A federal judge in Massachusetts has ordered the Trump administration to republish medical research papers that were removed from a government website due to their use of terms such as “LGBTQ” and “transgender.” The decision comes in response to a lawsuit filed by two Harvard Medical School doctors over the removal of their peer-reviewed articles from the Patient Safety Network (PSNet), an online database used by doctors and researchers to share information and resources related to patient safety.
U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, stating in a 28-page order that the removal of the articles likely constituted viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.
The lawsuit was filed in March following the removal of the articles from PSNet. The doctors argued that the removal, orchestrated by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) based on guidance from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), was a direct result of the executive order issued by President Donald Trump on January 20, which directed administrative agencies to eliminate content promoting “gender ideology.”
According to the lawsuit, PSNet’s editorial team, led by Dr. Patrick Romano, informed the doctors that AHRQ would only republish their articles if they agreed to remove the terms “transgender” and “LGBTQ.” In the case of one commentary, this involved editing out just three words from a list of suicide risk factors. The proposed compromise also included an editor’s note indicating the article was updated to comply with the executive order, but the specific words removed could not be identified.
Dr. Gordon Schiff, one of the plaintiffs, rejected the option of republishing a censored version of his commentary on suicide risk assessment, arguing that omitting “transgender” and “LGBTQ” from the list of high-risk groups would be factually inaccurate, unethical, and contrary to the article’s purpose.
In their lawsuit, the doctors contended that the editorial decisions violated their First Amendment rights to free speech and various provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). In their motion for a preliminary injunction, they emphasized the government-created nature of PSNet, arguing that it functions as a limited public forum.
Judge Sorokin firmly rejected the government’s argument that the restrictions on speech were reasonable and required by the executive order. He wrote that the administration’s implementation of the order resulted in restrictions that were not viewpoint neutral. The judge noted that the government admitted during the motion hearing that AHRQ’s actions amounted to viewpoint discrimination.
Judge Sorokin stated that the commentaries were removed from PSNet specifically due to their expressive content. The deletion of the terms “transgender” and “LGBTQ” was a non-negotiable condition for republication. Even incidental references to transgender individuals were deemed contrary to the perspective on gender identity outlined in the executive order. Because the doctors refused to alter their content by removing these terms, the government did not repost their articles.
The judge further emphasized that the government essentially conceded that the removals constituted a First Amendment restriction. He concluded that the plaintiffs had established clear viewpoint discrimination, a flagrant violation of their First Amendment rights as private speakers in a limited public forum. Judge Sorokin also briefly noted that the significant nature of the constitutional violation outweighed any inquiry into reasonableness, and that the government’s actions potentially undermined patient safety.
In a separate order, Judge Sorokin instructed the government to republish the articles in question on PSNet within seven days.
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