Additional Information
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Incident Nature:
Rally or protest
Lawsuit
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Incident Political Orientation:
Left wing -
Incident Responses:
Other Law Enforcement
Litigation
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Incident Status:
In litigation Federal District Court
- Did not involve Speech Codes
Summary
The Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Houston and the University of Texas at Dallas brought suit over Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s executive order dealing with campus free speech. The order demands that public universities in Texas to update their policies in response to speech deemed antisemitic. The universities revised their speech policies to comply with Gov. Abbott’s executive order. The Council on Islamic-American Relations filed suit on behalf of Students for Justice in Palestine at these schools, alleging that such order is unconstitutional and constitutes viewpoint discrimination.
The district court found that the plaintiffs’ allegation that the executive order was a credible threat on future speech on Israel constituted an injury-in-fact. The court also found that restricting speech that criticized Israel based on the rationale that they cause substantial disruption is not sufficient to justify the viewpoint discrimination.
