Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-18-01691/USCOURTS-ca2-18-01691-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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BARRINGTON D. PARKER, Circuit Judge, statement with respect to the denial of

rehearing en banc.  

This case arises from the President’s use of the @realDonaldTrump Twitter

account (the “Account”) as a primary vehicle for his official communications. He uses

this account to make official statements on a wide variety of subjects, many of great

national importance. The public, in turn, is able to respond to and engage with the

President and other users on Twitter. In Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ.

v. Trump, we concluded that this dialogue creates a public forum. 928 F.3d 226 (2d Cir.

2019). We also concluded that when the President creates such a public forum, he

violates the First Amendment when he excludes persons from the dialogue because

they express views with which he disagrees.  

The decision is unusual only in that it involves Twitter, a relatively new form of

public, interactive communication, and the President. However, the opinion is

consistent with every precedent of this Court, and the dissent does not demonstrate

otherwise. It is, I respectfully suggest, a straightforward application of state action and

public forum doctrines, congruent with Supreme Court precedent. The dissent

misconstrues the applicable law and overstates the scope of the panel’s holding.  

The dissent’s main concern—and its primary  argument—is that the Account is

the President’s personal account and therefore is not a public forum and its use does not

constitute state action. This argument is refuted by even a cursory perusal of examples

of the tweets in question. Consider these recent ones:

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These tweets are published by a public official clothed with the authority of the state

using social media as a tool of governance and as an official channel of communication

on an interactive public platform. The panel decision discussed the President’s use of

the Account in an official capacity in detail. See Knight, 928 F.3d at 232. Excluding

people from an otherwise public forum such as this by blocking those who express

views critical of a public official is, we concluded, unconstitutional viewpoint

discrimination. Id. at 234.

I.

The dissent contends that the President’s use of the Account to conduct official

business does not amount to state action. While the dissent does not dispute that the

Account is regularly used as an official channel of communication, it argues that no

state action is involved because the President does not exercise “some right or privilege

created by the State” when he blocks accounts on Twitter. Knight First Amendment Inst.

at Columbia Univ. v. Trump, 928 F.3d 226 (2d Cir. 2019) (Park, J., dissenting from the

denial of rehearing en banc, at 2) [hereinafter Dissent]. Satisfaction of this condition is

said to be required by our decision in Flagg v. Yonkers Sav. & Loan Ass’n, FA, 396 F.2d

178, 186 (2d Cir. 2005).

I do not agree. The state action analysis of the panel was correct. When the

President tweeted about Iran he was speaking in his capacity as the nation’s chief

executive and Commander‐in‐Chief. If that is not a “right or privilege created by the

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State” it is difficult to imagine what might be. By the same token, when he receives

responses from the public to the Account, and when he blocks responders whose views

he disfavors, he remains the President. The critical question in this case is not the nature

of the Account when it was set up a decade ago. The critical question for First

Amendment purposes is how the President uses the Account in his capacity as

President.  

The Supreme Court in Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co. identified the test for state

action as whether the conduct allegedly causing the deprivation of a federal right is

“fairly attributable to the State.” 457 U.S. 922, 937 (1982). Edmondson Oil instructs us

that, where the claim of a constitutional deprivation is directed against a party whose

official character is such as “to lend the weight of the State to his decisions,” the conduct

is state action because it is “fairly attributable to the State.” Id. The President

quintessentially  qualifies as a party whose “official character . . . lends the weight of the

State to his decisions.” Id. That, of course, holds true of his current use of Twitter.1  

1 The dissent misconstrues this statement of views as making the “extraordinary claim that

everything the President does is state action or that the test for state action is different for the

President.” Dissent at 3 n.1. That is an inexplicable misreading of the analysis. What the dissent

fails to ever seriously address is that when the President blocks users, he blocks them from

access to an official account and from engaging in an otherwise open, public dialogue that is

created by his use of Twitter to make official statements. Far from saying that everything the

President does is state action, the panel narrowly concluded that the President runs afoul of the

First Amendment when he prohibits individuals from speaking in an otherwise public, open

forum in which he makes official statements.

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The dissent further contends  that “the panel decision blurred the line between

actions by public officials in the performance of their official duties and actions ‘in the

ambit of their personal pursuits.’” Dissent at 5. This ignores the detailed discussion the

panel provided concerning the “substantial and pervasive government involvement

with, and control over,” the Account. Knight, 928 F.3d at 235. That discussion noted that

the President and his staff use the Account as an official channel of communication with

the public on matters of public concern. Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed that the

President’s tweets are official statements of the President. White House staff members

are involved in the drafting and posting of tweets to the Account, and the National

Archives and Records Administration requires the preservation of the President’s

tweets as official records under the Presidential Records Act. Id. None of this is in

dispute.

