Columbia University made <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/columbia-u-prez-gets-flak-from-faculty-for-not-fighting-harder-against-trump">headlines</a> for accepting the Trump administration’s <a href="https://president.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/03.21.2025%20Columbia%20-%20FINAL.pdf">demands</a>: in exchange for the restoration of over $400 million in federal funding — which the federal government revoked from Columbia due to its failure to address violent campus anti-Semitism, a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — the university will expel disruptive students, increase campus security, review its admissions policy, and place certain departments under academic receivership.
The mainstream is, unsurprisingly, aghast. “Columbia has capitulated to the bullies,” <a href="https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/columbia-university-gives-in-to-trump-admin-demands-eroding-academic-freedom-and-student-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">read</a> a statement from the ACLU of New York.
It’s an interesting choice of word, “bullies,” and, for Columbia, rather convenient. Based on <a href="https://freebeacon.com/campus/what-columbia-university-president-really-told-faculty-members/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">leaked internal conversations</a> from Columbia, administrators likely would prefer to seem as though they were rapidly bullied into submission by the big bad Republican President of the United States than be forced to admit the reality: that they had been bullied into submission by their own students and faculty over the course of a decade, and now finally have an opportunity to excise extremism from their ranks.
Indeed, the story of the past 15 years or so of American academic life is a story of profound cowardice: people who should have known better and who, in the case of tenured faculty, had the power to act per their conscience without risking their livelihoods, chose instead to give in to a small group of entitled campus radicals who made increasingly deranged demands — campus inquisitions for the accused, struggle sessions for dissidents, a near-total shutdown of academic freedom — while demonstrating poor behavior and poor scholarship that in a saner era would not only have gotten them expelled or fired, but publicly ridiculed.
Eventually, as the dust from the COVID era began to settle and the failures of liberal orthodoxy became apparent, it became more acceptable to discuss internal problems. By 2022, professors began to admit publicly that their students were <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-stunning-level-of-student-disconnection" target="_blank" rel="noopener">worse off</a> emotionally and academically after the pandemic, and that colleges had tossed out expectations for them, beginning in the <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/on-college-admissions-its-the-woke-fringe-vs-everyone-else/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">admissions department</a>; that spring, MIT became the first elite university to <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2022/stuart-schmill-sat-act-requirement-0328" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bring</a> back its standardized testing requirement after relaxing it during the pandemic.
But the real watershed moment on American campuses was October 7, 2023, as college students across the country cheered for murderous Hamas terrorists. For the first time since the Obama administration, there was real internal debate within the liberal mainstream about what had happened to academia, not just with respect to Israel but with respect to the entire toxic sludge of ideology that long preceded the Hamas attack. In December of 2023, the Chronicle of Higher Education, perhaps the nation’s most prominent academic newspaper, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-decade-of-ideological-transformation-comes-undone" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> a story titled, “A Decade of Ideological Transformation Comes Undone.” Wrote Lee Gutkin, “College leaders have discovered, maybe too late, that the habit of validation has left them incapable of managing institutions in which real and deep disagreements exist.”
Gutkin was right: when Columbia and other universities were confronted in the spring of the 2023-24 academic year with protests far more objectionable than in the fall, administrators failed to act. At Columbia, things got so bad that even non-Jewish janitors are now filing a Title VI complaint, claiming they were <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/world/columbia-university-janitors-claim-anti-israel-encampment-accused-them-of-being-jew-lovers-and-spray-painted-swastikas-around-campus-aegd9g7s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> “Jew lovers” by an antisemitic mob and forced to scrub swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti.
Columbia, specifically, did too little too late, disciplining only 40 of the hundreds of students involved and then <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/suspension-most-columbia-students-disciplined-over-gaza-protests-is-removed-2024-08-20/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">restoring</a> 38 of them to campus the following academic year. While the university’s schizophrenic actions led to allegations of unfair treatment by both sides, they mostly just showed spinelessness.
It appears now that administrators had been hoping for an out. <a href="https://president.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/03.21.2025%20Columbia%20-%20FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Columbia’s plan</a> goes far deeper than the Trump administration’s demands of cracking down on anti-Semitism and physical violence: the university is also committing to institutional neutrality, hiring more intellectually diverse faculty, creating spaces for open discourse, and reviewing its admissions practices.
These are not the actions of a university that is begrudgingly complying with a hostile government; they are the actions of administrators who have found an excellent excuse — money — to disregard the activists they were previously beholden to and recommit themselves to the teaching and research that they should have been focusing on all along. As the co-chair of Columbia’s anti-Semitism task force <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/nyregion/columbia-response-trump-demands.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times, “What’s fascinating to me is a lot of these are things we needed to get done and were getting done, but now we’ve gotten done more quickly.”
While there is not a single university that actively wants its federal funding revoked, the looming threat of losing federal funding — one that the Trump administration has now made clear it is willing to make good on — may be excuse enough for the saner voices in universities to attempt to deradicalize. Whatever university administrators may say publicly, they may very well silently be thanking the Trump administration.
* * *
Neeraja Deshpande is an education policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum (iwf.org).
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-US-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-education-COLUMBIA-demonstration

