The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has launched a public records investigation into five major public universities, demanding transparency regarding their involvement in what the group calls the “censorship-industrial complex.”
The legal organization sent public records requests on Wednesday to the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). ADF attorneys are seeking communications and records detailing collaboration with federal officials, social media companies, and foundations funding censorship programs.
The move comes just days after President Donald Trump signed executive orders halting federal government involvement in censorship efforts, further escalating the debate over free speech and government-backed content moderation.
ADF alleges that these universities have established “misinformation” centers and tools aimed at identifying and restricting speech that the federal government disfavored.
“Free speech is essential to a free society,” said ADF Senior Counsel Phil Sechler, who also serves as the director of the ADF Center for Free Speech.
“The U.S. government should defend our First Amendment right to free speech, not be its greatest threat. But the Biden administration established a censorship regime that aimed to suppress so-called ‘misinformation’ and other speech deemed unfavorable to the government. This regime included funding censorship tools created by these public universities.”
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Sechler added that taxpayer-funded institutions must be held accountable.
“The American people have a right to know if their tax dollars were used to suppress certain voices and how involved state actors were—and are—in social media censorship,” he said.
ADF’s records requests specifically target documents and communications related to censorship practices, including terms like “cancel” and “throttle,” which could indicate suppression of online content. The requests also seek records related to the National Science Foundation (NSF), a federal agency that provided grants for censorship-related programs.
One example cited in a U.S. House Select Subcommittee report on the Weaponization of the Federal Government revealed that University of Michigan officials pitched an artificial intelligence tool called “WiseDex” to the NSF. The tool was allegedly designed for “externalizing the difficult responsibility of censorship,” raising concerns about whether public institutions were developing methods to automate speech suppression.
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The Trump administration’s recent executive orders to halt federal censorship programs signal a major shift in policy, aligning with conservative concerns that government-funded institutions were aiding efforts to police online speech.
The ADF’s investigation into public universities could lead to legal challenges, as well as further congressional scrutiny of the role that academia and government agencies have played in moderating speech on digital platforms.
If ADF’s records requests uncover substantial evidence of university-led censorship efforts, legal action or congressional inquiries could follow. The targeted universities have not yet responded to the document requests.
Meanwhile, Trump’s crackdown on federal involvement in online content regulation is expected to fuel ongoing debates over the balance between free speech, misinformation, and platform accountability.
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