Academic Race and Law Centers, SEIU, AFT, AAUP, and Legal Advocacy Organizations Amicus Brief in Support of Plaintiff

Key Excerpts

• This fundamental principle should control this case: the government violates the First Amendment when it sanctions law firms because it objects to their choices about which causes to take up.
• The EOs rely on scattershot grievances about the firms’ decisions to take on clients and causes that the President dislikes; they are devoid of specific factual findings of wrongdoing, and therefore the sanctions they impose cannot be tailored to findings of wrongdoing.
• [T]here is very little on the government’s side of the ledger once one discounts the President’s objections to the firms’ and their clients’ viewpoints—and what remains lacks the specific fact-finding that the Supreme Court has emphasized is necessary to justify an infringement of First Amendment rights.