Columbia University Wanted This

ACLU

American Universities

anti-Israel

Anti-Semitism

Columbia University

Department of Education

Education

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Opinion

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Pro-Palestinian

Protests

Trump Administration

Violence

A missions arm of a conservative Protestant denomination is facing criticism after it encouraged illegal immigrants to mislead federal immigration authorities and shared resources from groups like the American Civil Liberties Union. 
Mission to North America (MNA), a subsidiary of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), shared a resource page offering legal advice to illegal immigrants and opining on Trump administration immigration policy. The page began making the rounds on X Tuesday after it was <a href="https://x.com/WokePreacherTV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shared</a> by the account “Woke Preacher Clips.” The PCA removed the page several hours later following criticism from conservative leaders and members of the denomination. 
The <a href="https://archive.ph/VjckD" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resource page</a>, called “Refugee &amp; Immigrant Ministry for Churches: Help Immigrants Facing 2025 Policy Changes,” was first posted in January. Its decidedly left-wing gloss on immigration is out of step with the PCA&#8217;s conservative congregants, nearly two thirds of whom backed President Donald Trump in 2020. The page refers to illegal immigrants as “undocumented,” a term legacy media outlets and leftist organizations use to downplay illegal immigration. 
“The average undocumented person has been present in the US for more than a decade,” the now-deleted resource page said. “Some may not have documents giving them permission to remain in the US.”
Other recommendations from the guide include hiding one’s country of origin from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and reporting immigration enforcement raids. 
“If you do not have lawful status, it is recommended not to carry documentation showing your country of origin. Do not carry false immigration documents,” the page said, using language from the non-profit organization, World Relief. 
Related to this advice, the page offers guidance for what to do if illegal immigrants are contacted by ICE, saying they should not disclose their country of origin. 
“Show ICE your identity document (if you do not have lawful status, show an identity document that does not include your country of birth or citizenship),” the resource page said. 
It also coached illegals on how to minimize their chances of being deported. 
“If you were granted parole or have been in the U.S. for less than two years and you fear returning to your home country, tell the officer you are afraid to go back,” the resource page said. “Collect strong evidence that you have been present in the U.S. for at least two years. It is important to select documents that do not mention your country of birth or your immigration status, as that information could be used against you.”
Additionally, it recommended that they ask their pastor or others if they had a plan for if an immigration enforcement officer showed up. 
Other guidance included not disclosing any criminal history to ICE and advising illegals to consult with a lawyer about whether they should turn themselves in an attempt to gain asylum. 
“Report raids: If your loved one was apprehended during an immigration raid to a workplace or other location, report this to your city or state’s rapid response network, if there is one,” the guidance said, pointing them to radical leftist groups like the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
Mission to North America also weighed in public policy, claiming that a president “does not have the authority to end birthright citizenship,” which is currently being litigated in federal courts. 
The guide points to a number of outside groups, most of which advocate for far-Left politics and many of which oppose Christian values. For example, the page <a href="https://archive.ph/klWDp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">links</a> to the ACLU which promotes abortion and transgender ideology as well as the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. That group has <a href="https://www.ilrc.org/state-map-immigration-enforcement-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decried</a> Trump’s immigration plans as “horrific” and suggested that the Trump administration is “fascist.” 
Many leaders and members of PCA churches voiced their opposition to the guide.
“A shameful betrayal of America by my allegedly conservative evangelical denomination,” <a href="https://x.com/realJeremyCarl/status/1889314181154836574">wrote</a> former Trump administration official and PCA member Jeremy Carl. “This is not what church members want.”
PCA Pastor Zachary Groff, a member of a permanent committee that oversees the Mission to North America, said that the guidance was under review and told The Daily Wire that leadership took it down at the advice of the committee. He said that while the committee had broad oversight of Mission to North America, its day-to-day actions and publications were controlled by its staff. 
“What Mission to North America does in terms of its line level personnel, its processes and procedures, and its publications would be handled at the staff level day to day,” Groff told The Daily Wire. “The Presbyterian Church in America as a church has no place offering legal advice, particularly in a sensitive matter and specialized matter like immigration law, on any of its publications.” 
Before the whole resource page was deleted, Mission to North America deleted a section of the page where congregants were encouraged to call their representative and ask them to oppose Trump’s pause on refugee resettlement, as <a href="https://rfbwcf.substack.com/p/you-get-what-you-pay-for" target="_blank" rel="noopener">documented</a> by Pastor Ryan Biese of First Presbyterian Church in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. 
The guidance was posted by the MNA Refuge and Immigrant Ministry, which is currently led by Angela Pacey. In January, Pacey, in her official capacity, signed a <a href="https://worldrelief.org/christianstatement/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">petition</a> opposing Trump’s refugee policy. Her name appears to have since been removed. Neither she nor MNA Director Irwyn Ince responded to a request for comment by deadline. 
Pat Hatch, who is listed as the director emeritus of the refuge and immigrant ministry, told The Daily Wire she prayed that “out of any controversy would come a stronger commitment to serving refugees and immigrants.”
As the PCA reserves all official leadership positions in the church to ordained men, it is unusual for the denomination to sanction unordained individuals who have not been theologically examined to direct large ministries. 
Groff told The Daily Wire that while the situation was created by staff at the Mission to North America, it would be addressed by the committee and the broader denomination, which has complete control over the body. 
“This is the General Assembly’s responsibility to address and we are going to address it through the permanent committee of Mission to North America and at the 52nd General Assembly of the PCA this summer,” he said. 
He said the guidance was a “failure” on behalf of the oversight committee, but that it could be a learning opportunity. Groff said the PCA should not be affiliated with groups like World Relief or the ACLU, which push a “politically progressive agenda.”
Bryan Chapell, who organizes and corresponds on behalf of the PCA, told concerned members concerned about the guidance that they were correct, according to a message viewed by The Daily Wire. 
“Your concern is well justified. Mission to North America leadership was not aware of the immigrant counsel that was posted by lower-level personnel and has removed it. PCA Committees and Agencies do not give legal advice and should not,” he said.
After publication, Ince <a href="https://pcamna.org/mna-statement-refugee-and-immigrant-ministry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">provided a statement</a> apologizing for the guidance.  
&#8220;MNA’s leadership erroneously allowed the posting of content that advised undocumented persons on ways to avoid being detained by authorities. We affirm that it is our Christian duty to obey the lawful commands of the civil magistrate and be subject to their authority (WCF 23.4; Romans 13:1-4; 1 Peter 2:13-14). To counsel otherwise is a sin. We confess that we fell short of our Biblical and Confessional standard. We repent and apologize. We also apologize for causing confusion and consternation in our church. We have removed all the previously posted information from our website,&#8221; he said.
&#8220;MNA’s Refugee &amp; Immigrant Ministry, along with other MNA ministries, seeks to serve our churches with resources that enable them to faithfully follow our Lord’s call to love the stranger. However, MNA does not engage in providing legal advice, political campaigning or partisan positions. The information we post going forward will provide ecclesiastical resources in line with our Confession for guidance on the matter,&#8221; Ince added.
Pastor Biese, who hosts the Westminster Standard Podcast, told The Daily Wire that there needed to be a leadership change at Mission to North America. He said there was a major problem with the culture of the organization if “junior level staffers don’t realize that posting legal advice and links to political advocacy on the denomination’s website is a problem.”
He also said it was “reckless” for the guidance to tell illegal immigrants how they “might get around the law.”
&#8220;Encouraging folks to deceive the government is not something the church needs to be doing. We operate by an open statement of the truth,” he said. “That is contrary to who we are.” 
He said in no other case of breaking the law would the church urge its members to conceal their crimes. 
The promotion of a leftist immigration agenda appears to not be limited to just the guidance from the Mission to North America. An email from February 4 sent out to churches from Hispanic Ministries Director Hernando Sáenz-Oggioni said that the denomination was going to be hiring an immigration lawyer. 
“MNA Hispanic Ministries is working to secure a Spanish-speaking immigration attorney who can educate immigrants on their rights,” the email, which was obtained by The Daily Wire, shows. “The process may take time due to federal funding cuts, but we will update you once we secure a trusted facilitator.”
The email also included an example &#8220;what to do&#8221; sheet if a person was contacted by ICE and an example letter for “at risk” congregants. 
Biese said that the whole situation shows a wide mission drift by Mission to North America, which he said should focus on spreading Christian teaching. He said he suspected that the efforts on immigration were a feeble effort to make Christianity compatible with the political Left. 
“The mission of the church is to make disciples by teaching them all that Christ has commanded them and baptizing them,” he said. “None of what was on that page is involved with making disciples or baptizing people.”

