The National Public Radio headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority when he signed an executive order last year that blocked funding from going to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Daniel Moss wrote in a 62-page order that while many of the original issues in the case are no longer relevant after Congress rescinded funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the section of the executive order that called on agencies to end “any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS” remains applicable.
“The message is clear: NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the President disapproves of their ‘left-wing’ coverage of the news,” Moss wrote.
“Because the First Amendment does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type, the Court will issue judgment against the federal agency defendants declaring Section 3(a) of the Executive Order is unconstitutional and will issue an injunction barring those defendants from implementing it.”
Moss was nominated to the district court for the District of Columbia by former President Barack Obama in 2014.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson implied in a statement that the administration will appeal the court’s decision.
“This is a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law. NPR and PBS have no right to receive taxpayer funds, and Congress already voted to defund them,” Jackson wrote. “The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”
A PBS spokesperson wrote in a statement the organization is “thrilled with today’s decision declaring the executive order unconstitutional.”
“As we argued, and Judge Moss ruled, the executive order is textbook unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and retaliation, in violation of longstanding First Amendment principles,” the spokesperson added. “At PBS, we will continue to do what we’ve always done: serve our mission to educate and inspire all Americans as the nation’s most trusted media institution.”
A spokesperson for NPR did not return a request for comment.
No effect on congressional defunding
Trump issued the executive order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” in May of last year, leading to two separate lawsuits that were later joined together.
One was filed by NPR along with three Colorado stations: Aspen Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio. The second lawsuit was filed by PBS and Lakeland PBS in Minnesota.
The NPR lawsuit alleged Trump’s executive order had an “overt retaliatory purpose” and “is unlawful in multiple ways.”
“The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR’s and the Local Member Stations’ freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion,” the lawsuit stated. “Lastly, by seeking to deny NPR critical funding with no notice or meaningful process, the Order violates the Constitution’s Due Process Clause.”
The lawsuits were filed before the Trump administration in June asked Congress to eliminate $1.1 billion in previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provided grants to NPR and PBS.
The Senate voted 51-48 in July to approve the request and the House approved that version of the rescissions bill on a 216-213 vote shortly afterward.
Viewpoint discrimination
Moss wrote in his ruling that the original parts of the lawsuit addressing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting were no longer relevant since “CPB no longer exists, and no Court order declaring the Executive Order unlawful as applied to the CPB can afford NPR, PBS, or their member stations any meaningful relief.”
“But that does not end the matter because the Executive Order sweeps beyond the CPB,” he added. “It also directs that all federal agencies refrain from funding NPR and PBS—regardless of the nature of the program or the merits of their applications or requests for funding.”
Moss wrote that while Trump can denounce news organizations as much as he wants, he cannot order government officials to engage in viewpoint discrimination.
“To be sure, the President is entitled to criticize this or any other reporting, and he can express his own views as he sees fit,” he wrote. “He may not, however, use his governmental power to direct federal agencies to exclude Plaintiffs from receiving federal grants or other funding in retaliation for saying things that he does not like.”
The Trump administration’s attempt to block grants from the Department of Education, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts and other agencies from going to PBS and NPR would have widespread impacts, Moss wrote.
“It does so, moreover, without regard to whether the federal funds are used to pay for the nationwide interconnection systems, which serve as the technological backbones of public radio and television; to provide safety and security for journalists working in war zones; to support the emergency broadcast system; or to produce or distribute music, children’s or other educational programming, or documentaries,” he wrote.
Trump administration lawyers, Moss wrote, were unable to “explain why NPR’s purportedly ‘biased’ political reporting means that its production and distribution of programming like ‘Tiny Desk Concerts,’ … runs afoul of the NEA’s authorizing statute.”
In the coming years, HBO wants its new Harry Potter series to become “the streaming event of the decade” as it adapts each of the franchise’s seven original books. The show could very well become a hit that captures the imaginations of a new generation of fans who weren’t there for the first wave of Pottermania that intensified with the releases of each book and Warner Bros.’ subsequent film adaptations. And if this Harry Potter is a success, it could give author J.K. Rowling a reason to consider writing more stories set in the magical world that turned her into a billionaire.
But all of that hinges on whether people will actually watch HBO’s Harry Potter, which is being executive produced by Rowling. In some cases, a franchise’s creator being so closely involved with new versions of their work can be a good thing, but Rowling’s involvement in this show casts a shadow over it that HBO can do very little to counteract. Rowling has made it abundantly clear that she thinks attacking transgender people via the legal system is a worthwhile cause and a good use of her vast personal fortune. And as much as Harry Potter fans might be excited to see what HBO has cooked up, there’s no way to watch this show without supporting Rowling’s bigotry and the structural violence she’s inflicting on a vulnerable minority.
