Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump
Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump, 928 F.3d 226 (2nd Cir. 2019), is a case at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on the use of social media as a public forum. The plaintiffs, Philip N. Cohen, Eugene Gu, Holly Figueroa O'Reilly, Nicholas Pappas, Joseph M. Papp, Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza, and Brandon Neely, are a group of Twitter users blocked by U.S. President Donald Trump's personal @realDonaldTrump account. They alleged that Twitter constitutes a public forum, and that a government official blocking access to that forum is a violation of the First Amendment. The lawsuit also named as defendants White House press secretary Sean Spicer and social media director Dan Scavino.
| Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump | |
|---|---|
| Court | United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit |
| Full case name | Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University; Rebecca Buckwalter; Philip Cohen; Holly Figueroa; Eugene Gu; Brandon Neely; Joseph Papp; and Nicholas Pappas, Plaintiffs, v. Donald J. Trump, President of the United States; Sean M. Spicer, White House Press Secretary; and Daniel Scavino, White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President, Defendants. |
| Argued | March 6, 2019 |
| Decided | July 9, 2019 |
| Citation(s) | 928 F.3d 226 |
| Case history | |
| Appealed to | Biden v. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University |
| Holding | |
| A social media account used by an American political leader is a public forum. | |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Barrington D. Parker, Peter W. Hall, Christopher F. Droney |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Parker, joined by a unanimous court |
| Laws applied | |
| First Amendment to the United States Constitution | |
The plaintiffs were represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which itself was a plaintiff in the case. Though the Knight Institute's Twitter account had not been blocked by Trump, the lawsuit argued that they and other followers of the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account "are now deprived of their right to read the speech of the dissenters who have been blocked". The complaint also argued that posts to the @realDonaldTrump account are "official statements".