Judge permanently blocks Trump’s order to end funding for National Public Radio
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A US judge on Tuesday agreed to permanently block the Trump administration from implementing a presidential order to end funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
US District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, DC, has ruled that President Donald Trump’s order to freeze funding for NPR and PBS is illegal and unenforceable. The judge said the First Amendment’s right to free speech “does not tolerate ideological discrimination and retaliation of this nature.”
“It is difficult to find clear evidence that government action is directed at ideas the president does not like and wants to eliminate,” wrote Moss, who was appointed to the bench by then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat.
The judge noted that Trump’s order simply directed all federal agencies to “cut off any funding” from NPR, based in Washington, DC, and PBS, based in Arlington, Va.
“The federal defendants fail to cite a single case in which a court has ever upheld a statute or administrative action barring a person or entity from participating in any federally sponsored activity based on that person’s or entity’s prior speech,” the judge wrote.
Last year, Trump, a Republican, said at a press conference that he would “like” to defund NPR and PBS because he believes they are biased in favor of Democrats.
NPR accused the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) of violating its First Amendment rights to free speech when it decided to cut off its access to funding appropriated by Congress. NPR also says Trump wants to punish it for the content of its journalism.
Last August, the CPB announced that it would take steps to close itself after receiving funding from Congress.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Theodore Boutrous said Tuesday’s ruling was “a victory for the First Amendment and freedom of the press.”
“As the Court clearly recognized, the First Amendment draws a line, the government cannot cross, in attempts to use government power – including the power of the fund – to ‘punish or suppress objectionable speech’ by others,” Boutrous said in a statement.
“The executive order crosses that line.”
The Trump administration has been trying to reshape American universities using threats of funding cuts and student expulsions. Nationally, CBC’s Terence McKenna takes a closer look at how schools are responding and why some are describing it as ‘part of a slide into fascism.’
The judge agreed with the government’s lawyers that some of the media’s legal claims are false, because the CPB no longer exists.
“But that doesn’t end the matter because the executive order overrides the CPB,” said Moss. “It also directs all federal agencies to refrain from funding NPR and PBS — regardless of the nature of the program or the merits of their applications or requests for funding.”
While Trump was sued in this legal action, the lawsuit did not implicate Congress — and the legislative body played a major role in the public broadcasting saga last year.
Trump’s order immediately cut millions of dollars in funding from the Department of Education to PBS for children’s programming, forcing the program to lay off a third of the PBS Kids staff.
Trump’s order did not affect Congress’s vote to end federal funding for PBS and NPR, which forced the shutdown of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the agency that funneled that money to TV and radio networks.