Rowling’s tweet was not what led to Forstater ultimately receiving £106,400 ($141,683) in lost earnings and aggravated damages in 2023. But Rowling’s willingness to openly align herself with TERF agitators was significant because she was lending credence to the larger culture of transphobia that has plagued the UK for decades. By supporting Forstater, Rowling was encouraging the public to embrace their hateful beliefs and to think of transgender people as threats to society. That kind of rhetoric has been linked to spikes in hate crimes directed at queer people. Rowling knows full well that her celebrity helps her amplify transphobic ideology in ways that people like Forstater could not on their own. Rowling also understands that her wealth puts her in a prime position to advance the TERF agenda (read: enforcing gender essentialism and erasing trans people from existence) on a societal level.
That’s exactly what Rowling was doing in 2024 when she donated £70,000 ($93,212) to For Women Scotland (FWS), an advocacy group that challenged Scotland’s 2018 Gender Representation on Public Boards Act 2018. The Act’s definition of women included people who had “the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.” FWS won its initial judicial review in 2022, which deemed that defining women was outside of the Scottish Parliament’s purview. That decision was reversed in 2023, and in 2024, an amended version of the Scottish Gender Representation Act that used the British 2010 Equality Act’s definition of women — which included trans women — was signed into law. That same year, FWS filed and lost another judicial review against the amended Scottish Gender Representation Act challenging its use of the British 2010 Equality Act’s definition. And while FWS could not appeal that decision, the case went all the way to the UK Supreme Court, which ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex assigned at birth. To pay for this extensive legal battle, FWS turned to crowdsourcing, and Rowling was all too happy to dump tens of thousands of dollars into their cause.
This UK Supreme Court’s definition is itself problematic because human sex biology is not a binary. And in addition to preventing transgender people from having their gender identity legally recognized, the ruling makes it much harder for them to pursue legal action for gender-based discrimination. Rowling celebrated the Court’s decision by posting a photo of herself with a very clear message: “I love it when a plan comes together.” The plan in this case was to help bankroll an anti-trans group’s campaign against trans people, and it culminated with the passage of a law that reduces all women living in the UK down to the way their bodies are perceived when they are born.
Rowling has been transparent about her desire to keep assisting people in their efforts to rob transgender people of their dignity and human rights. That seems very much to be the entire point of The J.K. Rowling Women’s Fund — an organization Rowling launched in 2025 that claims to be “fighting to retain women’s and girls’ sex-based rights in all aspects of life.” The Fund offers financial support provided by Rowling to cisgender women who are looking to file lawsuits. The Fund’s website makes no mention of gender as a concept, but it explicitly points to the For Women Scotland case as the kind of “victory” that it wants to see more of in the world.
Rowling has been rich enough to pour cash into organizations like this for some time now because she continues to hold primary intellectual property rights to the entire Harry Potter property. Every Harry Potter book, movie, video game, stage show ticket, theme park pass, and piece of merchandise that’s sold puts money into Rowling’s pocket, which she can use to keep her crusade against trans people going. Given the property’s lasting popularity, Rowling, who is currently worth about $1.2 billion, could probably do all of this even if HBO wasn’t producing a new Harry Potter series. But because the network is and it wants to keep the show going for at least a decade, Rowling will have even more capital at her disposal to impose her retrograde views onto others.
Clearly, this doesn’t concern HBO’s executive leadership whose primary goals are to boost the company’s stock value while taking home outsized paychecks and hefty exit packages of their own. But it is absolutely something that HBO’s subscribers should be thinking about as Warner Bros. cranks the Harry Potter hype machine up ahead of the show’s premiere later this year. HBO does not want you to think about how it is platforming a known bigot and making it easier for her to spread patently hateful, harmful messaging that can endanger people. And Rowling would probably rather people not consider the fact that there are plenty ofother magical academia series to become obsessed with.
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Charles Pulliam-Moore
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Mayday Health plans to reach 1.2 million drivers with billboards placed in the Kansas City area, Topeka and Wichita for the next four weeks. (Submitted by Liv Raisner)
TOPEKA — A New York City-based nonprofit has launched a billboard campaign to support trans Kansans with information about how to access gender-affirming care.
Mayday Health plans to reach 1.2 million people over the course of four weeks with three billboards in the Kansas City area, three in Topeka and one in Wichita. The signs read “God made trans people” and include a link to the nonprofit’s website.
“We thought it was important to put these billboards up as the Kansas Legislature increasingly targets the constitutional rights of trans Kansans,” said Liv Raisner, executive director of Mayday Health, which focuses on reproductive health education. “So we want to express our support and our solidarity and make sure people know that gender-affirming health services are still accessible.”
The Legislature last year banned gender-affirming care for juveniles. This year, the Legislature criminalized bathroom use for trans people and banned changes in gender markers on driver’s licenses and birth certificates.
“Trans people deserve the same freedoms as all Americans,” Raisner said. “They belong everywhere from the halls of government to the bathrooms that align with their identities, and when governments target folks and violate their fundamental rights, Mayday responds, and that’s why we went up with this billboard campaign.”
Raisner said the nonprofit is focused on getting the message out to trans people, but “if folks with fundamental religious views happen to glance over at these billboards because they see a cross sign, then great. We’re glad that they know that people support trans Kansans.”
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