What a federal judge has to say about America’s fight for democracy

A Reagan-appointed judge of 40 years penned an alarming forecast for our democracy in an unorthodox court opinion that rebuked attempted deportations of pro-Palestine students and faculty.

The opening page of District Judge William Young’s AAUP v Rubio ruling issued on Sept. 30, 2025, showcases a postcard he received.

A federal judge in Boston penned a dramatic court opinion that admonished the government’s unlawful crackdown on pro-Palestine advocates and, more broadly, called attention to the public’s capitulation in the face of a democracy under siege.

The American Association of University Professors and Middle East Studies Association filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration earlier this year to challenge what they call an “ideological deportation policy” that has targeted Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, Yunseo Chung, and Mohsen Mahdawi. Attorneys for the government defendants have denied that any new policy was created.

Judge William Young, appointed by former President Ronald Reagan in 1985, wrote that this was perhaps the most important case to come across the District Court of Massachusetts. In his 161-page opinion released last week, Young affirmed the existence of the policy and found that it worked “as intended” – to scare pro-Palestine noncitizens into silence in ways that go beyond “its closest analogues in the Red Scare.”

Young’s ruling comes after a nine-day bench trial in July uncovered shocking details of how ICE responded to two of President Donald Trump’s executive orders purporting to combat antisemitism and foreign terrorists. Officials testified the agency used pro-Israel doxxing groups, Canary Mission and Betar U.S., to generate leads on noncitizen college students protesting for Palestine.

“If ‘terrorist’ is interpreted to mean ‘pro-Palestine’ or ‘anti-Israel,’ and ‘support’ encompasses pure political speech, then core free speech rights have been imperiled,” Young writes.

First Amendment advocates celebrated the result of this lawsuit, which the government will likely appeal. But Young candidly begs the question: what comes next?

“In the golden age of our democracy, this opinion might end here. After all, the facts prove that the President himself approves truly scandalous and unconstitutional suppression of free speech on the part of two of his senior cabinet secretaries,” Young says in his ruling, referring to defendants Kristi Noem and Marco Rubio. “One would imagine that the corrective would follow as a matter of course from the appropriate authorities.”

The judge highlights the need for a court-ordered solution to the consequences of the deportation policy and ends his opinion with a promise to schedule a hearing on remedy. He grimly predicts that nothing will happen without intervention – he does not expect the government to self-correct, nor does he anticipate meaningful dissent from the public.

Young’s court opinion is a departure from dry legalese. He speaks with great candor about the president – his unprecedented crackdown on free speech, general apathy to law, and “fixation with ‘retribution.’”

He is also frank about the American people. Young suggests implicitly that “outcry” is power, yet he expects that the public will largely choose to stay quiet.

Young suggests this is in part because ICE has convinced the public it is the nation’s principal criminal law enforcement agency, and Americans have an “abiding faith” in the criminal justice system. (Young expressly rejects ICE’s claim, arguing that the agency carries a civil law mandate, has nothing to do with criminal law enforcement, and in fact seeks to avoid the courts.)

But the judge’s bleak outlook extends beyond the bounds of this case. Young appears to speak not just to the targeting of student protesters or even the entire pro-Palestine movement in the U.S., but of the Trump administration’s unprecedented crackdown on the First Amendment as a whole – the bedrock of America’s democracy.

In this effort, Trump has ruthlessly attacked the establishments that have stood in his way. And many of them, the judge notes, have bent the knee in response.

“Behold President Trump’s successes in limiting free speech -– law firms cower, institutional leaders in higher education meekly appease the President, media outlets from huge conglomerates to small niche magazines mind the bottom line rather than the ethics of journalism,” Young writes. “But not all of them,” he remarks in the footnotes.

Young suggests that widespread fear of backlash among the public will quell their outcry in the deportation policy case and beyond. After all, if the president can unconstitutionally weaponize the mighty Homeland Security Investigations against a small group of noncitizens, so too can he arm himself against his supposed enemies with other sectors of government, from the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation to the IRS audit divisions and the Social Security Administration, Young writes.

But perhaps a deterrent even greater than fear is apathy.

The judge ends his opinion with a quote from Reagan: “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.”

Young reflects on this passage in a formidable closing message:

As I’ve read and re-read the record in this case, listened widely, and reflected extensively, I’ve come to believe that President Trump truly understands and appreciates the full import of President Reagan’s inspiring message –- yet I fear he has drawn from it a darker, more cynical message. I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.

Is he correct?

This case certainly shows the current administration is emboldened and shameless. But it also demonstrates that speech is power – and anyone can buy in.

District Judge William Young concludes his court opinion on AAUP v Rubio with the end of his response to an anonymous postcard.

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Read Judge William Young’s full opinion on the AAUP v Rubio case here.

If you have any questions, comments or tips, I’d love to hear from you! Email me at minnahfarshad@protonmail.com. I’m also available on Twitter, Bluesky and Signal at minnahfarshad.94.