AAUP Briefs Defend an Independent Legal System, Reject Ideological Deportations

This week, the AAUP and allies filed two separate friend-of-the-court briefs.

With the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, the AAUP submitted a brief supporting the law firm Perkins Coie in its battle against the Trump administration. Perkins Coie was the subject of an executive order which limited the law firm’s ability to represent government contractors and access federal buildings. Unlike some of the biggest US law firms, who have struck deals with the Trump administration, Perkins Coie sued the Trump administration. The court temporarily blocked the order and is now considering a motion for summary judgment that would permanently enjoin the enforcement of the order. More than 500 law firms have submitted another friend-of-the-court brief, as has the American Civil LIberties Union and a number of other parties, arguing in favor of blocking the order. The AAUP’s brief focuses on the harms that will be caused if lawyers are afraid to take on cases or make certain arguments for fear of retaliation by the government, and discusses the dangerous position taken by the administration through its casual invocation of national security to justify all manner of actions and to push back against robust judicial review. Read the brief here.

To fortify our lawsuit AAUP v. Rubio, thirty faculty groups, including seventeen AAUP chapters, organized to join an amicus brief urging a preliminary injunction against ideological deportations of students and scholars. AAUP members from public and private institutions, from community colleges and research universities, from Texas to Minnesota, California to New Hampshire, and points in between are exercising solidarity to protect students and co-workers. Read the amicus brief here.