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Christian Mission Organization Encourages Illegal Immigrants To Hide Identity From ICE

Christianity

Donald Trump

Illegal Immigation

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

The Justice Department told the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/supreme-court" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Supreme Court</a> on Friday that it was dropping its challenge to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/tennessee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tennessee</a>’s law shielding children from transgender medical procedures.
In a <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-477/342223/20250207133625781_Letter%2023-477.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to the clerk of the Supreme Court, Deputy Solicitor General Curtis Gannon said that the DOJ no longer took the position that Tennessee’s SB 1, which banned transgender medical procedures on minors, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/proponents-of-transgender-procedures-make-shocking-admissions-before-scotus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">heard a challenge</a> to the law in December from both the Biden administration and the ACLU. 
“Following the change in Administration, the Department of Justice has reconsidered the United States’ position in this case,” Gannon wrote. “The purpose of this letter is to notify the Court that the government’s previously stated views no longer represent the United States’ position.”
Tennessee’s law bans procedures like giving minors puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and performing surgeries like removing the breasts of girls who identify as boys. 
The law was temporarily blocked by a federal judge after it was passed in 2023 before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the law to take effect. 
“The Department has now determined that SB1 does not deny equal protection on account of sex or any other characteristic. Accordingly, the new Administration would not have intervened to challenge SB1 — let alone sought this Court’s review of the court of appeals’ decision reversing the preliminary injunction against SB1,” Gannon wrote. 
While the DOJ&#8217;s challenge to the law may now be moot, the ACLU’s suit against it still stands. Additionally, the DOJ said that it is not seeking to dismiss the case, saying that a “prompt resolution of the question presented will bear on many cases pending in the lower courts.”
After oral arguments on the case in December, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-appears-poised-to-uphold-tennessee-law-protecting-kids-from-trans-procedures" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appears poised</a> to rule in Tennessee’s favor. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, and Amy Coney Barrett all seemed skeptical of the claims made by the ACLU and the previous Biden administration. 
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti <a href="https://x.com/AGTennessee/status/1887999361633894663/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">praised</a> the DOJ for dropping its opposition and noted that the state also welcomed a decision from the court. 
“We commend President Trump for abandoning the previous administration&#8217;s effort to enshrine gender ideology into the Constitution and prevent the people&#8217;s elected officials from resolving these important and contentious issues,” Skrmetti said. “We look forward to receiving much-needed clarity when the Court issues its decision.”

Supreme Court Considers Tennessee’s Ban On Treatments For Transgender Minors

DOJ Ends Challenge To Tennessee’s Law Shielding Kids From Transgender Procedures

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The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/supreme-court" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Supreme Court</a> seems poised to reject a challenge from the Biden administration and the ACLU to Tennessee’s law shielding minors from irreversible transgender procedures, according to comments made by justices <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/proponents-of-transgender-procedures-make-shocking-admissions-before-scotus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">during oral arguments</a> on Wednesday.
Throughout oral arguments on Wednesday morning, the conservative justices were skeptical of arguments from U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and the ACLU, who argued that Tennessee’s law violated the 14th Amendment. The law prevents doctors from giving children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, which come with a variety of long-term health risks.
Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito strongly pushed back against Prelogar and the ACLU, with Alito pointing to data contradicting claims that transgender procedures were necessary to keep kids from committing suicide. Alito also pointed to recent decisions in the United Kingdom to restrict transgender procedures for minors.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts also seemed hesitant to weigh in against Tennessee.
&#8220;It strikes me as a pretty heavy yellow light, if not red light, for this court to come in, the nine of us, and to constitutionalize the whole area, when the rest of the world, or at least the people who the countries that have been at the forefront of this, are pumping the brakes on this kind of treatment,&#8221; Kavanaugh said.
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Both Kavanaugh and Roberts said that it seemed like it might be best to leave the issue to the states.
&#8220;If the Constitution doesn&#8217;t take sides, if there&#8217;s strong, forceful, scientific policy arguments on both sides in a situation like this, why isn&#8217;t it best to leave it to the democratic process?&#8221; Kavanaugh asked.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not the best situated to address issues like that,&#8221; Roberts said. &#8220;Doesn&#8217;t that make a stronger case for us to leave those determinations to the legislative bodies rather than try to determine them for ourselves?&#8221;
The liberal justices on the court, including Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, both seemed like they would move to strike down Tennessee&#8217;s law. Jackson tried to compare the law to old laws that prevented interracial marriage.
Headlines from the legacy media predicted that the law would be upheld. NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-tackles-state-bans-treatments-transgender-youth-rcna182517">wrote</a>, “Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to Tennessee ban on transgender youth treatments,” while CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/scotus-transgender-care-ban-12-04-24/index.html">wrote</a>, “During arguments, SCOTUS conservative majority appears ready to endorse Tennessee law.”

