Senior Judge William G. Young in Boston's United States District Court issued the scathing 161-page opinion in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio. The issue in the case was “whether non-citizens lawfully present here in [the] United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.” Judge Young held that they do and that the First Amendment does not draw any distinction between the rights possessed in this regard by citizens and non-citizens. He wrote that Trump administration officials chilled free speech and peaceful assembly rights of non-citizens.
Judge Young was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1985. He graduated from Harvard undergraduate in 1962 and served for two years in the army as a captain before attending Harvard Law School. So it was particularly poignant when he addressed the issue of masked ICE agents, a theme he returned to throughout the opinion, before concluding:
“Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor — and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police. Carrying on in this fashion, ICE brings indelible obloquy to this administration and everyone who works in it.”
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