In a decision as striking for its pointed warnings about President Trump as it was for its legal conclusions, a federal judge in Boston on Tuesday ruled the federal government violated the free speech rights of international students who were singled out for deportation after they had spoken out or participated in pro-Palestinian advocacy.
Senior District Judge William G. Young decided in favor of professors’ unions at Harvard and other schools that sued the Trump administration over its attempts to arrest, detain, and ultimately deport foreign pro-Palestinian student activists in the spring.
“This case ― perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court ― squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us,” Young wrote in his 161-page decision. “The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do.’ ”
But Young seemed to sound a warning for the limits of what he and other courts could do in the face of a presidency he accused of brushing aside “the Constitution, our civil laws, regulations, mores, customs, ... The President simply ignores it all when he takes it into his head to act,” he wrote, adding: “Daunting prospect, isn’t it?”
The decision follows a two-week trial in July before the colorful longtime judge. During those proceedings, government officials acknowledged in testimony that some of the reasons why Tufts grad student Rümeysa Öztürk and several other students were targeted for arrest and deportation included their comments on the Israel Gaza war and associations — in some cases, with anti-Israel organizations.
After being detained for weeks, Öztürk is out on bail while an immigration case against her continues. Just hours after Young issued a decision, the government was arguing in a separate federal appeals court in New York that she should be sent back into detention.
Young wrote that the Trump administration officials “acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target noncitizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech.” Taken with other actions by the administration, he wrote, it was part of “the Trump administration’s full-throated assault on the First Amendment across the board.”
The repercussions of Young’s findings were not immediately clear; the judge is expected to schedule a hearing soon on any remedies he might order. The administration did not directly respond to questions about whether it will appeal.
“Less than a week after a terrorist attack at an (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) facility in Dallas, a craven Judge is smearing and demonizing federal law enforcement,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
The agency also pushed back on Young’s criticism of ICE agents using masks as “squalid, disingenuous, and dishonorable.”
“Our ICE law enforcement should be thanked for risking their lives every day to arrest murderers, pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and terrorists instead of vilified by sanctuary politicians,” the statement continued. It accused the judge of deciding “to stoke the embers of hatred.”
Young’s ruling is, in style and substance, an unusually stark refutation of the Republican president. Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee, framed the ruling in deeply personal terms, including one section where he quotes his wife describing Trump as “bullying ahead,” and references his son in another section.
Perhaps the most unusual part of the document was the format itself, in which Young used excerpts from a postcard he received as a framing device for his written ruling.
At the top of the order Young quotes from a postcard he received June 19 that reads, in all-caps handwriting: “Trump has pardons and tanks …. What do you have?”
Young then includes his own direct response: “Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous, Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States — you and me — have our magnificent Constitution. Here’s how it works out in a specific case —” at which point Young segues into the conventional start of a court decision.
Deep in the decision, Young included a section titled “JUSTICE IN THE TRUMP ERA,” a 13-page musing on the president‘s ultimate aims ― and what the courts can attempt to do to rein him in when they find he violates the law.
“In the golden age of our democracy, this opinion might end here,” Young then wrote. “After all, the facts prove that the President himself approves truly scandalous and unconstitutional suppression of free speech on the part of two of his senior cabinet secretaries. One would imagine that the corrective would follow as a matter of course from the appropriate authorities. Yet nothing will happen.”
Young signed off, but then returned to address the letter writer: “I hope you found this helpful. Thanks for writing. It shows you care. You should. Sincerely & respectfully, Bill Young.”
This ruling is clearly intended for a dual audience, said Boston University law professor Robert L. Tsai: the legal system and the general populace.
“The judge is clearly anticipating widespread interest in the ruling — it is an unusual opinion in that way," he said. But, he said, “what I think is a very sound technical decision may be harmed or discounted because of some of the flights of fancy that he took.”
David A. Super, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, who focuses partly on constitutional law, said he expects this case to end up at the Supreme Court. Super said that he had read several of Young’s opinions, but this one held a different sort of weight.
“He is always very careful with the facts,” Super said. “But the strength of the concern he expresses here is something I’ve not seen before from him.”
The case was filed by the American Association of University Professors and its chapters at Harvard, New York University, and Rutgers University, as well as by the Tucson-based nonprofit Middle East Studies Association.
Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute and one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in court, said Young’s decision was an “important victory.”
“If the First Amendment means anything, it’s that the government cannot imprison you because it doesn’t like the speech that you have engaged in,” Krishnan said.
In the early months of his administration, Trump has pursued aggressive immigration enforcement in the name of public safety. He has also taken aim at institutes of higher education, which he’s accused of left-wing bias and a failure to do enough to combat antisemitism.
During the trial, testimony focused on the federal government’s arrests of Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Yunseo Chung, students at Columbia University; and Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University; and Öztürk, who was arrested in late March by masked agents on a Somerville street.
“Writing is the heart of freedom of expression,” Öztürk said in a statement Tuesday. “Unbelievably, it was my writing — a single opinion piece, published in our student newspaper — that led to my arrest and ultimately landed me in a damp, crowded, and inhumane ICE for-profit prison for 45 days this spring."
In his decision, Young clearly sought to reach a wider audience with his conclusions on the federal government’s pursuit of these cases.
“I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.” Young wrote.
Then, in the final line of the decision, he asks: “Is he correct?”
Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter. Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio can be reached at giulia.mcdnr@globe.com. Follow her @giuliamcdnr.