PSJD News Digest – October 3, 2025 [belated]

October 10, 2025 at 9:32 am · Filed under Public Interest Law News Bulletin

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Photo: Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress

Hi Interested Public,

I wasn’t able to wade through last week’s news by the end of it, so you’re getting two weeks at once this week. But I’m splitting them up to make things easier to track. These stories cover last week. The next edition will cover the current week. I’ve highlighted several stories in the lede section, but lots of other important events are covered in the links below.

Solidarity,

Sam

Editor’s Choice(s)

  • Justice Department Loses a Third of Career Leaders Under Trump (Bloomberg Law; 29 Sept 25)

  • Supreme Court allows Trump administration to withhold billions in foreign-aid funding (SCOTUSBlog; 26 Sept 25)

    “The brief, unsigned order cautioned that the ruling “should not be read as a final determination on the merits” but instead “reflects our preliminary view, consistent with the standards for interim relief.”…Justice Elena Kagan dissented, in an eight-page opinion that was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kagan wrote that “the effect” of Friday’s order “is to prevent the funds from reaching their intended recipients—not just now but (because of their impending expiration) for all time.””

  • ‘Full-throated assault on the First Amendment’: Judge rips into Trump over attempts to deport pro-Palestinian academics (CNN; 30 Sept 25)

    “Trump’s conduct, the judge wrote, violated the sacred oath of a president to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” and the actions of his administration represented a “full-throated assault on the First Amendment.”…Young, highlighting the significance of the case, wrote that it is “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court” and “squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.””

Federal Restructuring

  • Trump Administration Taps Army Reserve and National Guard for Temporary Immigration Judges (Military.com; 3 Oct 25)

    “The administration wants to bring in as many as 600 military-trained attorneys to help make decisions about which immigrants can stay in the country. Advocates are alarmed by the move to use military lawyers to bolster staffing in the backlogged immigration courts as President Donald Trump's administration ramps up immigration arrests…“They’re letting a lot of experienced judges go, terminating them with no notice, and yet they claim that there’s a shortage so they need to have these military JAG officers step in and take over,” said Margaret Stock, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and immigration lawyer…“It will lead to more appeals of decisions. It will further increase the backlog. It’s going to be an inefficient and costly endeavor,” [Matt] Biggs[, president of IFPTE,] said. “It sets a dangerous precedent in this country when it comes to due process protections.””

  • Amid Government Shutdown, Civil Cases Involving Feds Get Placed on Hold (Law.com; 3 Oct 25)

  • Trump Administration Sued for Agency’s Blame-Democrats Emails (Bloomberg; 4 Oct 25)

    “The American Federation of Government Employees filed a lawsuit accusing the US Department of Education of unlawfully inserting partisan language into automated out-of-office emails sent from accounts of furloughed workers. The union claims email settings for department workers were changed without their permission to include messages blaming the shutdown on Democratic lawmakers. The lawsuit alleges that forcing civil servants to speak on behalf of the political leadership's partisan agenda is a blatant violation of federal employees' First Amendment rights.”

Civil Society

Student Debt & Other Student Concerns

  • Are changes to Public Service Loan Forgiveness unconstitutional? (Unidos US; 26 Sept 25)

    “Our Constitution and its First Amendment remain the same,” former UnidosUS Education Policy Analyst Tania Valencia told department officials. At the time of the hearing, she was serving as a higher education senior program manager at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “The department does not have the authority to exclude employers based on their participation in disfavored speech and activities. Every major civil rights advancement, from the desegregation of schools to marriage equality, began as a viewpoint that challenged existing power structures.”

Conflicts Over Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

Access to Justice