{"id":3701,"date":"2025-10-14T22:29:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T22:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/3701\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T22:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T22:29:06","slug":"federal-judge-stops-enforcement-of-texas-free-speech-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/3701\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge stops enforcement of Texas &#8216;free speech ban&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge is preventing the University of Texas System from enforcing a new state law that restricts when students can engage in \u201cexpressive activities\u201d on campus.<\/p>\n<p>Several student groups at UT Austin and UT Dallas <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/politics\/2025-09-05\/austin-tx-university-of-texas-system-state-law-free-speech-protests\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">filed a lawsuit<\/a> against the schools&#8217; respective presidents, the UT Board of Regents and UT System Chancellor Dr. John Zerwas, over the law in September.<\/p>\n<p>The law bars students from engaging in \u201cexpressive activities\u201d between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. and from using devices that amplify sound during the last two weeks of a given semester \u2014 reversing a state law passed in 2019 that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/politics\/2019-03-11\/without-protest-campus-free-speech-bill-passes-out-of-senate-committee\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">expanded free speech protections<\/a> on public university campuses.<\/p>\n<p>Judge David Alan Ezra of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas said the lawsuit is likely to succeed on First Amendment grounds.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The First Amendment does not have a bedtime of 10:00 p.m. The burden is on the government to prove that its actions are narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest,&#8221; the court said in the injunction order. &#8220;It has not done so.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Several UT Austin students told KUT News they felt the effects of the new law immediately. Ally Flores, president of the student-led University Democrats, said the group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kut.org\/austin\/2025-10-07\/austin-tx-university-of-texas-free-speech-ut-campus-protection-act\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">could no longer invite guest speakers to campus<\/a> without receiving permission from the Dean of Students Office two weeks in advance.<\/p>\n<p>University Democrats\u2019 voter registration drive was also limited to low-traffic areas because of the new law, Flores said.<\/p>\n<p>This is a developing story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge is preventing the University of Texas System from enforcing a new state law that restricts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,4094,1931,4095,4096,4097,4098,4099,4100,4101,4102],"class_list":["post-3701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-campus-protection-act","tag-free-speech","tag-free-speech-ban","tag-free-speech-law","tag-free-speech-lawsuit","tag-jim-davis","tag-texas-university-free-speech-lawsuit","tag-university-of-texas","tag-university-of-texas-at-austin","tag-university-of-texas-board-of-regents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}