Judge Blocks University of New Mexico From Imposing Crushing Fees on Riley Gaines Speech

A ray of sanity from the bench, and not just any judge, but from a Demoncrat Biden-appointed judge! Will wonders never cease?

FromLifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

The University of New Mexico attempted to charge thousands of dollars for ‘security’ to have Riley Gaines speak, even though the women’s sport advocate had her own security detail, apparently as a pretext to prevent her from speaking on campus.

U.S. District Judge David Urias issued a preliminary injunction against the University of New Mexico imposing security fees on college conservative groups as a means of preventing women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines from speaking on campus.

As detailed by Southeastern Legal Foundation, which is representing the Leadership Institute and the campus chapter of Turning Point USA, the group planned to host a talk by Gaines, a former University of Kentucky All-American swimmer who is now a leading opponent of forcing females to compete against gender-confused males in athletic programs. 

But the university imposed a security fee on the event, initially quoted to total more than $10,000 (since finalized as $5,384.75), despite Gaines providing her own security, which the suit contends was a roundabout way of blocking the speech.

“UNM officials were able to get away with this because the university maintains a policy that allows them to subjectively assess events on a case-by-case basis,” SLF explains. “That means administrators have the sole authority to decide whether an event is ‘controversial’—thus requiring more security—or ‘uncontroversial.’”

On September 27, The College Fix reported that Judge Urias has sided with the conservative students, temporarily blocking the security fee from being levied, as well as from enforcing its fee policy against events related to free speech more generally.

Urias concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of the case that the “security fee policy is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face,” because it “ultimately leaves the decision of how much to charge for security up to the whim of university officials,” and that the plaintiffs were likely to face “irreparable harm” if not granted an injunction.

“Colleges and universities should be a place of critical thinking where different ideas are welcomed and encouraged,” reacted Gaines. “They should not be a place of political discrimination and suppression of First Amendment rights, like in this case. We are very grateful that the court granted this injunction and saw the irreparable harm that would come if these high fees were applied to our event.”

“The court clearly sees the double standard of UNM behind giving a $10,000 fee to our event and yet previously allowing a drag show to take place on campus with no security fee at all,” added Turning Point chapter co-president Jonathan Gonzales.

Inclusion of gender-confused individuals in opposite-sex sports is promoted by leftists as a matter of “inclusivity,” but critics warn that indulging “transgender” athletes undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, thereby depriving female athletes of recognition and professional or academic opportunities, as well as undermining female players’ basic safety and privacy rights by forcing them to share showers and changing areas with members of the opposite sex.

There have been numerous high-profile examples in recent years of men winning women’s competitions, and research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be negated by hormone suppression.

In a 2019 paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men [do] not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to (below International Olympic Committee guidelines) for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered by hormone therapy;” therefore, “the advantage to [gender-confused men] afforded by the [International Olympic Committee] guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”

Both aspects of the controversy have been highlighted by former University of Pennsylvania swimmer William “Lia” Thomas, who reportedly retains male genitalia and is still attracted to women yet “identifies” as female and lesbian. Thomas quickly started dominating women’s swimming after switching from the men’s team and caused his female teammates unrest due to sharing lockers with them. Yet the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) reportedly pressured swimmers and their parents against speaking out.

Pictured: The Honorable David Urias, Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico