Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a news conference with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) US District Judge William Young said on Thursday that he will soon issue an order aimed at stopping President Donald Trump’s administration from retaliating against “academics who challenged its arresting, detaining, and deporting non-citizens, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activists on US college campuses,” reported Reuters. Judge Young, a Reagan appointee, spoke at a hearing in Boston federal court, picking up where he left off after issuing a September ruling that the State Department and Department of Homeland Security violated the Constitution’s First Amendment by detaining and trying to deport non-citizens on college campuses over their speech. Politico’s Kyle Cheney quoted Judge Young arguing that “There was no policy here. What happened here is an unconstitutional conspiracy to pick off certain people, to twist the laws.” “Two cabinet secretaries conspired … they intentionally, knowing what they were doing, counseled by professionals who cautioned them, nevertheless went ahead to pick off these people with the intention that your clients would be chilled. And did so rather effectively, by the way,” Judge Young concluded, accusing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem of unconstitutional actions . “These cabinet secretaries have failed in their duty to uphold the Constitution,” Young continued, adding: I listened to professional patriotic employees of our United States government trying hard to do the job that they were trained and skilled in doing. I am trying very hard not to make their job harder. But let’s talk the truth here. The truth is – look at the intelligence portion of the Department of Homeland Security. If ever you want chapter and verse about how the government can be weaponized against a disfavored group, that’s the record of it. These professionals were taken off anti-terrorist investigations. They were taken off human trafficking investigations all to look up … what dirt they could find on this group … the very highest levels of the DHS decided – that’s the best use of those people. Judge Young said his order will only apply to “academic associations, including the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association, which challenged the administration’s actions,” explained Reuters, adding : Those groups had sought an order blocking the administration’s practices nationally. Young called their proposal “overbroad,” but says a “sanction” is needed to remedy what he concludes was a conspiracy by top officials under Trump. “We cast around the word ‘authoritarian,’” Young concluded, adding, “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.” The post Reagan Appointed Judge Accuses Rubio and Noem of an ‘Unconstitutional Conspiracy’ to Chill Speech first appeared on Mediaite .