WASHINGTON — Six members of the public filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging the Trump administration’s restrictions on journalists at the White House, seeking a broader order against retaliatory exclusions than the relief previously obtained by three news organizations.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic brought the case in federal court in New York. Their complaint argues that excluding reporters because officials dislike their coverage violates the First Amendment and deprives the public of access to independent information about the presidency.
The plaintiffs include human rights advocate Kenneth Roth, journalist Daniel Froomkin, historian Beverly Gage, teacher Peter Schmidt-Nowara, legal journalist Benjamin Wittes and student newspaper editor Ethan Young.
They say they depend on reporting from the White House for professional, educational or civic work. “If White House reporters can maintain their access only by staying in Trump’s good graces, they are not free to do their most essential work,” Froomkin said in a statement released by the Knight First Amendment Institute. Wittes, editor-in-chief of Lawfare, said the White House should not use press access “to retaliate for disfavored articles, or to coerce favorable coverage.”
The suit follows restrictions imposed in September on CNN, MS NOW and Politico. In a separate case brought by those outlets, a federal judge in Washington granted a preliminary injunction October 13 requiring the administration to maintain their access while litigation proceeds.
Unlike that case, the new lawsuit seeks protections extending beyond the three organizations. The plaintiffs argue that areas opened to the White House press corps for reporting function as a public forum in which the government may not discriminate based on viewpoint. That legal theory remains an allegation for the court to decide.
“The White House cannot decide what information Americans receive by punishing critical reporting,” Katie Fallow, the Knight Institute’s deputy litigation director, said in the organization’s announcement of the filing.
The case is Roth v. Trump in the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs also filed a motion for a preliminary injunction Monday.
