We’ve been starting to see organizations targeted by the Trump administration via executive orders and other means respond to the attacks with lawsuits. This week it was National Public Radio’s turn. It didn’t sue quietly.

NPR announced Tuesday, May 27, that it and three member stations sued the administration over its May 1 executive order contending that neither NPR nor the Public Broadcasting System nonprofit television network “presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events” and seeking to defund them.

NPR’s complaint, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges the executive order “violates the expressed will of Congress and the First Amendment’s bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of association.” The complaint states that “the order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.” It also contends the president doesn’t have the power to defund the institutions, as spending decisions are Congress’s bailiwick.

‘Public Good’

To accompany the suit, NPR and its CEO, Katherine Maher, posted a long (1,186 words!) statement on the nonprofit’s website. The statement repeats some of the arguments in the complaint. It highlights NPR’s history and Congress’s bipartisan support for it. That goes back, the complaint states, to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which recognized “that broad access to free, high-quality, independent noncommercial and educational public radio and television programming was both a public good and civic necessity.”

NPR, which doesn’t run public radio stations but rather distributes its programming to them, was wise to be so public (so to speak) about the lawsuit filing. It is a (mostly) cherished national institution, and garnering support will help it wage this fight. Many entities zeroed in on by the administration have cowered, though we sense that’s beginning to change.

PBS isn’t a party to the NPR lawsuit. “PBS is considering every option, including taking legal action, to allow our organization to continue to provide essential programming and services to member stations and all Americans,” it said in a statement Tuesday, according to The New York Times.

Harvard University

NPR joins other entities such as major law firms that have sued the administration over its executive orders and other attacks on them (other Big Law firms have reached agreements with it). In April, Harvard University sued after the administration froze federal funding for it. The White House then barred international students from attending Harvard, which sued anew; on Friday a judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the student ban.

This week it came out that Trump is seeking to cancel all remaining federal contracts (about $100 million worth) with Harvard.

On Monday, Harvard President Alan Garber sat down for a 17-minute interview about the attacks on it, which he said were retaliatory. “Why cut off research funding?” Garber said. “Sure, it hurts Harvard, but it hurts the country because” the funding is for “research work that the federal government designates as high priority.”

Garber’s interview was with . . . NPR.

Photo Credit: DCStockPhotography/Shutterstock

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