2025 Amicus Briefs

PEN America’s friend-of-the-court briefs

Stanford Daily v. Rubio
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

Filed October 15, 2025, along with the ACLU of Northern California, First Amendment Coalition, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and the American Association of Colleges & Universities, supporting the lawsuit brought by the student-run newspaper at Stanford University challenging the Trump administration’s targeting of foreign university students for deportation based on pro-Palestinian speech. 

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Little v. Llano Cty. 
Supreme Court of the United States

Urging the Supreme Court to grant review and overturn a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that denied public library patrons’ First Amendment right to receive information. That decision embraced a particularly dangerous application of the “government speech doctrine” which would permit libraries to remove books disfavored by the government without having to worry about any judicial review of First Amendment violations.

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Associated Press v. Budowich
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Filed October 6, 2025, along with Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, media organizations, and free press organizations, in support of the Associated Press’s First Amendment challenge to the Trump administration’s decision to ban the AP from the White House press pool based on its refusal to use the White House’s preferred term “Gulf of America.”

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Guevara v. Warden, Folkston ICE Processing Ctr. 
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia

Filed September 26, 2025, along with Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, media organizations, and free press organizations, in support of El Salvadorean journalist Mario Guevara’s habeas corpus petition asking a federal district court to review his detention. Guevara, who was living in the United States, had been arrested while reporting on a public protest in Atlanta and was detained in ICE custody. Guevara was deported to El Salvador on October 3, 2025.

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Khalil v. Trump
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Filed September 17, 2025, along with FIRE, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Rutherford Institute, First Amendment Lawyers Association, in support of former Columbia University graduate student and lawful permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil’s First Amendment challenge to his arrest, detention, and potential deportation on the basis of his pro-Palestinian speech. 

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Indep. Safe Sch. v. Reynolds
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

Filed September 11, 2025 in support of students and student groups’ First Amendment challenge to a library restriction program limiting Iowa school libraries to “age appropriate” books that do not contain a description or depiction of any sexual contact between people — a prohibition that led to the removal of hundreds of books regardless of either the age of the student readers or the books’ value as a whole. 

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Mahdawi v. Trump
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Filed September 5, 2025, along with FIRE, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Cato Institute, First Amendment Lawyers Association, in support of Columbia University student and lawful permanent resident Mohsen Mahdawi’s First Amendment challenge to his arrest, detention, and deportation on the basis of his pro-Palestinian speech. 

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Öztürk v. Hyde
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Filed August 25, 2025, along with Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and Student Press Law Center, in support of Turkish, visa-holding Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk’s First Amendment challenge to her arrest, detention, and deportation on the basis of a pro-Palestinian op-ed she co-authored for a student newspaper.

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Wall v. Sanders 
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

Filed August 22, 2025, along with the ACLU and ACLU affiliates in the Eighth Circuit, in support of Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP and Arkansas public school teachers and students in their challenge to Arkansas’s LEARNS Act, which banned certain discussions of race in classrooms. 

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Penguin Random House, Inc. v. Robbins
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

Filed July 28, 2025 in support of publishers’ and writers’ First Amendment challenge to Iowa’s library restriction program limiting Iowa school libraries to “age appropriate” books that do not contain any description or depiction any sexual contact between people – a prohibition that led to the removal of hundreds of books regardless of either the age of student readers or the books’ value as a whole. 

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Öztürk v. Trump
U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont

Filed April 28, 2025, along with FIRE, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Cato Institute, the Rutherford Institute, First Amendment Lawyers Association, in support of Tufts University student and visa holder Rumeysa Öztürk’s First Amendment challenge to her arrest, detention, and deportation on the basis of her pro-Palestinian speech. 

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NAACP v. Department of Education
United States District Court for the District of Columbia

Filed April 23, 2025 in support of the NAACP’s lawsuit challenging the United States Department of Education’s 2025 Title VI enforcement policies restricting race-related programming and speech in public education. 

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Mahmoud v. Taylor
Supreme Court of the United States

Filed April 9, 2025, in support of Montgomery County, MD school district in a lawsuit brought by a group of parents in the district. The school district had reversed a policy that had required notification of parents when LGBTQ+ stories were to be used in classroom discussions so that they could opt their children out of those lessons; the parents argued that disallowing notice and opt-outs was a violation of their religious liberty. PEN America argued that a ruling in favor of the parents would accelerate book bans and educational censorship across a wide variety of subjects, particularly but not solely involving those with LGBTQ+ and racial themes across the country. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the parents.

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Perkins Coie v. Dept. of Justice
United States District Court for the District of Columbia

Filed April 9, 2025, along with Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, media organizations, and press freedom organizations, in support of law firm Perkins Coie’s challenge to the Trump administration’s executive order targeting the firm with severe penalties and restrictions in retaliation for the firm’s past representation of clients and issues disfavored by the current administration.

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AAUP v. Rubio
United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts

Filed April 9, 2025, in support of the AAUP in its challenge to Trump administration’s policy of targeting noncitizen students and faculty for arrest and deportation based on pro-Palestinian speech. 

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AFT v. Dept. of Educ.
United States District Court for the Northern District of Maryland

Filed April 7, 2025, along with ACLU of Maryland, in support of the American Federation of Teachers’ lawsuit challenging the Department of Education’s 2025 Title VI enforcement policies restricting race-related programming and speech in public education. 

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Gopher Media LLC v. Melone
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Filed March 24, 2025, along with Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, media organizations, and press freedom organizations, in support of Gopher Media’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) complaint urging the Ninth Circuit to reaffirm its recognition that the substantive protections of the California state anti-SLAPP law also apply in federal courts in California. 

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Khalil v. Trump
United States District Court for the District of New Jersey

Filed March 20, 2025, along with FIRE, National Coalition Against Censorship, Rutherford Institute, and First Amendment Lawyers Association, in support of former Columbia graduate student and legal permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil’s First Amendment challenge to his arrest, detention, and deportation on the basis of his pro-Palestinian speech. 

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Mejia v. Edelbut
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

Filed January 27, 2025, in support of educators and advocates challenging a New Hampshire law restricting public school teachers from teaching and discussing race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and gender identity inside and outside the classroom.