Summary: Justice Julie Grown Denton allows defamation claim to proceed Hamilton College President Steven Tepper added as defendant Expulsion upheld but defamation suit survives dismissal A former student expelled from Hamilton College over a 2024 incident involving graffiti that appeared to be antisemitic hate speech may move forward with a defamation lawsuit against the Clinton college and its president, a New York State Supreme Court justice has ruled. But Justice Julie Grown Denton, of the Supreme Court in Oneida County, dismissed the rest of the suit brought by Adyn Brenden, a 19-year-old sophomore from South Dakota at the time of the incident, asking the court to overturn his expulsion, remove the punishment from his academic record and allow him to return to classes. Brenden admitted to state police and during a college judicial review hearing that he had defaced a community mural project on Oct. 10, 2024 by painting two backward swastikas and writing words and phrases over the work of other students, which was against the project’s rules. His graffiti included the sentence, “Kill the Jews wherever you find them.” After a hearing on Nov. 6, 2024, the college’s judicial review board voted to expel Brenden. He appealed, but the appeals board upheld the decision to expel on Dec. 11, 2024. “The president’s words went out to the entire community before I ever had a chance to be heard,” Brenden said in a press release sent out by his father. “I’m relieved the court sees this as defamation and is letting the damages case go forward.” His father, Jeremy Brenden, added his own statement to the release, “College must be held accountable when administrators publicly shame students and destroy their futures with unproven labels. This ruling is a notice to every campus: words have context and consequences, and the truth matters.” Hamilton College declined to comment on the case. To allow the defamation suit to move forward, Denton granted a motion to allow Brenden to amend his lawsuit to include a statement sent out by college President Steven Tepper to make his case for defamation and to add Tepper as a defendant. But in a footnote to her decision, Denton warned readers not to read too much into it. Allowing the amendment is “not in any way indication” of the court’s agreement or disagreement with Brenden’s actions, Tepper’s statement or either’s explanations, she wrote. “Nor does granting the motion serve as a precursor of how the merits of the student’s defamation claim will ultimately be resolved,” she wrote. Denton gave Brenden, who has been representing himself since August of 2025, until April 30 to file an amended complaint with factual allegations backing up the defamation claim. A status conference is scheduled for 10 a.m. July 13 on Microsoft Teams. Brendan says graffiti was meant to provoke dialogue Tepper’s statement was sent out to the college community on Oct. 12, 2024. It said that Brenden had admitted to the “vandalism and hate speech graffiti” and that the state police had charged him with first-degree harassment, a felony. Tepper also referred to the messages written by Brenden as “antisemitic.” Brenden’s court filing argued that Tepper made those statements without evidence before Brenden’ judicial review board hearing and claimed that that “pre-judgment” affected public perception and the outcomes of his disciplinary process, and would make it harder for him to transfer to another college. Brenden argued that his graffiti was not antisemitic, but meant, rather, to provoke dialogue on the pro-Palestinian stance of many students. He was trying to make the point, according to the suit, that supporters of Palestine, whom he also referred to as pro-Hamas, are antisemitic and like the Nazis. “Kill the Jews wherever you find them” is a phrase Brenden found online to describe the underlying values of the pro-Palestinian movement, the suit claimed. Denton noted that Tepper did not include all of what Brenden had told state police in his statement so that readers couldn’t draw their own conclusions on whether it qualified as hate speech. Lawyers for the college had argued that the statement represented Tepper’s opinion, not facts. But Denton wrote that factors such as the college letterhead on which it was written and the close working relationship between the college and the state police could lead readers to view the statement as fact. “The president could be seen as creating an impression that the student’s admission equated to guilt of the class E felony charge referenced in the public statement,” she wrote. And Brenden could present more evidence of harm from the president’s label of “hate speech” as the case moves on, Denton noted. Brenden's graffiti included several phrases, alterations Besides the backward swastikas and the comment about killing all Jews, Brenden’s graffiti included the phrases “Nazis for Palestine,” “Trump shall be free,” “(a heart symbol) Armalite Rifles!” and “Stop! It’s not worth it.” Another canvas was altered to change “Abortion is healthcare” to “isn’t.” And on another canvas with a series of words starting with the prefix “-pro,” the root words were overwritten with other words, such as “life” instead of “choice,” “human” over “planet,” and “family” over “equality.” The college called the state police in to investigate on Oct. 11, 2024, the day the graffiti was discovered. Officers interviewed and arrested Brenden, charging him with aggravated harassment in the first degree, although the charge was later dismissed by a grand jury. The charges against him in the college disciplinary process included conduct likely to have a substantial adverse effect on or pose a threat to any person; property damage; violation of college policies and rules; and intentionally or unreasonably interfering with the freedom of expression of others. He admitted to the last of those charges during his hearing. The suit originally named four faculty members and a dean who served on the judicial review or appeals boards as defendants: Ariel Kahrl, Mahogany Green, Carolyn Hutchinson, Katheryn Doran and Ashley Place, assistant dean of students for community living. None are named, though, in the defamation case. Brendan's original lawsuit was dismissed Brenden’s lawsuit alleged that the college failed to follow its own rules and procedures during the disciplinary process and included four causes of action that Denton has now dismissed: Failure to consider alternative sanctions better suited to the charges and with consideration of mitigating factors. Holding the hearing without a lawyer or faculty advisor for Brenden present. The “irrational” decision by the appeals board in which members displayed bias. Failure to safeguard his First Amendment rights. Brenden also asked to amend his lawsuit to include malicious prosecution and false arrest — with Jeff Landry, associate vice president for student affairs, added as a defendant. But Denton denied the request, arguing that college officials had done nothing more than to call the state police. This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Are swastikas always hate speech? Suit against Hamilton College says no Reporting by Amy Neff Roth, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Summary: Judge