On September 13th, CIR filed suit against the state of New York on behalf of New York civil servant Salvatore Davi. Davi, who worked as an Administrative Law Judge in New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, was suspended and demoted from his position because he expressed his political views on his Facebook account. His superiors alleged his expression of political views constituted professional misconduct.
Davi’s political speech is clearly ...
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On August 30, CIR filed a Motion to enjoin the state of California from enforcing its ban on the display of the Confederate Flag on state property against artist Timothy Desmond. If granted, the injunction would allow Desmond to enter his painting, The Attack, in the 2016 Big Fresno Fair. Desmond previously attempted to enter The Attack in the 2015 Big Fresno Fair art competition, but state officials told Desmond ...
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On July 22nd, the Center for Individual Rights filed an amicus brief before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Westchester County, New York. The County Executive, Robert Astorino, is engaged in an ongoing political dispute with the Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which Astorino has publicly accused of seeking to take over local zoning in Westchester County and across the country. After a ...
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On June 28th, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition from nine California public school teachers to rehear their First Amendment challenge to mandatory union fees. The plaintiffs petitioned the Court to rehear their case after a 4-4 decision was issued in the wake of Justice Scalia’s death. When the split decision was issued, it was not accompanied by an opinion on the merits of the argument. All that was ...
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CIR is assisting the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in its fight against the Attorney General of the Virgin Islands and his effort to issue a subpoena on CEI demanding that it produce a decade’s worth of communications, statements, and documents related to CEI’s work on climate change from 1997-2007. After several rounds of letters and motions that imposed significant costs on CEI, the AG withdrew his subpoena. CIR filed an amicus brief in ...
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In what many Supreme Court experts consider a surprise opinion, the Supreme Court voted to uphold the system of racial preferences used for admission at the University of Texas, Austin. In a confusing holding that significantly departs from his original holding in Fisher I, Justice Kennedy authored an opinion that largely defers to Universities and minimizes the role of the Courts. In doing so, the Court’s opinion will embolden Universities ...
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In a significant victory for CIR client “Zujua” — an anonymous Wikepedia editor who was sued for defamation for making edits to a Wikipedia entry — the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed trial judge Maurice Ross’s earlier ruling denying Zujua attorney’s fees.
Judge Ross had ruled that the D.C. anti-SLAPP statute only allows an award of attorney’s fees for what Ross termed “classic” SLAPP lawsuits, which he ...
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