By Katelynn Richardson
A Reagan-appointed federal judge called President Donald Trump an “authoritarian” during a hearing on Thursday.
U.S. District Judge William Young, who is overseeing a case challenging the administration’s attempts to deport pro-Palestine protesters on college campuses, indicated he would issue a ruling restricting the government’s efforts, according to Reuters.
The administration’s efforts came in response to at times violent protests that erupted on college campuses after Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which left over 1,200 people dead.
“We cast around the word ‘authoritarian,’” Young said, per Reuters. “I don’t, in this context, treat that in a pejorative sense, and I use it carefully, but it’s fairly clear that this president believes, as an authoritarian, that when he speaks, everyone, everyone in Article II is going to toe the line absolutely.”
“It’s bizarre that this judge is broadcasting his intent to engage in left-wing activism against the democratically-elected President of the United States,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “President Trump will always put American citizens first, which includes removing national security threats from our homeland.”
Young said Trump’s cabinet secretaries “have failed in their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.”
“I find it breathtaking that I have been compelled on the evidence to find the conduct of such high-level officers of our government — cabinet secretaries — conspired to infringe the First Amendment rights of people with such rights here in the United States,” Young said, according to Politico. (RELATED: Reagan Appointed Judge Rules Trump Admin Deportations Over Anti-Israel Protests Unconstitutional)
Article III Project founder Mike Davis said on X that Young was a “liberal judge was picked by Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry in 1985” who timed his retirement to let Joe Biden, rather than Trump, pick his replacement.
Ted Kennedy and John Kerry were the Democratic senators representing Massachusetts in 1985. When a federal trial judge is appointed, it is usually a lawyer recommended by the senators in that state, who the President then nominates. But if the senators and the president are in opposing parties, they often have to compromise on who is picked. Since both the senators in Massachusetts were Democrats, they likely would not have signed off on President Reagan picking a conservative Republican. As a result, some Reagan appointees to the bench in Massachusetts were rather liberal.
This Massachusetts liberal judge was picked by Senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry in 1985.
And Judge William Young strategically semi-retired in 2021 to let President Biden replace him.
He is clearly incapable of being objective, as evidenced by the most bizarre opinion ever: https://t.co/wX5fbv5iMh pic.twitter.com/KQ0bg9dziV
— 🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸 (@mrddmia) October 1, 2025
Opposition to the administration’s policy relies on “a basic misunderstanding of the First Amendment, which under binding Supreme Court precedent applies differently in the immigration context than it otherwise does domestically,” the government has argued in court.
In October, Young issued an opinion finding lawfully present noncitizens in the U.S. have the same free speech rights as American citizens.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem acted to “misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target noncitizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech,” Young wrote.
“They did so in order to strike fear into similarly situated non-citizen pro Palestinian individuals, pro actively (and effectively) curbing lawful pro-Palestinian speech and intentionally denying such individuals (including the plaintiffs here) the freedom of speech that is their right,” he wrote.
