Short Circuit 401 | Government Fails Rational Basis Test for Once

The balance between free speech, campus order, and fighting antisemitism has been a major flashpoint the last couple of years and it just hit the First Circuit in a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The case concerns protests and encampments at MIT’s campus in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel. The legal questions concern MIT’s responsibilities in light of taking federal funds. Michael Peña of IJ details what the court considered and where it came out. Then, IJ’s Arif Panju bring us to New Orleans for a short vacation. The city tried to restrict short term rentals to only those owned by “natural persons,” not ordinary people who use LLCs or other corporate forms. This was in response to losing the first round of the same case a few years ago under a dormant Commerce Clause challenge. The Fifth Circuit, again, found the city’s efforts unconstitutional in some ways, but most interestingly here it found the natural person/LLC distinction failed the rational basis test. In doing so, it relied on an IJ victory, also in the Fifth Circuit. Stand With Us Center for Legal Justice v. MIT Hignell-Stark v. New Orleans Short Circuit 235 (on earlier Fifth Circuit ruling) IJ’s amicus brief in the New Braunfels case