Transgender Rights Face Test At Supreme Court Over State Bans Of Youth Care

Supreme Court Appears Poised To Uphold Tennessee Law Protecting Kids From Trans Procedures

U.S.

Proponents of transgender procedures on children made three stunning admissions on Wednesday as they argued against a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/tennessee" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tennessee</a> law protecting children from the irreversible procedures before the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/supreme-court" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Supreme Court.</a> 
The admissions — that cross-sex hormones can cause infertility, that people regret the procedures, and that transgender procedures aren’t associated with lower suicide rates — undercut leftist activists&#8217; core arguments that the procedures are necessary and lifesaving. 
These revelations were made as justices heard oral arguments in the case brought by the Biden administration and the ACLU against Tennessee for a law that shields children from transgender procedures like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. 
The outcome of the case could have nationwide implications and affect the over two dozen states that passed similar laws. The ACLU and the Biden administration argue that Tennessee’s law is a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. 
During arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar about the side effects of putting children on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. 
“I want to acknowledge gender-affirming care with respect to hormones can have some impacts on fertility,” Prelogar said in response to Kavanaugh. “With respect to hormone use, there are effects on fertility.” 
She then claimed that a lower court “found” that “many individuals who are transgender” can maintain their fertility. 
“There are measures they can undertake and they have to be counseled on those risks. As I said before, I can understand that could be a hard tradeoff but it’s not unique to this care,” she asserted. 
Cross-sex hormones have been shown to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/transgender-young-people-in-u-s-have-nearly-doubled-recently-report-shows">cause</a> infertility, deadly blood clots, heart attacks, increased cancer risks of the breasts and ovaries, liver dysfunction, worsening psychological illness, and other serious conditions.
Later, during arguments, ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, a woman who identifies as a man, admitted that the data on suicide and transgender procedures wasn’t as clear as pro-transgender activists have previously claimed. Proponents of transgender ideology have claimed that so-called “gender-affirming care” is life-saving, and told parents that they can either have a living child with the treatments or a dead child without. 
This claim was referenced by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, but Justice Samuel Alito pressed Strangio on the link to suicide and what the available data showed. 
Strangio first claimed that it was “clearly established in the science” that the medications reduced the risk of suicide. 
In response, Alito pointed to research from the Cass Review produced by the NHS in the United Kingdom that said that “there is no evidence that gender-affirming treatments reduce suicide.”
Strangio replied by saying that &#8220;there is no evidence in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide” but claimed that the procedures would reduce suicidal thoughts.
Recent research <a href="https://www.heritage.org/gender/report/puberty-blockers-cross-sex-hormones-and-youth-suicide">has shown</a> that, contrary to these claims, transgender procedures can actually increase the likelihood that minors will attempt suicide.
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During oral arguments, both Strangio and Prelogar admitted that there are people who regret undergoing transgender procedures. They both claimed that this was a “smaller” number of people than “those who benefit and find it medically necessary.” 
This would contradict a growing movement of “detransitioners” who have come out and opposed transgender procedures on children. 
Chloe Cole, who was put on cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and had a double mastectomy as a teenager, has become one of the most outspoken advocates against transgender procedures on women. 
“This case really means everything to me,” Cole <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/detransitioner-chloe-cole-transgender-supreme-court-case-means-everything-to-me" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Daily Wire before the case, “because if a law like this were in place in my state while I was growing up, if this were just federally banned across the board when I was going through this, this never would have happened to me.” 
After the arguments wrapped, analysts predicted that the Court would likely not overturn Tennessee&#8217;s protections.

