BOSTON—The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University today filed a notice of cross-appeal seeking further relief in its challenge to the Trump administration’s policy of arresting, detaining, and threatening to deport noncitizen students and faculty members for their pro-Palestinian advocacy. Last September, Judge William G. Young of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that the policy violates the First Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act. In January, he issued an order restricting the administration’s ability to enforce it.

“Judge Young’s historic ruling correctly held that this policy is unconstitutional. But without stronger relief, noncitizen students and faculty will continue to be chilled from speaking out on issues that are important to them,” said Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute. “The policy has created a climate of fear on college campuses across the country, and we’re asking the First Circuit to ensure that this campaign of intimidation comes to a definitive end.”

In his landmark ruling, Judge Young concluded that the administration’s policy constitutes unlawful viewpoint discrimination and “unequivocally” affirmed that noncitizens lawfully present in the United States “have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.” Although the district court declared the policy unconstitutional and unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act, it stopped short of granting the full injunctive relief plaintiffs sought.

The government filed its own notice of appeal last month and a motion for a partial stay of the remedies order earlier this month. The district court has scheduled a hearing on the government’s partial stay motion for Thursday, February 26, at 2 p.m. ET. Registration to attend is available here.

Filed in March 2025, the lawsuit—brought by the Knight Institute and Sher Tremonte LLP on behalf of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Middle East Studies Association (MESA)—challenges what plaintiffs describe as the Trump administration’s “ideological deportation” policy. The case marked the first major trial of President Trump’s second term. During a nine-day trial in July, 15 witnesses testified about the policy’s implementation and its disruptive effects on campuses nationwide. A summary of the evidence presented at trial is available here.

Read today’s notice of cross-appeal here.

Read Judge Young’s January 2026 remedies order here.

Read Judge Young’s September 2025 ruling here.

Read more about the case here.

In addition to the AAUP and MESA, plaintiffs include AAUP chapters at Harvard, Rutgers, and NYU. The associations’ members include tens of thousands of faculty and students across the country.

Lawyers on the case include Ramya Krishnan, Jameel Jaffer, Alex Abdo, Scott Wilkens, Carrie DeCell, Xiangnong (George) Wang, Stephany Kim, and Raya Koreh of the Knight First Amendment Institute; Ahilan Arulanantham; Michael Tremonte, Noam Biale, Alexandra Conlon, and Courtney Gans of Sher Tremonte; and Edwina Clarke and David Zimmer for Zimmer, Citron & Clarke.

For more information, contact: Adriana Lamirande, [email protected].