The US president, Donald Trump, repeatedly campaigned for a second term as a champion of free expression and vowed in his January 2025 inaugural address to stop what he described as years of “government censorship”. A wave of court decisions since then has concluded that his administration acted in the opposite direction, with judges repeatedly finding that it chilled or suppressed the speech of citizens and groups opposed to the Republican president’s agenda.

Trump’s second term has been marked by judge after judge ruling against him on free speech grounds.

The US president, Donald Trump, repeatedly campaigned for a second term as a champion of free expression and vowed in his January 2025 inaugural address to stop what he described…