May 7, 2025 Editor, The News-Gazette: On his March 4 speech to Congress, President Trump said he has “stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America.”
Even a partial listing of his record says the opposite: CBS News: threatened to “lose its license” for “distortion” over election coverage unfavorable to Trump (Jan. 22).
Associate Press: barred from White House for using “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America” (Feb. 11).
NBC, Comcast, ABC, Disney: under investigation for “invidious forms of DEI” (February-March).
Perkins Coie: law firm punished for “representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton” (March 6).
Mahmoud Khalil: arrested for co-organizing and speaking at peaceful demonstrations (March 8).
Government websites: ordered to remove references to “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (March 23).
Rumeysa Ozturk: arrested for writing an editorial published in a student newspaper (March 25).
Wilmerhale: law firm punished for “partisan representations to achieve political ends” (March 27).
Smithsonian Institution: ordered to remove “improper ideology,” including “the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct” (March 27).
Susman Godfrey: law firm punished for “efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections” (April 9).
U.S. Army libraries: ordered to remove books about “DEI” and “gender ideology” (April 15).
Harvard University, Cornell University, Northwestern University, Brown University, Columbia University, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania: funding revoked for student protests held in 2024 (April).
And yet one of Trump’s Jan. 20 executive orders states: “The First Amendment … enshrines the right of the American people to speak … without Government interference” and “Government censorship of speech is intolerable.” CHRIS GAVALER Lexington
