"The result? Judicial smackdown after judicial smackdown. Courts across the ideological spectrum have struck these orders as blatantly unconstitutional, rejecting the administration's efforts to weaponize federal contracting power and punish protected speech and association. Conservative judges. Liberal judges. All reading the same Constitution and arriving at the same conclusion: no, the president does not get to blacklist law firms because he doesn't like them."
"There was also the EEOC gambit; an attempt to frame Biglaw diversity efforts as unlawful discrimination. That, too, fizzled. As Bloomberg Law reports, the EEOC quietly wrapped up its investigation without much to show for it, a tacit admission that the agency's legal theory was never going to hold water. Then came the FTC, with the administration floating an antitrust theory attacking law firms for their participation in diversity programs (the Mansfield Certification program)."
The administration targeted elite law firms with executive orders intending to punish certain legal representations, diversity participation, or other perceived displeasures. Federal courts across ideological lines repeatedly found those orders unconstitutional and declined to allow federal contracting power to be used to sanction protected speech and association. An EEOC investigation into diversity efforts ended quietly with little to show, undermining the agency's legal theory. The FTC floated an antitrust argument against diversity programs like the Mansfield Certification, prompting expert ridicule. Multiple legal theories collapsed under scrutiny even as new attempts continued to be advanced.
Read at Above the Law
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