On June 18th, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld President Donald Trump’s gag order preventing federal contractors from discussing their experiences working on Trump projects during the election of 2016.
The gag order was initially put in place by the White House in October 2017 to prevent federal contractors from discussing potential conflicts of interest surrounding government contracts. The gag order affects any federal contractor “who has had or could have had a relevant conversation” related to any matter “involving the Trump administration.”
At the center of the court’s decision was an argument over federal contractors’ First Amendment rights. Contractors argued that the gag order was a violation of their freedom of speech, and the plaintiffs – several federal contractors – argued that the order was an “overbroad and unconstitutional restriction of their free-speech rights.”
The appeals court, however, ruled that the gag order is not an infringement of the contractors’ rights, as the contractors “do not have a constitutional right to speech while performing their contracted work.” The court further argued that while the gag order may limit certain speech of federal contractors, the order is in place to protect the “integrity of the contracting process.”
The Ninth Circuit panel also found that the gag order is narrowly tailored to prevent any potential conflicts of interest and other influence that could affect the decision-making process with government contracts. Furthermore, the court found that the gag order is “not a content-based restriction on speech, and thus it does not burden contractors’ free-speech rights.”
The court’s decision is a win for the Trump administration, which has sought to limit free speech in many different ways since taking office in 2016. The ruling is also likely to have a significant impact on government contractors, who may now be prohibited from discussing their experiences in their field without fear of retribution.