A mere ten days after President Trump took office in January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture began purging climate-focused information from its web pages. Representing organic farmers and environmental activists, the Knight Institute and Earthjustice filed a lawsuit to restore the pages. Host Cristian Farias speaks with the Institute’s Stephanie Krent, an attorney on the case, and Wes Gillingham, organic farmer and board president of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff. They discuss how the data purge has already harmed farmers, how they’re fighting this form of “thought control,” and what this has to do with the First Amendment.

"The Bully's Pulpit: Trump v. The First Amendment" is brought to you by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Please subscribe and leave a review. We’d love to know what you think.

To learn more about the Knight Institute, visit our website, knightcolumbia.org, and follow us on social media.

In the first episode of “The Bully’s Pulpit,” host and journalist Cristian Farias describes a harrowing bail hearing for Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University Ph.D. student who was detained by ICE for co-authoring an opinion piece in a student newspaper, and reflects on the meaning of her shocking detention and now her freedom. Knight Institute Executive Director Jameel Jaffer joins Farias to discuss the Trump administration’s ongoing assault on First Amendment freedoms and the awe-inspiring resilience of students who have been threatened with deportation for their constitutionally protected speech.

"The Bully's Pulpit: Trump v. The First Amendment" is brought to you by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Please subscribe and leave a review. We’d love to know what you think.

To learn more about the Knight Institute, visit our website, knightcolumbia.org, and follow us on social media.

Cristian Farias, host of the new podcast by the Knight Institute, “The Bully’s Pulpit: Trump v. The First Amendment,” shares his goal for the show: “to chronicle in real time the coordinated, unprecedented assault by the president of the United States and his administration on the freedoms of expression, inquiry, association, and the press... all happening at this very moment.” Each episode will explore a major First Amendment story in the news and feature the people most affected by it. Launching May 16, with new episodes every Friday.