STANDING UP FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: DOJ backs conservative students in lawsuit against Berkeley.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is stepping in to defend a group of conservative students who are suing the University of California, Berkeley for violating their First Amendment rights.

According to a Thursday press release, the DOJ has filed a statement of interest in the case of Young America’s Foundation and Berkeley College Republicans v. Janet Napolitano—the plaintiffs being a pair of conservative groups that repeatedly faced roadblocks when bringing speakers to campus, and the defendant being the president of the University of California System.

In their lawsuit, the conservative students claim that the university applied a double standard to conservative events on campus and used its “High-Profile Speaker Policy” to stymie their efforts, specifically in the case of a planned speech by Ann Coulter that was cancelled by administrators.

As the DOJ press release notes, the plaintiffs were required to jump through hurdles set up by the speaker policy while a former president of Mexico and a former White House adviser were hosted without being subjected to the “High-Profile Speaker Policy.”

The statement of interest itself agrees that the “plaintiffs adequately pleaded that the university’s high-profile speaker policy and major events policy violate the First Amendment.”

Good.