Proponents Of Transgender Procedures Make Shocking Admissions Before SCOTUS

The far-left group behind a massive Supreme Court case on child gender transitions is sending a trans-identifying lawyer to Washington, D.C., this week to defend transitioning children.
<a href="https://www.aclu.org/bio/chase-strangio">Chase Strangio</a> is a woman who identifies as a transgender man, and the co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union&#8217;s LGBT &amp; HIV Project. She has undergone transgender medical treatments herself, which she has documented on her social media, and argues that children should also be able to access so-called gender-affirming care.
“Every aspect of gender-affirming care that has transformed my life,” Strangio <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/01/us/chase-strangio-supreme-court-transgender">told</a> CNN, “I’m keenly aware that I want to preserve the ability for other people to access that care.”
&#8220;For me it is not about a genderless society,&#8221; she <a href="https://www.feminists.co/discover/chase-strangio">argued in another interview</a>. &#8220;It is about challenging our assumptions about a fixed binary gender and exposing instead what gendered systems do to organize and reinforce power. I think we all have a role to play in being more critical about the operation of gender &#8211; not to make everything genderless but to make gender a site of play, reconstruction and reimagination.&#8221;
When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-skrmetti/">United States v. Skrmetti</a> on December 4, Strangio will be the one presenting on behalf of the ACLU. The case deals with Tennessee’s law banning irreversible gender transition procedures for children — and it promises to be one of the most significant the court has looked at this term.
If the court rules for Tennessee, children across the United States will be protected from these irreversible procedures. Already, lawmakers throughout the country have enacted more than 24 laws protecting children from &#8220;gender-affirming care&#8221; and the activist doctors who push these procedures.
In the past, Strangio has challenged Trump&#8217;s actions against trans-identifying service members in the military, and another case, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/cases/rg-gr-harris-funeral-homes-v-eeoc-aimee-stephens" data-v-eb54356f-s="">R.G. &amp; G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC</a>, which the ACLU boasts, &#8220;resulted in a landmark 6-3 ruling from the Supreme Court finding the 1964 Civil Rights Act&#8217;s prohibition on sex discrimination in employment extended to discrimination against LGBTQ workers.&#8221;
The ACLU <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/21/politics/chase-strangio-aclu-supreme-court-transgender/index.html">has advertised</a> that Strangio will be the first openly trans-identifying individual to argue a case before the Supreme Court, describing Strangio as “our nation’s leading legal expert on the rights of transgender people, bar none.”
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“It&#8217;s hard to see the challengers&#8217; feeble equal protection theory having sway with the Court, so it&#8217;s not surprising that they would prefer to focus on historic firsts over the actual merits of their case,&#8221; Judicial Crisis Network&#8217;s Carrie Severino told The Daily Wire.
<div id="attachment_837267" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meet-the-trans-identifying-lawyer-arguing-to-scotus-that-kids-should-get-gender-transitions/time100-summit-2022-2" rel="attachment wp-att-837267"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-837267" class="wp-image-837267 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-1401570027-1-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-1401570027-1-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-1401570027-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-1401570027-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-1401570027-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-1401570027-1-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-1401570027-1-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/12/GettyImages-1401570027-1-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>(Jemal Countess/Getty Images for TIME)</div>
Strangio didn&#8217;t respond to requests for comment from The Daily Wire, nor did the ACLU. Earlier this year, after Manhattan Institute Fellow Leor Sapir reported that Strangio had angered the ACLU by disrespecting LGBTQ leaders and acting without concern for the interests of specifically gay activists, Strangio <a href="https://x.com/LeorSapir/status/1854555728247505406">deleted her X account</a>.
Her presence before the Supreme Court may pose a challenge to some of the justices, given the debate surrounding preferred pronouns for people who identify as transgender. The ACLU and legacy media outlets, for example, use &#8220;he/him&#8221; pronouns to describe Strangio, though she is a biological woman.
Given the high-profile, controversial nature of the case, it is likely the justices will want to avoid references to Strangio&#8217;s gender altogether.
&#8220;To me, a feminist is someone who works to name and destabilize the ways in which systems of gender operate to inequitably distribute survival opportunities for different individuals and groups,&#8221; Strangio said in a recent interview with &#8220;Feminist.&#8221;
It is unclear why the website <a href="https://www.feminists.co/discover/chase-strangio">interviewed Strangio</a>, who identifies as a man.
&#8220;Critical to this project is recognizing that gender does not just operate on individuals but is inextricable from systems of governance.&#8221;
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Strangio also argues that young people have been &#8220;cut off from the medical care they need,&#8221; referring to transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers, &#8220;leaving them and their loving parents scrambling.&#8221;
&#8220;Cutting off this care is not an option for people so families are moving out of their homes, splitting up so one parent can take a trans child out of state, and even making plans to leave the United States to better protect their trans adolescent children,&#8221; she argued, referring to parents seeking to help their minor children undergo irreversible surgeries or begin taking hormones that may destroy their fertility, increase mental health issues, cause cardiovascular side effects, and more.

US-ENTERTAINMENT-HOLLYWOOD-DEI

Meet The Trans-Identifying Lawyer Arguing To SCOTUS That Kids Should Get Gender Transitions

LGBTQ

In a 2019 questionnaire that she filled out for the American  Civil Liberties Union when she was running for president, Vice-President Kamala Harris espoused hard-left positions, such as decreasing funding for ICE, ending detention for illegal immigrants, funding gender transition surgeries for illegal immigrants and federal prisoners, and even decriminalization of hard drugs.
CNN’s investigative reporter Andrew Kaczynski revealed his findings on the questionnaire, which can be <a href="https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2024/08/Harris-ACLU-Candidate-Questionnaire.pdf">read here</a>, speaking to CNN host Erin Burnett.
“This was a questionnaire that she filled out for the ACLU, and this questionnaire is really an interesting snap shot in time of that 2019 Democratic primary,” Kaczynski  stated. “Kamala Harris was trying to get to the left of Bernie Sanders. She was trying to get to the left of Elizabeth Warren and you really see that in a lot of these answers.”
“She said on immigration, she made this open ended pledge the end immigrant detention,” he continued. “She also supported it for federal prisoners. &#8230; She also pledged to slash immigration detention by 50 percent, close all family and private facilities and decreased funding for ICE, and then end ICE detainers with local law enforcement.”
In the form, Harris states that gender-transition &#8220;treatment is a medical necessity&#8221; and that she &#8220;will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment,&#8221; the form shows.
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“Let&#8217;s take a look at her answer her on drugs,” Kaczynski suggested. “She got asked about this question from the ACLU was since drug use is better addressed as a public health issue through treatment and other programming, will you support the decriminalization at the federal level of all drug possession for personal use? And Harris answers, yes.”
“Now, what would that mean? Will it mean the federal — all drug possession that&#8217;s not just marijuana, which she alluded to in her answer to this question, but it also would mean fentanyl, crack, you know, cocaine,” he explained.
Asked for a response, an unnamed Harris campaign adviser said, according to Kaczynski, “The vice president&#8217;s positions have been shaped by three years of effective governance as part of the Biden/Harris administration.&#8221;
“They declined to CNN to elaborate on what those positions were,” he told Burnett. “Where does she stand on this all, all this questioner today, we don&#8217;t know and they won&#8217;t say.”
The ACLU told CNN it does not plan to ask Harris to fill out a new questionnaire for the 2024 election.