The dissent states that because “blocking” is a feature available to all users, it

cannot be state action. Dissent at 3. The panel addressed this argument when the

Appellants made it, and the dissent’s reiteration breaks no new ground. See Knight, 928

F.3d at 235‐36. What the dissent never seriously engages with is that when the President

blocks users, he blocks them from access to, and interaction with, an official account.

The decision was careful to address the areas that generate the dissent’s anxiety.  

We did not consider or decide whether a public official violates the Constitution by

excluding persons from a personal, private social media account. Nor did we decide

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how the First Amendment impacts private social media accounts used by public

officials. Knight, 928 F.3d at 236. We held only that the First Amendment does not

permit a government official who utilizes a social media platform for official purposes

to exclude persons from an otherwise open dialogue merely because they expressed

views disfavored by the official.

II.

In Packingham v. North Carolina Justice Kennedy discussed the relationship

between Twitter and the First Amendment.  He said that “[w]hile in the past there may

have been difficulty in identifying the most important places (in a spatial sense) for the

exchange of views, today the answer is clear. It is cyberspace—the vast democratic

forums of the Internet in general, and social media in particular. . . . [O]n Twitter, users

can petition their elected representatives and otherwise engage with them in a direct

manner. . . . In short, social media users employ these websites to engage in a wide

array of protected First Amendment activity on topics as diverse as human thought.”

137 S. Ct. 1730, 1735‐36 (2017). If Justice Kennedy is right, as I believe he is, then the

dissent is wrong.

Keeping the Supreme Court’s words in mind, the panel concluded that the

“interactive space” of the Account was a public forum for the purposes of the First

Amendment. Knight, 928 F.3d at 237. The dissent articulates two concerns with our

public forum analysis. Its first objection is to the “disaggregation” of the President’s

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tweets from the interactive features of the Account. Dissent at 8. The second objection is

that the President did not change the way he uses Twitter after he took office, and

therefore he could not have intended to create a public forum. Dissent at 7, 11. Again, I

respectfully disagree.

A.

First, the dissent worries that the panel “strayed from” this Court’s precedent

(which is never specifically identified) when it distinguished between the President’s

tweets, which it categorizes as government speech, and the ‘interactive space’ accessible

to the public, which the panel concluded constituted a public forum. Dissent at 2. The

point of departure of our analysis was that  “whatever the challenges of applying the

Constitution to ever‐advancing technology, ‘the basic principles of freedom of speech

and the press, like the First Amendment’s command, do not vary’ when a new and

different medium for communication appears.” Knight, 928 F.3d at 237 (quoting Brown

v. Entm’t Merchants Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 790 (2011)).

A simple analogy to physical public fora makes it clear that the distinction

between a tweet and its interactive space is appropriate: at a town hall meeting held by

public officials, statements made by the officials are protected government speech. If,

however,  public comment is allowed at the gathering—as it is on any tweet posted to

the Account—the officials may not preclude persons from participating in the debate

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based on their viewpoints. Significantly, that discrimination is impermissible even

when the public forum is limited and is “of [the State’s] own creation.” Rosenberger v.

Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819, 829 (1995); see also Perry Educ.

Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983) (“The Constitution forbids a

state to enforce certain exclusions from a forum generally open to the public even if it

was not required to create the forum in the first place”). Of course, a public forum need

not be “spatial or geographic” and even if the forum is metaphysical, “the same

principles are applicable.” Knight, 928 F.3d at 237 (quoting Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 830).

Without citing any authority, the dissent writes that “[i]f an official gives

remarks and allows for participation by supporters of the government’s policies, that

would not require opening the floor to opponents.” Dissent at 9. That example has

nothing to do with the facts before us. Here, the President makes official statements on

a platform that allows anyone—not just his supporters—to comment and engage with

his statements and with each other. In any event, the line of argument pursued by the

dissent is directly contradicted by the Supreme Court: “As soon as municipal officials

are permitted to pick and choose . . . the path is cleared for a regime of censorship under

which full voice can be given only to those views which meet with the approval of the

powers that be.”  Se. Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad., 420 U.S. 546, 563 (1975); see also

Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 829 (stating that viewpoint discrimination is “an egregious form

of content discrimination”). The dissent’s contention that a public official could

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selectively exclude questioners with viewpoints that are disfavored by the official is

inconsistent with the First Amendment. “It is axiomatic that the government may not

regulate speech based on its substantive content or the message it conveys . . .

Discrimination against speech because of its message is presumed to be

unconstitutional.” Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 828.  

B.

