal cruelty was an expression of his deeply held religious beliefs.
 
Is such preaching allowed in a public park?
 
That question allowed Protect The 1st and the Harvard Free Exercise Clinic to embark on a historical quest in an amicus brief in support of Daraius Dubash in his appeal before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. While the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and other groups represent Mr. Dubash and Dr. Harsini before the Fifth Circuit, we thought this was an excellent opportunity to do a deep dive into American history and the question of how religion is protected – or not – in public places.
 
This is an issue that hearkens back to the very beginnings of America.
 
We all know that Puritan settlers fled religious persecution to find freedom on the shores of New England. It wasn’t long, however, before the persecuted became the persecutors. Puritans publicly beat Quakers “like unto a jelly,” cutting off their ears, branding them, and putting them in outdoor stockades. Refugees from the theocracy in Massachusetts carried a heightened appreciation for the rights of others. In Quaker Rhode Island and New Jersey, guarantees of “free exercise” and “liberty of conscience” took root. In 1681, King Charles II famously granted William Penn a charter to found the Province of Pennsylvania as a “holy experiment” in tolerance.
 
Later, the itinerant preachers of the First and Second Great Awakenings – religious revivals that bracketed the Founding – spurred a transformation of American public spaces into places where religious expression flourished. One famous traveling proselytizer, George Whitefield, recognized that disaffected believers “who would not come to a church to hear his message would go to a park.” Whitefield drew a record-breaking crowd of 20,000 to Boston Commons, where he spoke within view of the site where Quaker preachers had earlier been hanged.
 
Then came the Methodists, preachers outside the mainstream who spoke on public land because houses of worship and school buildings were closed against them, leaving them only “the street corner, the public parks, or gardens, the fields, or woods.”
 
As public tolerance grew, so did legal protection for preaching in public. Thomas Jefferson provided the model of the natural right of the free exercise of religion in Virginia, later established for the nation in the First Amendment. The Supreme Court in the 20th century would uphold these rights for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 14 out of 19 cases.
 
Now this right is being tested again, this time for an American preaching ahisma, aided by a portable television, in Houston. We find once again, that when religious expression is violated, the rights of all Americans are at stake. That is our message to the Fifth Circuit.
 
To learn more about the evolution of American law on the free exercise of religion in public places, from colonial times to today, check out our brief.