Giffords and March For Our Lives Team Up Hosts Presidential Forum On Gun Safety

CNN Digs Into Kamala’s 2019 Policy Positions: ‘To The Left Of Bernie Sanders’

Kamala Harris

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/iowa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Iowa</a> Supreme Court ruled on Friday that a law banning abortion when an unborn baby&#8217;s heartbeat can be detected can take effect in a victory for pro-life advocates.
In a 4-3 decision, the court said that protecting unborn babies when their heartbeats can be detected is a legitimate state interest. The decision means that Iowa’s previous 20-week limit on abortion <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2024/06/28/iowa-supreme-court-clears-way-for-6-week-fetal-heartbeat-abortion-ban-womens-rights/74169072007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">will soon</a> be around six weeks once the court&#8217;s ruling officially takes effect.
“We have previously held that abortion is not a fundamental right under the Iowa Constitution,” Justice Matthew McDermott <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24781867/231145_c03d97c16be14.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> for the majority. “Applying our established tiers of scrutiny, we hold that abortion restrictions alleged to violate the due process clause are subject to the rational basis test. Employing that test here, we conclude that the fetal heartbeat statute is rationally related to the state’s legitimate interest in protecting unborn life.”
“We thus reverse the district court order entering the temporary injunction blocking enforcement of the fetal heartbeat statute and remand for further proceedings,” McDermott wrote.
The state was sued by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union after Governor Kim Reynolds signed the heartbeat bill into law after Republican lawmakers passed it during a special session last year. The law includes exceptions for rape and incest.
In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Susan Christensen claimed the law was a setback for women.
“Today, our court’s majority strips Iowa women of their bodily autonomy by holding that there is no fundamental right to terminate a pregnancy under our state constitution,” she wrote. “The majority’s rigid approach relies heavily on the male-dominated history and traditions of the 1800s, all the while ignoring how far women’s rights have come since the Civil War era.”
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Iowa Republicans <a href="https://governor.iowa.gov/press-release/2024-06-28/gov-reynolds-republican-leaders-release-statements-iowa-supreme-court-fetal-heartbeat-ruling" target="_blank" rel="noopener">celebrated</a> the ruling from the court.
&#8220;There is no right more sacred than life, and nothing more worthy of our strongest defense than the innocent unborn,” Reynolds said in a statement. “As the heartbeat bill finally becomes law, we are deeply committed to supporting women in planning for motherhood, and promoting fatherhood and its importance in parenting.”
House Speaker Pat Grassley said that courts had stood in the way of pro-life protections for a long time.
“This ruling is a victory in the fight to protect unborn children in Iowa,” Grassley said. “The Legislature is elected by the people, and for too long, the courts have stood in the way of Iowans having their voices heard on this matter.”

Iowa:  First Battleground State In The Presidential Election

Top Iowa Court Allows State’s Heartbeat Law To Take Effect After Planned Parenthood Lawsuit

Abortion

Iowa

Kim Reynolds

Planned Parenthood

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/supreme-court" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Supreme Court</a> upheld Republican-backed electoral maps in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/south-carolina" target="_blank" rel="noopener">South Carolina</a> in a 6-3 decision on Thursday, arguing that those suing to overturn the maps had not proven they were racially drawn.
A lower United States district court <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-gop-drawn-voting-map-south-carolina" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously</a> ruled that maps approved by the Republican-controlled South Carolina legislature were unconstitutional after they were challenged by a chapter of the NAACP and the ACLU. The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, said that the district court had ruled wrongly and that the maps could stand.
“When partisanship and race correlate, it naturally follows that a map that has been gerrymandered to achieve a partisan end can look very similar to a racially gerrymandered map,” Alito <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-807_3e04.pdf#&amp;_intcmp=fnhpbt3_1,hp1bt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>. “In other words, the plaintiffs failed to meet the high bar for a racial-gerrymandering claim by failing to produce, among other things, an alternative map showing that a rational legislature sincerely driven by its professed partisan goals would have drawn a different map with greater racial balance.”
Alito’s decision was joined by Justices John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barret, and Brett Kavanugh, with Clarence Thomas adding a concurring opinion.
Thomas wrote that the court had no authority to be intervening in disputes over electoral districts.
“In my view, the Court has no power to decide these types of claims,” he wrote in his concurrence. “Drawing political districts is a task for politicians, not federal judges. There are no judicially manageable standards for resolving claims about districting, and, regardless, the Constitution commits those issues exclusively to the political branches.”
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The liberal wing of the court, including Justice Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said they agreed with the lower court in their dissent and said that it was “more than plausible” that South Carolina had done race-based districting.
&#8220;In every way, the majority today stacks the deck against the Challengers. They must lose, the majority says, because the State had a &#8216;possible&#8217; story to tell about not considering race — even if the opposite story was the more credible,” they wrote.
The challenged map was already slated to be used for the 2024 election due to the ongoing court deliberations over the case.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer Announces His Retirement

Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Republican-Backed South Carolina Election Maps