The dissent, citing Arkansas Educ. Television Comm’n v. Forbes, contends that we

apply public forum precedent to the President’s use of the Account in a ‘mechanical

way.’ 523 U.S. 666, 672–73 (1998). I disagree. In Forbes the Supreme Court observed that

the public forum doctrine first arose in the context of streets and parks, and warned

against a “mechanical” extension of the doctrine to television broadcasting. Id. Forbes

identified two features of parks and streets that television broadcasting does not share:

“open access” and “viewpoint neutrality.” The Court found that, because television

channels create and publish their own content, they “are not only permitted, but indeed

required, to exercise substantial editorial discretion in the selection and presentation of

their programming.” Id. at 673.

Twitter possesses both critical attributes identified by the Court in Forbes that

public broadcasting lacked. First, Twitter is open to the general public. The only

limitation Twitter places on creating an account is age‐based: those under 13 years of

age may not use its services. See Twitter Terms of Service at twitter.com/tos (last visited

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March 6, 2020). Second, Twitter is neutral with respect to viewpoint; it is a platform on

which the users publish their views.2

C.

Finally, the dissent argues that because the Account was created as a personal

one in 2009 it cannot now be a public forum. Dissent at 11. As I mentioned, the

dispositive consideration is not what the Account may have been in the past, but what it

is now. Consider another recent tweet:

2 Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act explicitly allows social media websites

(among others) to filter and censor content posted on their platforms without thereby becoming

a ‘publisher.’ 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1) (“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall

be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information

content provider”). Understood correctly, Forbes thus underscores the accuracy of the panel’s

analysis.

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As with the tweet concerning Iran, I believe that under no rational view can tweets such

as these be considered “personal.”  

In determining whether the government has “intentionally opened a

nontraditional forum for public discourse” the Court looks to the “policy and practice

of the government” as well as “the nature of the property and its compatibility with

expressive activity.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Def. & Educ. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 802

(1985); see also Knight, 928 F.3d at 237‐39.  The Account constitutes a public forum under

both considerations the Supreme Court prescribed for forum analysis in Cornelius. As

the panel noted, “[o]pening an instrumentality of communication ‘for indiscriminate

use by the general public’ creates a public forum.” Knight, 928 F.3d at 237 (quoting Perry

Edu. Ass’n, 460 U.S. at 47). The President, upon assuming office, has “repeatedly used

the Account as an official vehicle for governance and made its interactive features

accessible to the public without limitation.” Id.  I continue to believe that this

assessment is correct.3 Importantly, even if the Account were a non‐public forum,

excluding individuals who express disfavored views is not permitted. Cornelius, 473

U.S. at 806; see also Minn. Voters Alliance v. Mansky, 138 S. Ct. 1876, 1885 (2018).

Twitter is undoubtedly a forum compatible with expressive activity. Navigating

to Twitter’s “About” page (about.twitter.com) reveals a list of statements concerning its

3 The panel’s analysis is congruent with the Supreme Court’s conclusion in Se. Promotions, Ltd. v.

Conrad that a privately‐owned theater under a long‐term lease to the city was nonetheless “a

public forum designed for and dedicated to expressive activities.” 420 U.S. at 555.

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purpose: “Spark a global conversation.” “See what people are talking about.” In Hague

v. C.I.O., the Court noted that public fora are “used for purposes of assembly,

communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.” 307 U.S.

496, 515 (1939). As the Court noted in Packingham v. North Carolina, that is precisely

what social media platforms do. 137 S. Ct. at 1735‐36. Twitter is no exception.

III.

The dissent asserts that, while the President’s tweets are official speech, other

uses of the Account, such as blocking, somehow cause the Account to revert to a

personal account. The dissent goes on to insist the panel’s disaggregation of the

Account’s tweets and interactive space is “artificial” and that Twitter itself makes no

such distinction. Dissent at 8. This argument misunderstands how the platform

operates. Twitter accounts include a bundle of features. They come with every account

and are available to every Twitter user. Neither government officials nor anyone else is

able to individually tailor the features of their accounts. If one navigates to the “Twitter

Rules” webpage, a hyperlink at the top of the page labeled “Using Twitter”4 leads to the

following:

4 This page can be found at help.twitter.com/en/using‐twitter (last visited March 6, 2020).

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Each phrase is a hyperlink to a new page with a detailed explanation of the feature

listed. Because every Twitter account comes with every feature listed, the ability to

tweet always includes the ability to reply or block. The interactive functions are what

you get when you open a Twitter account. The dissent never explains how an account

used for official government speech turns into a personal account simply because its

user limits who is allowed to see and respond to that speech.

