The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard a college campus freedom of speech case that has gained support from both religious and explicitly secular groups.
The case, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, arose after Chike Uzuegbunam, a student at Georgia Gwinnett College, faced censorship for passing out religious pamphlets on campus. Uzuegbunam sued in 2016, alleging that the college’s free speech policies violated the First Amendment because they restricted the ability to preach to only a few spots on campus. Along with fellow student Joseph Bradford, he asked that a court declare the policy unconstitutional and award him the nominal damage of a dollar.
But only months after the case was filed, Gwinnett changed its rules to favor more permissive speech on campus, leading a district court to dismiss the case as moot. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. Uzuegbunam was unsatisfied, however, and appealed the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that it was still important for him to be awarded nominal damages because his civil rights had been violated.
Gwinnett pushed back against Uzuegbunam, arguing that the rule change allowed him and Bradford “to share their faith at any time and place on campus without limitation,” which is what their lawsuit had sought anyway. Nominal damages, the school contended, were not appropriate since all they would do is give Uzuegbunam and Bradford “the satisfaction of having a federal court say they are right.”
Uzuegbunam’s case, in the lead-up to the court fight, generated wide support from a series of free speech groups whose interests are often pitted against each other. He is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit group known for taking on controversial First Amendment cases surrounding gay marriage. And he enjoys support from a long list of religious freedom organizations, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, and the Christian Legal Society.
At the same time, Uzuegbunam picked up support from explicitly nonreligious organizations such as the American Humanist Association, which in 2019 clashed with the ADF over a giant cross erected on public land. Generally left-leaning free speech organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations also backed Uzuegbunam, groups that often face off against Supreme Court-level religious freedom claims.
“While the AHA and ADF stand on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum and disagree on the proper interpretation of the Establishment Clause, the AHA and ADF unite in their esteem for First Amendment liberties and their conviction that such rights are meaningless if they cannot be vindicated,” the American Humanist Association wrote in its amicus brief.
In all cases, Uzuegbunam’s supporters said that his and Bradford’s ability to seek nominal damages is an issue whose importance extends beyond his specific case. Attorneys for Uzuegbunam on Tuesday made similar claims in arguments before the Supreme Court, claiming that nominal damages sometimes are the only way for people to hold governments accountable for First Amendment violations and that if cases are declared moot, it unfairly advantages governments.
Justices in general appeared favorable to the case, with several pointing out that aside from the 11th Circuit, most other appeals courts have held that people can pursue cases seeking only nominal damages when their First Amendment rights have been violated.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, gesturing at one point to a long common-law history supporting the arguments for nominal damages, told attorneys for Gwinnett that they face an uphill battle.
“It seems like there are a lot of things working against you,” Kavanaugh said.
In the past several years, the Supreme Court has swung in a more conservative direction on First Amendment issues, especially since the addition of the three justices President Trump nominated during his tenure. Kristen Waggoner, the ADF general counsel defending Uzuegbunam, told reporters after the court heard the case that she expects a win.
“We’re confident that the court will right this wrong and recognize that our constitutional rights deserve protection,” she said.
