The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #34: Lobbying the Supreme Court
Type of Censorship: Direct Action
Agencies Involved:
- Department of Justice
- Office of the Solicitor General
Summary:
In addition to expanding the scope of speech that courts should consider criminal (see Initiative #33), Biden’s Department of Justice also lobbied the U.S. Supreme Court to side with censorship against the First Amendment. The Biden administration did this by exercising the Solicitor General’s privilege to argue to the Court in cases the federal government was not a party to.
An MRC report detailed the Biden administration’s pro-censorship arguments in four of these cases:
- AFP v. Bonta, a controversy surrounding California’s Biden-supported efforts to dox donors to private, non-partisan, non-profit organizations.
- Counterman v. Colorado, which potentially opened the door to criminalization of so-called misgendering.
- City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising, where the Biden administration contended that governments could impose content-based restrictions on public speech.
- Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., where the Biden administration argued public school officials, including university administrators, could implement speech codes which applied to students’ private, off-campus speech.
Key Individuals:
- Eric Feigin, Deputy Solicitor General
- Merrick Garland, Attorney General
- Masha Hansford, Assistant Solicitor General
- Elizabeth Prelogar, Solicitor General
- Benjamin Snyder, Assistant Solicitor General
