Updates: Personal and Professional

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

I haven’t been able to abide by my promise to post weekly legal analyses, because late last month I was appointed Interim President of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), where I had been Legal Director since September of last year. In addition to managing the organization during a period of transition, I’m also running the legal department, so needless to say have had little time to do anything else.

Today, however, I have a little bit of downtime while my toddler naps, and thought I’d take the opportunity to keep my readers apprised of the legal work that we’re doing to combat the efforts of the Israel lobby to shred the First Amendment.

Recently, we moved to intervene in a case in Medford, Massachusetts, on behalf of several residents of the city. My colleague Malak Afaneh, a brilliant young lawyer, has been doing the bulk of the briefing in this case, which entails a two-front battle—we’re fighting both the plaintiffs and defendants. This is an unusual situation. Medford residents voted in favor of an ordinance prohibiting the city from investing public funds in companies tied to weapons manufacturing and engaged in serious human rights violations. The divestment ordinance doesn’t name Israel, but it’s pretty clear that is at least one of its targets.

A pro-Israel group has challenged the ordinance, arguing that it interferes with the federal executive’s purview over foreign policy—a rather astonishing position since this isn’t about diplomatic relations, but investment of public funds at the local level. The City of Medford has indicated it doesn’t intend to meaningfully defend the ordinance, so we are representing Medford residents who want to see the ordinance they voted for upheld. Both the city defendants and the pro-Irael plaintiffs oppose our intervention, so we’ve been bogged down in motion practice over the past couple of weeks. There is some indication that Zionist groups are eyeing this as a test case, and if it succeeds will utilize the theory throughout the country, wherever divestment ordinances are enacted. Thus, despite the untimeliness of the case for me personally and professionally, we decided we couldn’t miss the opportunity to get involved.

We are also continuing to litigate our case against everyone’s favorite Congressman Randy Fine for blocking our client, Amjad Masad, from the social media account he uses to conduct government business, while awaiting the district court’s ruling on the preliminary injunction motion we argued last month. And, we are opposing a motion to dismiss in our case in California challenging a law designed to chill criticism of Israel, under the guise of combatting antisemitism in public school. (These days, defendants file motions to dismiss routinely, so the fact such a motion has been filed means nothing about the strength of the case).

Similarly, we are opposing dismissal of our case Pacheco v. City of Miami Beach. The encounter that led us to bring the lawsuit drew national attention when police showed up on Raquel Pacheco’s doorstep at the Mayor’s behest, knocked on her door, and confronted her about a Facebook post in which she criticized the Mayor’s dehumanization of Palestinians. The two detectives insisted on speaking to her although she asked them not to continue without her attorney present, proceeded to tell her that her speech was “concerning” and warned her not to post such content again. In America, police may not summon someone from the sanctity of her own home and instruct her not to engage in protected political speech. The chilling effect of such conduct violates the First Amendment, as we explained in our Complaint. Indeed, there’s little precedent on this issue because law enforcement has, since our founding, generally understood this principle. The Israel lobby is trying to change that (just look at what’s happening in Britain and Australia, neither of which has a First Amendment equivalent), and demonstrates why this case is important: we must establish limitations on the ability of government to use intimidation tactics that fall short of arrest, imprisonment, and fines to silence political speech.

We have other active litigation, too, including cases against the University of Austin and the University of Michigan for punishing students’ and employees’ pro-Palestine activism. Both cases have made it past the motions to dismiss stage. We are also defending Palestinian-American activist Janine Ali against the attempts of Betar extremists to weaponize the legal system to quell her speech and protest activity. The district court has been considering both our motions to reconsider its grant of a preliminary injunction and to dismiss since November.

I will be back with updates on our cases. In the meantime, enjoy the beginning of summer.