Rising This Week: A reckoning for Trump's attacks on academic freedom
The week begins with major hearings in cases involving Harvard and student protesters — and may end with an Epstein development.
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Two major court proceedings for academic freedom will play out inside a federal courthouse on Monday in Boston, Mass.
In one of the hearings, Harvard University will try to restore billions of dollars in funding on the grounds that Donald Trump cut off the funds in violation of its First Amendment rights.
The other proceedings are the culmination of a trial that has been playing out in the same courthouse for two weeks: Advocates for academic freedom asked a federal judge to protect pro-Palestinian students from retaliation for First Amendment-protected speech.
Unlike the individual cases of Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and Mohsen Mahdawi, the lawsuit filed by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and four other advocacy groups has ramifications beyond any one scholar. The groups aim to block the Trump administration’s “ideological-deportation policy.” The trial has shed light on the backdrop of all of these cases in the headlines.
Last week, immigration agents admitted that the cases against the students were unprecedented in their careers.
William Crogan, a more-than-20-year veteran of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), said that he had never seen a memo like the one used to justify Mahdawi’s arrest.
Patrick Cunningham, another HSI agent, said Öztürk’s case was unlike the drug and money laundering cases he typically handled before Trump administration shifted his office’s priorities.
Darren McCormack, the HSI agent behind Khalil’s arrest, testified that he learned Secretary of State Marco Rubio “and/or the White House” took a particular interest in the Columbia University student’s case.
U.S. District Judge William Young, a Ronald Reagan appointee who has issued blistering rulings against the Trump administration in the past, has been hearing the case without a jury. If he rules in the advocacy groups’ favor, the order could have broad ripple effects.
AAUP, just one of the five advocacy groups behind the lawsuit, has an estimated 45,000 members nationwide.
This newsletter aims to provide a panoramic view of the courts and opportunities for civic engagement. That requires expertise, sourcing, and vigilance.
When the Jeffrey Epstein scandal broke open again last week — and Donald Trump tried desperately to put a lid on it — this newsletter brought decades of institutional memory to help readers make sense of the story. I have covered the Epstein saga in the courts, know the most knowledgeable sources to advance that story, and immediately learn about the story’s development directly from the courts.
That’s because I believe that All Rise News readers want the latest and most reliable information, not just opinions and chatter about the latest headlines.
On Friday, the Trump administration moved to unseal grand jury minutes in the Epstein case in federal court in Manhattan. Once those arguments land before a judge, I will be in the courthouse to report on them.
All Rise News subscribers will be the first to learn developments firsthand as they happen.
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Our full court and protest listings and last week’s trends in civic engagement.
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