Clarence Thomas

Elections

NAACP

Samuel Alito

South Carolina

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Georgia threatened to sue the state over a bill expanding the number of crimes requiring cash bail.
In a <a href="https://www.acluga.org/en/press-releases/press-release-aclu-georgia-sue-if-governor-signs-sb-63-law">press release</a> issued on Thursday, several days after the Georgia General Assembly passed the bill, the ACLU affiliate said it would sue if Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) didn’t veto the bill. The organization claimed that requiring those accused of a crime to remain in jail would endanger the community, and that black individuals would be more likely to be affected by the legislation. 
“[This bill] will dramatically increase the number of Georgians languishing in our jails and make our communities less safe,” stated the organization. “Already, 51% of the people in Georgia’s jails are black, while just 30% of the state’s overall population is black.”
The contested legislation, <a href="https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20232024/213335">Senate Bill 63</a>, expanded the definition of bail-restricted offenses to 30 new offenses, including fleeing or attempting to elude police, identity fraud, domestic terrorism, and rioting.
ACLU of Georgia’s legal director, Cory Isaacson, said that the bill was an unconstitutional criminalization of poverty and restriction of the First Amendment. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨 Georgia Senate Bill 63, which forces people who can’t afford to pay bail to languish in jail, is unlawful and the ACLU of Georgia will sue if the governor signs it into law. <a href="https://t.co/gKXWUoWHUf">https://t.co/gKXWUoWHUf</a> <a href="https://t.co/KlTcmQ8PPB">pic.twitter.com/KlTcmQ8PPB</a>
— ACLU of Georgia (@ACLUofGA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ACLUofGA/status/1755599035891855682?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Georgia Lt. Governor Burt Jones praised the bill’s passage. Jones predicted it would remove violent, repeat criminals from the public. 
“Senate Bill 63 protects Georgia families by keeping violent and repeat offenders off our streets,” said Jones.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Senate Bill 63 protects Georgia families by keeping violent and repeat offenders off our streets. I appreciate the House adopting the conference committee report on this legislation. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gapol?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#gapol</a> <a href="https://t.co/7FqZzvgZF2">https://t.co/7FqZzvgZF2</a>
— Lt. Governor Burt Jones (@LtGovJonesGA) <a href="https://twitter.com/LtGovJonesGA/status/1755224371700834571?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 7, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Kemp hasn’t issued a comment on the bill’s passage.
State Sen. Randy Robertson, the bill sponsor, explained in the Senate Public Safety Committee <a href="https://vimeo.com/showcase/8821970/video/797482445">hearing</a> on the bill early last year that there was a need to expand cash bail due to a continued rise in crime.
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“[We’re] continuing to put these guardrails up to ensure that we take the revolving doors off the jails and the 159 counties throughout Georgia,” said Robertson. “Being indigent and having no money does not excuse anyone from committing a crime.”
Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum testified to the committee that his officers dealt with almost 900 repeat offenders with nearly 29,000 prior arrests between them in 2022. 
A little over 6,000 of those prior arrests were felonies; 33% of those felons were carrying firearms when arrested again, even though state law prohibits convicted felons from owning firearms, and 57% of those repeat offenders were on probation or parole. Well over 200 were gang members.
In response to criticisms that some of the bail-restricted offenses in the bill included “minor” crimes such as criminal trespass, reckless driving, and obstruction of justice, Robertson noted during the committee hearing that those offenses were usually tied to other, more serious offenses, such as domestic terrorism and rioting. Robertson further added that judges had the discretion to set bonds as low as they desired based on the facts of the case. 
“What we found in many of the domestic terrorism cases that we looked at, and many of the cases of the 2020 riots and destruction, not only here in our capital city but around the country, all had those charges associated with them,” said Robertson. 
Additionally, the bill restricted unlimited bail posting to bail bond companies. All others — including Charitable bail funds, nonprofit organizations, and individuals — would be limited to posting bail to three or fewer individuals annually.
The bill also prohibited the release without bond of any individual charged with a bail-restricted offense, as well as individuals with prior felony arrests within the preceding seven years. 
The annual fee for continuing education programs for bail recovery agents was also doubled.

Man In Prison

ACLU Threatens To Sue Georgia Over Cash Bail Bill

Georgia

The American Civil Liberties is suing <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/texas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Texas</a> over a new law that gives state officials the ability to arrest and deport illegal immigrants amid a flood of illegal crossings into the state.
The leftist legal group claims that the law is discriminatory and will target minorities, while proponents of the law say that it is necessary since the Biden administration has not secured the border with Mexico. El Paso County, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Texas Civil Rights Project filed the lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday against the Texas Department of Public Safety.
“The bill [SB 4] overrides bedrock constitutional principles and flouts federal immigration law while harming Texans, in particular Brown and Black communities,” <a href="https://apnews.com/article/texas-immigration-lawsuit-border-2be91001567623db8ad3171265d5e739" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Adriana Piñon, the legal director of the ACLU of Texas.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that the state would fight to enforce the law all the way up to the Supreme Court. He also said that the law was necessary because of President Joe Biden’s border policies. “In his absence, Texas has the constitutional authority to secure our border through historic laws like SB 4,” Abbott said. 
Texas House Republican David Spiller said that states should have the ability to defend their borders. “I believe that Texas and other states have the absolute right to enforce their borders,” he said. 
The law, which will authorize local police to handle immigration enforcement by making it a state misdemeanor to cross the Texas-Mexico border illegally, was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gov-abbott-pledges-to-sign-law-authorizing-texas-police-to-arrest-illegal-immigrants" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first sent</a> to Abbott by Texas Republicans in November. The law will allow Texas to deport those who cross into the state back to Mexico, which would be a direct challenge to the catch-and-release policy currently practiced by the Biden administration. 
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According to the governor’s office, the law will create “a criminal offense for illegal entry into this state from a foreign nation. The law cracks down on repeated attempts to enter Texas by creating the offense of illegal reentry and penalizes offenders with up to 20 years in prison. It also provides the mechanism to order an offender to return to the foreign nation from which the person entered or attempted to enter this state. The law provides civil immunity and indemnification for local and state government officials, employees, and contractors for lawsuits resulting from the enforcement of these provisions.”
The law was criticized by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the Biden administration, with Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claiming the law was “not who we are as a country.”
Abbott and Biden have frequently clashed over illegal immigration with Biden’s Justice Department suing Texas over water barriers put up on the Rio Grande to deter illegal immigration.

