SCOTUS decided Olivier v. City of Brandon, the Heck case in our arguments. For Jasmyne, Karlee, David and Elizabeth: You can use the opinion preparation, but proceed as if this opinion does not exist and the issue remains undecided.
SDNY denied in relevant part a 12(b)(6) in a lawsuit brought by a bunch of Columbia University students alleging that crackdowns on student protests violated the First Amendment. The basis of the claim is that a legislative committee and various agencies sent letters threatening Columbia's funding if it did not stop the allegedly antisemitic protests. Some things of note for our purposes:
1) Legislative immunity bars the claims against the legislators. Their censorious motivations do not matter. There was a legitimate lawmaking purpose in inquiring into possible Title VI violations by Columbia students.
2) Columbia acts under color under a coercion theory--the threat to federal $ coerced them to take action (stopping student speech). The court also declined to follow a unique line of Ninth Circuit cases holding that coercion should trigger liability for the government rather than against the coerced party, in part because Columbia was a willing joint actor rather than a victim.
3) The pullback on Bivens did not pull back on Ex parte Young actions for prospective relief against federal officials. Had the plaintiffs sought damages, the court would not have reached the under-color-of-federal-law analysis because it would not recognize a Bivens claim on these facts. But where plaintiffs seek injunctive relief, the court must apply the same tests to decide whether the nominally private actor is subject to suit.
4) Note the entwinement between a Vullo retaliation claim against the government and a coercion claim against the private actor, where the plaintiff is adverse to both. In our Colorado Springs puzzle, the plaintiffs sued the government but not the hotel. In Bantam Books--the publisher and distributor were on the same side against the attempt to restrict speech. Here, Columbia seemed to agree with the federal government about the need to restrict speech.
