Bedi vs. U.S House of Representatives Committee on Education and Workforce
As part of its investigation of universities concerning Palestine solidarity organizing, the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce opened an investigation into Northwestern University and four other universities. On March 27, 2025, the Committee demanded information and documents related to programs at the Northwestern Law School including the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, its director Professor Sheila Bedi, and Professor Lynn Cohn, who worked in the Center on Negotiation, Mediation, and Restorative Justice. Among the information requested were documents relating to clinical work done at Northwestern, including written policies and guidance relating to legal clinics, budgets for the clinics, and hiring and performance reviews for Bedi and Cohn. The letter also criticized the school for its legal clinic work, pointing to the clinic’s defense of Palestine solidarity activists, work on a consent decree with the Chicago police, and engagement in “progressive left political advocacy.”
Bedi and Cohn filed a Demand for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief in Bedi v. U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and Workforce, Case No. 25-cv-3837 (N.D. Ill.). In their Emergency Motion for Temporary Restraining Order challenging the investigation, they asserted that the Committee’s demands were: (1) a violation of plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights to advocate on behalf of clients as the Committee’s demand constituted viewpoint-based discrimination with no legitimate legislative purpose; (2) a violation of plaintiffs’ due process rights under the Fifth Amendment, by failing to provide adequate process before interfering with plaintiffs’ right to represent their clients; (3) interference with the Sixth Amendment’s right to counsel requirement, a constitutional claim that plaintiffs had third-party standing to assert on behalf of their clients; and (4) a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as the investigation reflected a “bare desire to harm Plaintiffs” for their political affiliations. After Bedi and Cohn filed their lawsuit, the House Committee withdrew its request.
The First Amendment and Academic Freedom portions of the brief accompanying their motion follow [footnotes omitted]:
Facts Relevant to Academic Freedom Violations
VIII. The Committee and Later the Trump Administration’s Interest in Chilling Speech and Academic Freedom at America’s Universities
As has been detailed in other recently filed complaints, the Trump Administration and the Committee have used the pretext of investigating antisemitism to challenge various universities’ responses to 2024 student protests in support of Palestinian human rights. These protests, which occurred on many university campuses in the United States, appeared to have prompted the Committee to issue document requests to numerous universities, and to call various university leaders to testify before the Committee. See generally Robin D.G. Kelley, UCLA’s Unholy Alliance, BOS. REV. (May 18, 2024). As has been widely reported, this has led to changes in leadership at some universities. See, e.g., Max Matza, Claudine Gay resigns as Harvard University president, BBC NEWS (Jan. 2, 2024).
The Committee held high-profile hearings on these issues in 2024, but has continued to issue increasingly specific and detailed document requests to various universities, seeking not only broader records about purported antisemitism on various campuses, but also specific student disciplinary records, specific records related to faculty, and most recently, specific directions to certain universities that their federal funding is at risk unless they take specific actions to punish and suppress pro-Palestinian speech. See, e.g., Letter from U.S. H.R. Rep. comm. Educ. & Workforce to Dr. Katrina Armstrong, Interim President of Columbia Univ., Mr. David Greenwald & Ms. Claire Shipman, Co-Chairs of the Trs. Columbia Univ. (Feb. 13, 2025).
Following Donald Trump’s re-election as President, his executive branch joined the Committee’s efforts to pressure universities into suppressing speech with which the Committee disagrees. See, e.g., Letter from the GSA, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Servs., and the U.S. Dept. Educ. To Dr. Katrina Armstrong, Interim President of Columbia Univ., David Greenwald & Claire Shipman, Co-Chairs of Trs. Columbia Univ. (Mar. 13, 2025).
In recent correspondence to Columbia University, executive agencies demanded that Columbia University alter its student disciplinary procedures, enforce discipline against students involved in protests in support of Palestinian human rights, exercise additional oversight over its Middle East, South Asian and African Studies Department, and ban facial coverings on campus. Most importantly, the letter directed Columbia University to effectively ban speech on campus critical of Israel. Id.
On March 10, 2025, the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights sent out letters to sixty universities advising them that they were under investigation under Title VI for purported violations relating to “antisemitic harassment and discrimination” and warning those universities that their federal funding was contingent on complying with President Trump’s executive orders. “These universities are in Trump’s crosshairs. Many don’t know why,” USA TODAY (Mar. 27, 2025). This list included universities whose only antisemitism complaints had been resolved, and universities who had no record of complaints. Id. It also appeared that the Executive Branch did not have resources to conduct actual investigations of these complaints, given that the day after it sent this letter it closed over half of the regional offices of the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which would typically investigate such complaints. Id. In response to this letter, at least one large university president advised the press that his university was “not going to take any risk for loss of research funding. We’re just not.” Id.
ARGUMENT
I. PLAINTIFFS ARE LIKELY TO SUCCEED ON THE MERITS
“‘In First Amendment cases, the likelihood of success … will often be the determinative factor’ in granting an injunction.” Chicago Women in Trades, F. Supp. 3d, 2025 WL 933871, at *5 (N.D. Ill. March 27, 2025) (quoting ACLU v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583, 589 (7th Cir. 2012)).
A. The Committee Demands Violate the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment Rights of Plaintiffs, Their Donors, and Clients
“[T]he First Amendment prohibits government officials from relying on the threat of legal sanctions and other means of coercion … to achieve the suppression of disfavored speech[.]” NRA v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 189 (2024), and bans “punish[ment] based on the choice to associate with others for “political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends[,]” Ams. For Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, Ams. for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, 594 U.S. 595, 606 (2021). Yet, that is exactly what the Committee’s demands do, attempting to pressure Northwestern into disassociating with Plaintiffs and forcing it to cease support of the work that Plaintiffs’ clinics do because the Committee deems such work to be “left-wing” advocacy. The demand violates the First Amendment in a litany of ways.
1. Retaliation Against Plaintiffs in Violation of the First Amendment
“[A]s a general matter the First Amendment prohibits government officials from subjecting an individual to retaliatory actions” for engaging in protected speech.” Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391, 398 (2019) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “If an official takes adverse action against someone based on that forbidden motive, and ‘non-retaliatory grounds are in fact insufficient to provoke the adverse consequences,’ the injured person may generally seek relief by bringing a First Amendment claim.” Id. Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment retaliation claim against the Committee Defendants, because: (1) they engaged in activity (e.g., speech and association) protected under the First Amendment; (2) the Committee’s actions would deter a person of ordinary firmness from engaging in that protected activity in the future; and (3) Plaintiffs’ protected activity was at least a motivating factor behind the Committee’s adverse actions. Surita v. Hyde, 665 F.3d 860, 878 (7th Cir. 2011); Bridges v. Gilbert, 557 F.3d 541, 546 (7th Cir. 2009)). In determining whether the adverse actions would likely deter First Amendment activity, the courts apply an objective test: whether the alleged conduct by the defendants would likely deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in protected activity. Surita, 665 F.3d at 878. This is not a high burden, and it is a question of fact. See Bart v. Telford, 677 F.2d 622, 625 (7th Cir. 1982).
First, Plaintiffs clearly engaged in activity protected under the First Amendment. Professor Bedi’s speech was advanced as a lawyer in the course of representing clients, which is protected by the First Amendment. In the context of the goals of her clinic, “litigation . . . is . . . a form of political expression” and “political association,” and it “may well be the sole practicable avenue open to a minority to petition for redress of grievances.” NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 429-31 (1963); In re Primus, 436 U.S. 412 (1978) (solicitation of prospective litigants by nonprofit organizations that engage in litigation as a form of political expression and association constitutes expressive and associational conduct entitled to First Amendment protection); First Defense Legal Aid v. City of Chicago, 319 F.3d 967, 971 (7th Cir. 2003) (“Attorneys often engage in political speech—either directly or through solicitation or representation of clients—and enjoy in that endeavor the highest degree of protection.”). Thus, the fact that political speech is expressed through the provision of professional services does not diminish the First Amendment protection. See id.; see also Nat’l Inst. of Fam. & Life Advocates v. Becerra, 585 U.S. 755, 767 (2018) (“Speech is not unprotected merely because it is uttered by ‘professionals.’”); see also, e.g., 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570, 587-88 (2023).
As to lawyers—whose profession often entails helping those with disfavored viewpoints express and vindicate their rights through constitutionally guaranteed due process—First Amendment protection is particularly important. A lawyer is no less protected when expressing her viewpoint through representation of a client than she would be if she expressed that viewpoint through a sign on her front lawn. As the Supreme Court explained in Legal Services Corp., the First Amendment cannot tolerate attempts to “draw lines around” those arguments that the government “finds unacceptable but which by their nature are within the province of the courts to consider.” 531 U.S. 533, 546 (2001); see also id. at 548-49 (“Where private speech is involved, even Congress’ antecedent funding decision cannot be aimed at the suppression of ideas thought inimical to the Government’s own interest.”); Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society Int’l, Inc., 570 U.S. 205, 220-21 (2013) (congressional requirement that recipients of certain federal funds explicitly agree with government’s police to oppose prostitution and sex trafficking violated the First Amendment). When the government retaliates against a disfavored viewpoint, it has necessarily violated the First Amendment. See Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593, 597-98 (1972).
Likewise, Professor Cohn engaged in activity protected by the First Amendment through her work in the Center on Negotiation, Mediation and Restorative Justice. The Center works with a variety of parties to resolve disputes through alternatives to litigation. Ex. 2 (Cohn Decl.) ¶6. Many of the mediations concern community issues, such as employment, housing, contracts, small claims, and neighborhood disputes. Id. In her classes, Professor Cohn and her students discuss privilege, power imbalances, and implicit bias, and how these things affect mediations and negotiations. Id. ¶9. Exploration of such topics is protected expression.
