Texas professors file lawsuit against Governor Abbott over TikTok ban at state universities.

Academics Sue Texas Government Over TikTok Ban

A group of professors and researchers from Texas public universities have filed a lawsuit against the state government and Governor Greg Abbott (R-TX) for imposing a ban on TikTok usage on devices used for official state business. The Coalition for Independent Technology Research filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, arguing that the ban violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech and hinders the ability of faculty and researchers to perform their duties.

“Texas’s decision to restrict public university faculty from accessing a major communications platform is compromising both research and teaching,” the lawsuit states. “It is preventing or seriously impeding faculty from pursuing research that relates to TikTok — including research that would illuminate or counter the data-collection and disinformation-related practices that the ban is ostensibly meant to address. It has also made it almost impossible for faculty to use TikTok in their classrooms — whether to teach about TikTok or to use content from TikTok to teach about other subjects.”

TikTok, a popular social media app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, has been deemed a national security risk due to its extensive data collection capabilities and its ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Efforts to ban the app have been ongoing for years, with the federal government and several states, including Texas, prohibiting its use on government devices and networks.

The coalition argues in its lawsuit that while the ban may have good intentions, it should not be applied to university faculty and researchers. They contend that such a broad restriction on research and teaching violates the First Amendment.

“While faculty are public employees, the government’s authority to control their research and teaching is limited by the First Amendment — and the ban cannot survive First Amendment scrutiny,” the lawsuit asserts. “Imposing a broad restraint on the research and teaching of public university faculty is not a constitutionally permissible means of protecting Texans’ ‘way of life’ or countering the threat of disinformation.”

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute representing the plaintiffs, criticized the ban as an ineffective response to data privacy concerns.

“Banning public university faculty from studying and teaching with TikTok is not a sensible or constitutional response to concerns about data-collection and disinformation,” Jaffer stated. “Texas must pursue its objectives with tools that don’t impose such a heavy burden on First Amendment rights. Privacy legislation would be a good place to start.”

No comment has been received from Governor Abbott’s office regarding the lawsuit.

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