On Tuesday, William G. Young—a federal district court judge in Massachusetts and a Reagan appointee—issued a decision filled with obvious contempt for the unconstitutional actions of the current president of the United States.
The ruling comes in a case brought by academic associations seeking to block the Trump administration’s policy of targeting and arresting noncitizens protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza. Judge Young’s decision makes it absolutely clear that the First Amendment rights of students like Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk were violated when federal agents detained them and sent them to faraway immigration detention centers.
“ICE goes masked for a single reason—to terrorize Americans into quiescence,” the Reagan appointed judge wrote.
The legal conclusions of the decision, which come after a nine-day trial involving 15 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits, are significant. As is the evidence uncovered in the case. It was revealed that the Trump administration was relying on information from shadowy websites like Canary Mission to determine who to target.
The judge wrote that a hearing on how the government can remedy its unconstitutional conduct will be scheduled “promptly.”
But what sets the ruling apart is its mix of unapologetic evisceration of Trump and admiration for the rights he has trampled on. That it is no ordinary ruling is apparent from the first words of the 161-page decision.
Young, who is 85 years old and was appointed to the bench four decades ago, begins by quoting a postcard he received on June 19 that reads: “TRUMP HAS PARDONS AND TANKS …. WHAT DO YOU HAVE?” Young replies in the ruling:
Dear Mr. or Ms. Anonymous,
Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People of the United States—you and me—have our magnificent Constitution. Here’s how that works out in a specific case—
The judge goes on to write that the case he is deciding is “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court.” He concludes that there was not an “ideological deportation policy” targeting pro-Palestine speech. Instead, there was something more sinister:
[T]he intent of the Secretaries was more invidious—to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome.
By defending that policy, Young writes, the president has violated his “sacred oath” to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That Trump is “for all practical purposes, totally immune from any consequences for this conduct,” Young adds, citing the Supreme Court’s 2024 immunity decision, “does not relieve this Court of its duty to find the facts.”
The Reagan appointee is similarly disdainful of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s conduct under Trump. As he puts it:
Despite the meaningless but effective “worst of the worst” rhetoric, however, ICE has nothing whatever to do with criminal law enforcement and seeks to avoid the actual criminal courts at all costs. It is carrying a civil law mandate passed by our Congress and pressed to its furthest reach by the President. Even so, it drapes itself in the public’s understanding of the criminal law though its “warrants” are but unreviewed orders from an ICE superior and its “immigration courts” are not true courts at all but hearings before officers who cannot challenge the legal interpretations they are given. Under the unitary President theory they must speak with his voice. The People’s presence as jurors is unthinkable.
Young is particularly disturbed by ICE agents’ use of masks while detaining Öztürk and others—calling the government’s defense of the practice “disingenuous, squalid and dishonorable.” He explains:
ICE goes masked for a single reason—to terrorize Americans into quiescence. Small wonder ICE often seems to need our respected military to guard them as they go about implementing our immigration laws. It should be noted that our troops do not ordinarily wear masks. Can you imagine a masked marine? It is a matter of honor—and honor still matters. To us, masks are associated with cowardly desperados and the despised Ku Klux Klan. In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.
Elsewhere in the decision, Young quotes an almost surreal defense mounted by the government at trial. While cross-examining Bernhard Nickel—a German citizen and Harvard philosophy professor who censored himself and abandoned a trip to visit a terminally ill brother abroad following Öztürk’s arrest—a government lawyer seemed to imply that Nickel was simply imagining things. Specifically, the lawyer quoted the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s maxim that “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” As Young notes dryly, “It is an odd kind of freedom that compels one to leave writing unpublished, leadership positions unpursued, and terminally ill relatives unvisited.”
It is apparent throughout the decision that Young’s horror is born out of patriotism. He laments that the blatant First Amendment violations so carefully catalogued in the case are unlikely to inspire all that much outrage, but calls for a return to what he considers America’s ideals:
The United States is a great nation, not because any of us say so. It is great because we still practice our frontier tradition of selflessness for the good of us all. Strangers go out of their way to help strangers when they see a need. In times of fire, flood, and national disaster, everyone pitches in to help people we’ve never met and first responders selflessly risk their lives for others. Hundreds of firefighters rushed into the Twin Towers on 9/11 without hesitation desperate to find and save survivors. That’s who we are. And on distant battlefields our military “fought and died for the men [they] marched among.”
The final pages of the decision are as unorthodox as its first. They begin with a quote about how “[Trump] seems to be winning. He ignores everything and keeps bullying ahead.” The line, Young explains, comes from a “very wise woman.” Specifically, his wife.
Young then dissects its meaning and its consequences: “The Constitution, our civil laws, regulations, mores, customs, practices, courtesies—all of it; the President simply ignores it all when he takes it into his head to act.”
Young wraps up by quoting Reagan’s lines about how freedom is a “fragile thing” that is “never more than one generation away from extinction,” and that, as a result, it must be “fought for and defended constantly.”
Pulling out all the stops, the veteran judge writes:
As I’ve read and re-read the record in this case, listened widely, and reflected extensively, I’ve come to believe that President Trump truly understands and appreciates the full import of President Reagan’s inspiring message—yet I fear he has drawn from it a darker, more cynical message. I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected.
Is he correct?
Finally, on page 161, there is a coda addressed to the anonymous letter writer who boasted about Trump’s pardons and tanks. “I hope you found this helpful. Thanks for writing. It shows you care. You should. Sincerely & respectfully, Bill Young.”
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.