The Trump administration has appealed a ruling in The Stanford Daily's free speech lawsuit to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Federal attorneys filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday, Oct. 14, as first reported by The Stanford Daily. The filing challenges U.S. District Judge Noël Wise's Aug. 28 ruling that found challenged provisions of federal immigration law unconstitutional when enforced against protected speech. The Stanford Daily, Stanford University's independent student newspaper, won on six of its eight claims in that decision.
Wise's ruling applies only to the Northern District of California. A precedential Ninth Circuit decision could establish binding law for federal courts across the circuit, including California.
The case dates to Aug. 6, 2025, when The Daily and two anonymous student co-plaintiffs sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. One anonymous plaintiff was later dismissed from the case. The lawsuit alleged the administration targeted university students for pro-Palestine speech. It cited the detentions of Columbia University's Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) represents the plaintiffs pro bono.
The chilling effect on campus journalism was central to the case. According to court findings cited by KQED, noncitizen writers at The Daily quit, withheld articles, refused assignments, requested articles be taken down and asked for anonymity. Former editor-in-chief Greta Reich told Anthro Magazine that after the administration took office in January 2025, noncitizen students requested their quotes be redacted and writers pulled past articles criticizing the government.
"No one in the United States of America, citizen or not, should fear a midnight knock on the door from a government official because they wrote or spoke the wrong opinion," FIRE attorney Conor Fitzpatrick, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Stanford Daily.
In her 90-page ruling, Wise wrote that the government's use of the immigration statutes amounted to "a viewpoint- and content-based restriction as applied to protected speech." She found the challenged provisions violated both the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment's due process protections when enforced against protected speech.
The ruling did not grant an injunction barring future enforcement. It declared the challenged provisions unconstitutional when applied to protected speech but stopped short of ordering officials to halt deportation actions.
George Porteous, editor-in-chief of The Stanford Daily, said FIRE's attorneys are prepared to defend the ruling on appeal. The Stanford Daily reported that it sought comment from federal attorneys about the appeal.
