FEF Files Complaint Against Department of Justice on Behalf of Austin Franco

The Free Expression Foundation has filed a civil rights administrative complaint against DoJ official Leo Terrell on behalf of Austin Franco — and you can help!

As explained in the full complaint below, Mr. Terrell sought to blacklist Mr. Franco from all future employment. The reason? The young college student exercised his Constitutional freedom to not associate. One of this current government’s special ironies has been the repeated violations of civil rights by the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division.

Mr. Terrell used both his personal and government X accounts to harass Mr. Franco and to call on the public to make him “permanently unemployable.” The United States Supreme Court has  condemned this exact sort of government blacklisting in Bantam Books v. Sullivan and NRA of America v. Vullo.

One of the key difficulties in attaining redress against federal officials for violations of Constitutional rights is the statutory framework. 42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides an avenue to sue state officials for Constitutional harms, but no parallel route exists against federal officials like Mr. Terrell. While a plaintiff may bring a complaint in what is known as a Bivens action, the Supreme Court hollowed out the First Amendment aspect of this method in their 2022 Egbert v. Boule decision.

The best forum, accordingly, to seek redress for Mr. Franco is a civil rights administrative complaint with the Office of the Inspector General. Here is where FEF’s supporters come in:

• Share the complaint on social media
• Contact your Congressional representatives and ask them to put pressure on the Office of the Inspector General to investigate the complaint

Be professional in your communications, but communicate. It is your right to petition the government!

See the full text of the civil rights complaint here (PDF LINK WILL OPEN IN A NEW TAB).

With you in the defense of freedom,