Professor Bedi also engaged in activity protected by the First Amendment in associating with her clients, whose views she may not share. The First Amendment’s core guarantees “could not be vigorously protected from interference by the State unless a correlative freedom to” associate “were not also guaranteed.” Roberts v. U.S. Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 622 (1984). Here, it would be problematic enough were Professor Bedi targeted for her association with a particular individual, but it is doubly problematic that Professor Bedi has been targeted because of that individual’s protected political expression. Nowhere is the First Amendment danger greater than when “individuals are punished for their political affiliation[s].” Ams. for Prosperity Foundation, 594 U.S. at 606. As the Supreme Court observed decades ago, if citizens may be punished in their employment and business based on their affiliations, they “will feel a significant obligation to support political positions held by” those in power and “may well feel compelled to engage in whatever political activity is necessary to regain regular paychecks and positions corresponding to their skill and experience.” Rutan v. Republican Party of Ill., 497 U.S. 62, 73 (1990). The Committee’s demands explicitly target Professor Bedi for the perceived political views and aims of herself and her clinic, and to in turn force Northwestern to disassociate from her because of those political views, or risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
Second, the Committee’s actions would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in the protected activity. Defendants seek confidential and sensitive information, including Professor Bedi’s hiring materials and performance reviews. Ex. 12 (Demand Letter) at 3. Defendants also seek donor and budget information for Plaintiffs’ clinics and all of the other centers and clinics at the Bluhm Legal Clinic. Id. Defendants seek information on the payments that CJCR has made for a 5-year period. Id. This would include, for example, payments to other professionals, who have agreed to provide services to the CJCR (such as court reporters and expert witnesses). Ex. 1 (Bedi Decl.) ¶¶34-39. These demands for records and the likelihood of disclosure of this information to the public would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in the protected activity—that is, engaging in the “political advocacy” and the type of client representations and cases that Plaintiffs have taken.
Third, Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that their protected activity was at least a motivating factor in the Committee’s actions. Indeed, Professor Bedi’s representation of certain clients, political advocacy, and clinical teaching in “movement lawyering” is the expressly stated reason why Defendants are seeking the information in their Letter. See Ex. 1 at 1. The Committee’s letter states that Professor Bedi engages in “progressive-left political advocacy,” and her clinic “describes itself as working ‘in collaboration with social justice movements on legal and policy strategies aimed at redressing some of the most pressing, urgent issues of our time—namely over- policing and mass imprisonment.’” Ex. 12 at 2. The Letter also complains that the “Movement Lawyering” class Professor Bedi teaches gives students the opportunity to “work with ‘collectives
and community organizers’ on ‘creating a more just Chicago’ on matters such as a ‘court order aimed at transforming the Chicago Police Department.’” Id. The Letter claims that this work is “troubling,” and that “it is only one of numerous Northwestern Law clinics and centers promoting left-wing causes.” Id. at 3.
Likewise, Professor Cohn is likely to succeed in showing that her protected activity was at least a motivating factor in the Defendants’ actions. As Professor Cohn explains, her classes explore topics such as “privilege, i.e., ‘who gets to sit at the table,’ power imbalances, and implicit bias in the context of mediations and negotiations. We examine historic exclusion in the legal system and promote diversity, equity and inclusion in alternative resolution methods. The Center honors identity as part of our processes and emphasizes the value of different perspectives typically excluded from traditional legal forums and systems.” Ex. 2 (Cohn Decl.) ¶9. This is exactly the type of instruction that the Letter targets as “left-wing advocacy.”
[sections a.-c. omitted]
d. Academic Freedom
Work in the university context itself comes with strong guarantees of academic freedom, a vaunted safeguard rooted in the First Amendment’s protection of freedoms of speech and expression:
Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom. The vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools. The classroom is peculiarly the “marketplace of ideas.” The Nation’s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth out of a multitude of tongues, rather than through any kind of authoritative selection.
Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 603 (1967); Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, at 261-63 (1957) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.) (“For society’s good—if understanding be an essential need of society—inquiries into these problems, speculations about them, stimulation in others of reflection upon them, must be left as unfettered as possible. Political power must abstain from intrusion into this activity of freedom, … except for reasons that are exigent and obviously compelling.”); see also Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306, 329 (2003) (stressing the constitutional import of “the expansive freedoms of speech and thought associated with the university environment”).
Indeed, the Supreme Court has specifically warned that government scrutiny of the content of an individual scholar’s work is “unquestionably … an invasion of her liberties in the areas of academic freedom and political expression—areas in which government should be extremely reticent to tread.” Sweezy, 354 U.S. at 250. But that is exactly what the Committee is doing here, expressly targeting the work of a particular clinic, and scholar, because of disagreement with the subject matter of their work. Such intrusions on academic freedom necessarily require preventing the Committee from compelling the information sought here. Dow Chemical v. Allen, 672 F.2d 1262 (7th Cir. 1982) (upholding district court refusal to enforce subpoena in Environmental Protection Agency proceeding issued to university researchers for their underlying work, noting that the demands “threaten substantial intrusion into the enterprise of university research, and there are several reasons to think they are capable of chilling the exercise of academic freedom”); Cusumano v. Microsoft Corp., 162 F.3d 708 (1st Cir. 1998) (quashing subpoena to third party professors for research related to their writings based on the “chilling effect” if such information could be freely subpoenaed).