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Thursday, April 20, 2017

Scholars Brief on Animus and the Travel Ban

Joshua Matz, Nelson Tebbe, Micah Schwartzman, and Corey Brettschneider


Two federal courts of appeals — the Fourth and Ninth Circuits — are scheduled to review the constitutionality of President Trump’s executive order regarding travel from six Muslim-majority countries and the refugee program. Yesterday, we filed an amicus brief in the Fourth Circuit (to be followed with a brief in the Ninth) urging the court to hold that the travel ban is unconstitutional because it violates the prohibition on governmental action based on animus that the Supreme Court has located in the First and Fourteenth Amendments. 

The brief can be found here, and a post at Take Care, "A Different View of Why the Muslim Ban Violates the Establishment Clause" can be found here.

Disclosure:  Joshua is counsel to amici curiae, and Corey, Micah, and Nelson initiated the brief and are among the represented scholars.