Darrin P. Gayles dismisses Trump's lawsuit Trump's case fails actual malice standard for public figures Wall Street Journal stands by article's accuracy  A federal judge on April 13 dismissed Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, a setback for the U.S. president in his legal campaign against media companies he accuses of treating him unfairly. The case was one of several that Trump, a Republican, has filed during his presidency against major media outlets over reporting he has characterized as unfair or false. That has led to concern among Democrats and press freedom advocates that he is seeking to use defamation cases to quell critical coverage. Trump’s lawsuit said the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper tarnished his reputation with an article describing a birthday card to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein bearing Trump’s signature. Trump and his lawyers said the card is fake, even after it was released by lawmakers investigating Epstein’s case. Trump filed the lawsuit in July 2025 as his administration faced criticism from its conservative base and congressional Democrats over its handling of the case against Epstein, a financier who died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges. Miami-based U.S. District Court Judge Darrin P. Gayles, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, said in tossing the case that Trump had not come close to meeting the "actual malice" standard that public figures must clear in defamation. That means they must prove not only that a public statement about them was false but also that the media outlet or person who made the statement knew or should have known that it was false. "This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard," Gayles wrote. "Quite the opposite." Gayles said Trump could file an amended version of the lawsuit by April 27. A spokesman for Trump's legal team said he would refile the lawsuit. A spokesperson for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal's parent, said in a statement, "We are pleased with the judge’s decision to dismiss this complaint. We stand behind the reliability, rigor and accuracy of The Wall Street Journal's reporting." DEMOCRATS RELEASED COPY OF LETTER Gayles wrote that the Journal's reporters reached out to Trump for comment beforehand, and printed his denial. That allowed readers to decide for themselves what to conclude, cutting against Trump's assertion that the newspaper acted with actual malice, the judge said. The ruling did not address whether the article was true. The Epstein case generated conspiracy theories that the government covered up the financier’s ties to the rich and powerful and obscured details about his death, which was ruled a suicide. Trump amplified such conspiracy theories about Epstein during the 2024 presidential campaign and vowed to open the government’s investigative files if he won. He reneged on that promise but has called the ensuing scandal a Democratic hoax. Trump and Epstein were once friends, but Trump says he severed ties before Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution charges in 2008. Trump has consistently denied knowing about Epstein’s crimes. His lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal came in response to an article asserting that Trump’s signature was on a 2003 birthday card for Epstein that included a drawing of a naked woman and a reference to shared secrets in an imaginary dialogue between Trump and Epstein. Trump’s lawsuit repeatedly asserts the card is fake and takes the Journal to task for not publishing it as proof, but a copy was later released by Democrats in Congress who obtained it from Epstein’s estate. WSJ WARNS OF CHILLING EFFECT ON SPEECH In seeking to dismiss the case, the Wall Street Journal said the lawsuit was meritless and threatened to chill the speech of those who would dare to publish content the president does not like. Trump has also sued the BBC, citing misleading editing of a speech, the New York Times over articles and a book about him, and a newspaper in Iowa over a poll that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential campaign. All three outlets have denied wrongdoing. ABC settled with Trump after he sued over an anchor’s inaccurate comments about a civil case accusing him of sexual abuse. CBS struck a similar deal after Trump sued over its edits to an interview with Harris. (Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Daniel Wallis)

Summary: Three-judge panel hears case at U.S. Court of International Trade Tariffs challenged by 24 states and two small businesses Tariffs imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 By Dietrich Knauth NEW YORK, April 10 (Reuters) - A U.S. trade court on Friday considered the legality of a 10 percent global import tax imposed by the Trump administration, which several states and small businesses say sidesteps a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that invalidated most of Trump's previous tariffs. A group of 24 mostly Democratic-led states and two small businesses sued the Trump administration to stop the new tariffs, which went into effect on February 24. The hearing is before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade. Oregon's lawyer Brian Marshall told the judges that the latest tariffs are based on archaic authority that was meant to protect the U.S. dollar from sudden depreciation in the 1970s, when dollars could be exchanged for gold reserves held in Fort Knox. Marshall said that authority was meant to resolve significant "balance of payments deficits," and Trump cannot repurpose it to address routine trade deficits. "They have a different meaning of what 'balance of payments deficits' means," Marshall said at the court hearing. Trump has made ​tariffs a central pillar of his foreign policy in his second term, claiming sweeping authority to issue tariffs without input from Congress. The administration has said that global tariffs are a legal and appropriate response to a persistent trade deficit caused by the fact that the U.S. imports more goods than it exports. Trump imposed the new tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade ​Act of 1974, which authorizes duties of up to 15 percent for up to 150 days on imports during “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits” or to prevent imminent depreciation of the dollar. The states and small businesses argue that the Trade Act's tariff authority is meant only to address short-term monetary emergencies, and routine trade deficits do not match the economic definition of “balance-of-payments deficits." Trump announced the new tariffs on February 20, the same day the Supreme Court handed him a stinging defeat when ⁠it struck down a broad swath of tariffs he had imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), ruling that the law did not give him the power he claimed. No U.S. president before Trump had used the IEEPA or Section 122 to impose tariffs. The two lawsuits do not challenge other Trump tariffs made under more traditional legal authority, such as recent tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper imports. (Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Lisa Shumaker and Franklin Paul)