Border Security Remains Key Issue In Presidential Campaigns

ACLU Sues Over Texas Law Allowing State Officials To Arrest Illegal Immigrants

Greg Abbott

illegal immigrant

Texas

Last week the once-proud ACLU sent a <a href="https://t.co/YRg3QkgYBN" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to 650 colleges and universities defending the “rights” of student groups to provide material support for anti-Semitic genocidal terror. The letter was legally and factually wrong on its face, and belied a laziness bordering on negligence. It is sad, but not surprising given the organization’s recent <a href="https://www.einpresswire.com/article/545175078/the-aclu-s-antisemitism-problem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">track record</a> when it comes to protecting Jews.
The ACLU’s missive was ostensibly written in response to a <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/letter/adl-and-brandeis-center-letter-presidents-colleges-and-universities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> sent by the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law last week, which urged university presidents to investigate the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters on their campuses to see if they were in fact doing what they explicitly claimed to be doing, i.e. providing material support for U.S. designated terrorist groups. The ACLU claimed they “are aware of no evidence” supporting the claims made in that letter, or in similar statements made by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis when his administration actually defunded SJP for those same reasons. But if the ACLU is truly unaware, they are either incompetent or willfully ignorant. 
SJP is a radical activist organization that regularly engages in blatant <a href="https://jcpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/SJP_Unmasked_Final_edited.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">anti-Semitism</a>. As far back as 2016, Congress heard <a href="http://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA18/20160419/104817/HHRG-114-FA18-Wstate-SchanzerJ-20160419.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testimony</a> from Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, about the links between SJP leadership, Hamas and other terrorist groups. Until recently, however, there was no evidence of SJP providing material support back to those organizations. Now there is. 
In the wake of the October 7th atrocities committed in Israel, SJP chapters across the country held a ‘National Day of Resistance’ to support the US designated terrorist organization Hamas, which had just killed 1,400+ innocent men, women, and children in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas’ cause is the worldwide genocide of Jewry, everywhere, including on campuses in America. It is spelled out in their <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">charter</a>, separate and in addition to the clauses vowing the obliteration of the State of Israel. In advance of their ‘Day of Resistance,’ the National SJP group released a <a href="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/10/DAY-OF-RESISTANCE-TOOLKIT.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">toolkit</a> for their chapters to use and coordinate their efforts. In doing so, SJP kindly provided law enforcement with some additional confirmation of their criminal activity. 
As the ACLU acknowledges, the toolkit endorsed “the brutal mass murder of civilians,” and exhorted participants to be clear that they are “part of this movement,” and that “[a]ll of our efforts continue the work and resistance” — previously defined to include the rape, torture, and murder committed on October 7th — “of Palestinians on the ground.” But the toolkit also did more than that, as the ACLU is also well aware. Among other things, it included public relations materials, expert training materials, persuasion training materials, and other materials carefully crafted and designed to effectively teach people how to avoid pesky facts and replace them with “frameworks” that would normalize and spread Hamas’ message so they could influence public opinion and public policy. There were even some direct quotes from terrorist leaders themselves! The ACLU knows this, because they have the toolkit; they just chose not to mention it.
Under 18 U.S.C. §2339B, it is a federal crime to “knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.” In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1 (2010), the Supreme Court held that material support, resources, or service can include even some forms of speech, if it was done “under the direction of, or in coordination with foreign groups that the speaker knows to be terrorist organizations.” Courts (including Florida courts) have been absolutely <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/476917144/Jonathan-Guerra-Blanco-s-case" target="_blank" rel="noopener">clear</a> that the kinds of services SJP is offering on behalf of Hamas would count as material support. The ACLU knows this, and so the ACLU just ignores that aspect of the argument. They focus instead on the coordination part, writing that “We are aware of no evidence suggesting that the National SJP published the statements … in coordination with, or at the direction of, Hamas. If coordination and direction are absent, the National SJP’s independent advocacy is fully protected by the First Amendment.”
That abstract statement is true on its face, but incredibly awkward for the ACLU in context, because even a first-year law student could have shepardized the Holder case and found that missing link, let alone the National Directors of the ACLU. But I’ll do it for them: Since Holder, numerous courts have held that the government is not required to establish or even allege actual connection or direction with a terrorist organization, so long as the government presents evidence that defendant attempted to provide material support. 
In this case, Hamas is known to be a foreign terrorist organization and SJP is open about the fact that they are holding their events specifically to answer Hamas’ call and to further their messaging efforts with expert materials and training as a part of Hamas’ greater movement. When someone tells you that they are trying to provide material support for terror, it is in everyone’s best interest to believe them.
Perhaps the most telling and embarrassing part of this story for the ACLU is that Palestine Legal, the law group which actually represents SJP, also sent a <a href="https://palestinelegal.org/news/2023/10/25/desantis-order-to-deactivate-national-sjp-in-florida" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to the State University System of Florida decrying DeSantis’ action. But their letter, at least, did not blindly ignore the fact that SJP is clearly guilty. Palestine Legal had the decency to basically admit as much, and instead argued that the laws SJP had violated were themselves somehow unfair. Their letter said they would be challenging “the broad and vague ‘material support for terrorism’ regime, which criminalizes even nonviolent coordination with designated terrorist organizations,” claiming that the legal framework “has only survived constitutional challenge because of pervasive fearmongering and Islamophobia within our legal system.” 
Memo to ACLU: When you don’t have the facts or the law, you pound the table, like Palestine Legal did, and say it isn’t fair. You don’t get to just casually lie and pretend the law is different.
It is sad that the ACLU has sunk to these new lows. The letter also shiftlessly conflates the Israel-Hamas war with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To be clear, if you believe that being pro-Palestinian requires being supportive of anti-Semitic genocidal terror, you are not pro-Palestinian, you are supportive of terror. The two are not the same, and it is this kind of lazy obfuscation that provides additional cover for groups like SJP to commit <a href="https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/356957/congress-must-act-now-to-protect-the-jewish-community/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">heinous acts</a> of anti-Semitism and then pretend that they were just being ‘pro-Palestinian.’
Free speech on campus is important, but there are limits to what is covered, and school administrations, as well as law enforcement, must be vigilant to enforce those limits. If groups like ACLU cannot do better than blame the victims of anti-Semitism for trying to enforce the laws that protect them, they should simply do nothing at all because silence is better than stupidity.
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Dr. Mark Goldfeder, Esq. is the CEO and Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, Inc. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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