In addition, new features recently announced by Twitter highlight the distinction

that the panel correctly made but that the dissent characterizes as “artificial.” Dissent at

8. One of those features will soon allow Twitter users to limit who can reply to their

tweets. These features will allow users to set reply functions to “Global, Group, Panel,

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and Statement.” Global is the current default (and only) setting for public Twitter

accounts.5 The Group setting will allow those who follow the account and those @‐

mentioned6 in a tweet to reply, while the Panel setting allows only users @‐mentioned in

a tweet to reply. The Statement setting does not allow anyone to reply, functionally

severing the “interactive space” of the replies from the speech of the tweet itself. The

dissent is thus incorrect to contend that Twitter itself does not distinguish between

“initial tweets” and “interactive spaces.” On the contrary, it is continuing to make the

bounds of those interactive spaces more sophisticated and an even more integral part of

Twitter.  

IV.

The dissent repeatedly misconstrues the scope of the holding in Knight.  It

worries that the opinion “will reach far beyond the Oval Office, creating uncertainty

about the use of social media by public officials at every level of government.” Dissent

at 12. These alarms ring hollow. None of these fears have come to fruition since the

publication of the opinion. While the dissent worries that “this decision will have the

5 This allows any Twitter user except those blocked by the original tweeter’s account to view

and reply to the tweet. “Locked” or “Private” Twitter Accounts are viewable only by followers

of the account, and their tweets cannot be “retweeted” by anyone, even followers.

6 An @‐mention creates a hyperlink in the tweet to the account named.

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unintended consequence of creating less speech,” it points to no marked change to how

public officials use social media since the opinion was published.7  

In fact, just the opposite has occurred. In the past few months, the President has

been posting on Twitter at more than three times the rate he was tweeting in 2017.  

These tweets cover subjects as diverse as military actions, immigration policies, and

senior staffing changes, among other major official announcements. Twitter is not just

an official channel of communication for the President; it is his most important channel

of communication.8

V.

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 35 provides that an en banc rehearing “will

not be ordered unless (1) en banc consideration is necessary to secure or maintain

uniformity of the court’s decisions; or (2) the proceeding involves a question of

7 The dissent cites four cases purportedly to illustrate and document the concerns that the panel

decision is just one in a flood of similar lawsuits. Leuthy v. LePage was made moot before the

panel even heard oral arguments in Knight. No. 1:17‐cv‐0029‐JAW, 2018 WL 4134628 (D. Me.

Aug. 29, 2018). Campbell v. Reisch was filed and argued before the decision of this panel was

released. No. 2:18‐cv‐4129‐BCW, 2019 WL 3856591 (W.D. Mo. Aug. 16, 2019). Hikind v. Ocasio‐

Cortez was recently settled. No. 1:19‐cv‐03956 (E.D.N.Y. filed July 9, 2019). Garnier v. Poway

Unified Sch. Dist., No. 17‐cv‐2215‐W (JLB), 2019 WL 4736208 (S.D. Ca. Sept. 26, 2019) was filed in

2017, and cites to Knight repeatedly, agreeing at every step with the panel’s analysis. In fact,

Garnier underscores that the analysis of the panel in Knight can be applied in a straightforward

manner to cases as they arise, even outside of our Circuit.

8 The President’s press secretaries have repeatedly responded to criticisms about the lack of

press briefings by pointing out that the press has unprecedented access to him and that he

“communicates directly with the American people,” which is, of course, a reference to Twitter.

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exceptional importance.” The dissent fails to offer anything beyond conclusory claims

that either standard is met in this case.  

A distinctive feature of the Second Circuit is its infrequency of rehearing cases en

banc. Judge Jon O. Newman has explained that this approach is grounded in the view,

“strongly held by all members of the court, that in bancs are normally not a wise use of

judicial resources.” Jon O. Newman, In Banc Practice in the Second Circuit, 1984‐1988, 55

BROOK. L. REV. 355, 369 (1989). I, for one, agree with these views. Judge Newman went

on to stress that the collegiality of this Court, and its relative lack of the “vitriolic

language unfortunately found in the writings of some other appellate courts,” is

promoted by the infrequency of en bancs. Id. He perceptively notes the benefits that

flow to each of us from allowing panels to decide their own cases, and being reluctant

to oversee the work of one’s colleagues through en banc review. Judge Newman

concluded his report on en banc practice in the Second Circuit with the following

reflection:

As the membership of the court changes, there is always the possibility that the

pattern of rare in bancs might change. . . . [T]hose coming onto the court . . . will

find a rather firmly established tradition. I hope that they—and all who observe

the work of this Court—will appreciate the benefits that our practice of

infrequent in bancs has conferred upon our institution.

Newman, supra, at 503.  

I respectfully submit this statement to accompany the denial of rehearing en banc.

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