The Justice Department sided in court Thursday with two conservative student groups in a high-profile case involving conservatives Ann Coulter and David Horowitz and free speech policies at the University of California, Berkeley.
The conservative groups have challenged what they describe as “discriminatory” free speech policies at the university, and the Justice Department move ratcheted up the Trump administration’s support on an issue that has rattled the higher education community.
“The United States has a significant interest in the vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms in institutions of higher learning,” the brief said. “As the Supreme Court has noted, ‘teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die.’”
