New York man sues ICE for sending officers to his house after he emailed agency head; Associated Press via The Guardian, July 7, 2026

 Associated Press viaThe Guardian ; New York man sues ICE for sending officers to his house after he emailed agency head

David Streever had emailed acting ICE director after an immigration officer fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis

"An upstate New York resident sued US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for sending federal officers to his house with a warning over an email he sent to the agency’s one-time head.

David Streever, who is a US citizen, was on a trip to Finland when two officers showed up to his Rochester home in June and presented his wife with a warning notice informing him that the email he sent months earlier was considered a threat, his attorneys said. Streever sent the email in January to Todd Lyons, then the acting director of ICE, after an immigration officer fatally shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good in a confrontation caught on video during an anti-ICE demonstration.

In the email, Streever called Lyons “a monstrous human being” who “will never know peace”. He said the agency violated his rights under the US constitution’s first amendment – which include free speech – in a lawsuit filed on Monday in Washington DC.

Streever is one of at least two residents of upstate New York who was served with a federal warning in June in the wake of criticizing ICE online. The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is representing Streever – and said it filed the lawsuit because Streever’s right to free expression was violated.

“This is very clearly within the protection of the first amendment,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the foundation. “It was in the context of political speech.”"

Fired Stars and Stripes ombudsman sues the Pentagon; The Washington Post, June 25, 2026

 

Liam Scott

 and 

Scott Nover

, The Washington Post ; Fired Stars and Stripes ombudsman sues the Pentagon

Jacqueline Smith alleges the government violated her First Amendment rights when she was dismissed in April.

"Jacqueline Smith, the ombudsman for military newspaper Stars and Stripes who was fired in April by the Pentagon, sued the agency on Thursday, alleging that her dismissal was retaliatory and violated her First Amendment rights.

In a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, Smith said that she was fired 10 days after writing an April 8 opinion column criticizing Pentagon officials for canceling syndicated comics in the paper. Her three-year term as ombudsman — a congressionally mandated role — was not set to expire until December 2026, the lawsuit said."

Judge Bars Trump Administration From Punishing 2 Law Professors for I.C.C. Work; The New York Times, July 30, 2025

  Zach Montague, The New York Times; Judge Bars Trump Administration From Punishing 2 Law Professors for I.C.C. Work

"A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred the Trump administration from imposing penalties on two law professors over their involvement with the International Criminal Court, finding that the threat violated their First Amendment rights...

Judge Furman’s ruling mirrored the conclusions of another judge during President Trump’s first term, who found in January 2021 that a similar executive order Mr. Trump had signed likely forced Mr. Rona and three other professors to abandon or reconsider speech and legal advocacy out of fear that the order could be enforced against them."

How to Assess the New Legal Risks of Your DEI Policies; Harvard Business Review (HBR), February 27, 2025

Joan C. Williams, Laura J. Maechtlen and Jamie Dolkas, Harvard Business Review (HBR); How to Assess the New Legal Risks of Your DEI Policies

"With a series of executive orders, the Trump administration has put a target on corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. As of this writing, key portions have been enjoined by a federal court. Yet the administration has signaled its intention to make noncompliance so punitive that many companies still are scrambling to review their DEI programs and practices for EO compliance.

In the rush, two key facts are getting lost in the shuffle. The first is that core federal and state equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws have not changed. Trump’s executive orders did end federal contractor affirmative action programs, and Trump can direct federal employees to take certain actions against “illegal” DEI policies and programs. But what is “illegal” under core EEO laws today hasn’t changed from before President Trump took office. This highlights that what companies are concerned about is not entirely legal risk, but regulatory and litigation risk.

The second core fact is that companies have a First Amendment right to express their views on DEI. This right was affirmed in the spring of 2024 by a conservative-leaning panel of judges of the Eleventh Circuit, which struck down Florida’s prohibiting companies from expressing certain ideas in DEI trainings.

But with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s February 5th memo directing the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division “to investigate, eliminate, and penalize illegal DEI and DEIA preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities in the private sector,” leaders are understandably and urgently looking for guidance on how to pursue their lawful, fair, and business-driven DEI initiatives."

The Wendy Bell debacle: Employers need clear, consistent social-media policies; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/24/16

Beverly A. Block, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; The Wendy Bell debacle: Employers need clear, consistent social-media policies:

"I do not mean to minimize the importance of the dialogue about privilege and bias that has stemmed from Ms. Bell’s Facebook post, which offered her speculation as to the race and family situations of the Wilkinsburg killers. But, strictly from a business and legal perspective, this situation presents us with a teachable moment.

And the lesson is: Any organization with a social-media presence — which is just about every organization these days — needs to ensure that its employees understand that anything publicized in the public domain (either within the scope of their employment or that is reasonably attributable to their employer) must be aligned with the organization’s social-media policy.

Employers should have a formal policy and require employees to read and sign it. Employers should require employees to undergo social-media training before authorizing them to represent the organization in the public domain. And employers should have a protocol in place to address violations of social-media policy in a formal and uniform manner."