Update: Under pressure from the ACLU of Nevada and national media attention, the Washoe County School District on the night of Friday, March 23, decided to overturn Noah's suspension.

On March 14, students across the country joined a walkout to demand stricter gun laws following the Parkland shooting that claimed 17 lives. Among the protesters was Noah C., a high school junior in Reno, Nevada, who called the office of U.S. Rep. Mark Amodei with a passionate message.

“Members of Congress who haven’t acted on gun control reforms,” Noah C. told a staffer in the congressman’s office, “need to get off their fucking asses and do something to keep us safe.”

Noah was one of many students at the walkout who exercised their First Amendment right to use strong language in messages to their local representatives. But instead of seriously addressing the valid concerns of a young constituent, Amodei’s office decided to escalate the situation by reporting the call to Robert McQueen High School, where Noah is a junior. Within hours, Noah — who had never faced a detention or any academic issues — found himself suspended.

The move sets a dangerous precedent, considering Noah’s impassioned plea for gun control legislation did not occur during school or at a school-sanctioned or -sponsored event. That’s why the ACLU of Nevada is stepping in to defend him. Noah’s suspension is an unconstitutional attack on his First Amendment rights, which could have a chilling effect on others who might want to contact their representative. We urge the school to reverse its suspension and Amodei to withdraw his complaint.

Unfortunately, McQueen High School has a history of trying to tamp down on Noah’s speech.

At a McQueen debate tournament earlier this year, Noah went off-script to give his thoughts on how President Donald Trump’s policy positions and rhetoric is harmful to the community. Afterward, Noah felt compelled to write a letter of apology to his student opponent, who lodged an unfounded bullying complaint against him.

McQueen administrators have pointed to that incident as an example of prior bad behavior, even though he was never disciplined for it. The school said that Noah’s political speech as the debate tournament should have been a learning experience to keep his emotions under control.

Noah was similarly outspoken during the fall of 2017 when he noticed McQueen implementing its dress code in a discriminatory manner. The high school was punishing female students, but not their male peers, for baring their shoulders.

Noah protested the school’s discriminatory enforcement by starting the hashtag campaign, “#FreeTheShoulder.” Noah then wore a shirt to school that read “Free the Shoulder,” and the administration threatened him with disciplinary action unless he removed it.

Despite McQueen’s uncharitable characterization of him, Noah is an exemplary student and leader. He’s been a member of the Chinese Club, the Spanish Club, the Debate Club, Academic Olympics, and Academic World Quest, where his team was the Nevada state champion and placed 10th in the national finals. Noah’s mock trial team advanced to state championships both years he was on the team.

But his academic and extra-curricular achievements aren’t what matters. What matters is that Noah, like the rest of us, have rights under the First Amendment. You’d think public school administrators and a U.S. congressman would remember that, but we have no problem reminding them of that fact.

Peter Arellano’s life changed when a Los Angeles Police Department officer handed him a piece of paper informing him that he was now subject to a “gang injunction.” He could no longer visit his neighbors in their homes, drive to church with his family, ride his bike through the local park, or even stand in his own front yard with his father or brother. If he violated these terms, he could be arrested and jailed. Arellano, who has never been convicted of any crime, had effectively been placed on house arrest.

Gang injunctions are ineffective policing tools that primarily serve to criminalize young Black and Latino men. Nonetheless, Los Angeles has been operating a massive gang injunction program for decades. Like nearly 9,000 other Angelenos, Arellano was subjected to an injunction solely based on an LAPD officer’s opinion, a whim that was approved by a city attorney, that he was a gang member. He never got to challenge the allegation or even know what evidence was used against him. This decision to radically limit his freedom didn’t involve a court.

Gang injunctions represent a radical departure from constitutional due process. To obtain a gang injunction, a prosecutor files a civil “nuisance abatement” lawsuit against a particular gang, claiming that its conduct harms the community. The gang, which is not a formal organization and has no legal representation, does not appear at trial. With no one to argue against the need for an injunction, it is granted by default.

The police then serve people they claim are the gang’s members with copies of the injunction days, or years, later, asserting that they are now bound by its terms. While people could challenge after being served, it required proving they were not gang members without knowing why the city claimed they were. Unsurprisingly, only a handful of people were successful in getting freed from injunctions.

Gang injunctions turn common behavior into crimes, such as possessing everyday items like cell phones, drinking alcohol on your own front porch or in a restaurant, and associating with people the police also claim are gang members — even your own family. Officers’ gang designations are drawn from stereotypes and preconceptions based on clothing—anything from plaid shirts to basketball shorts to khakis—that they deem “gang attire,” associates, and if someone lives or socializes in alleged “gang areas”—which can include an entire community.

Officers use injunctions to circumvent the protections afforded by a criminal prosecution, which is exactly why gang injunctions have been a significant tool in the LAPD’s arsenal despite no evidence they create a significant or sustained crime reduction. What they provide is the justification to stop, harass, and arrest Black and Latino community members.

Critics of injunctions — such as the Youth Justice Coalition, an organization that has been fighting against their use for years — have observed that injunctions recently have been used more as a tool to push Black and Latino residents out of popular neighborhoods than to fight crime. Indeed, the gang injunction enforced against Peter was obtained in 2013 in Echo Park — a gentrifying neighborhood where crime was at an historic low.

But the tide is turning. The ACLU of Southern California just won a major victory against the city of Los Angeles’ use of these restrictive gang injunctions — effectively ending the city’s practice. In a class action lawsuit, which included Peter Arellano and Youth Justice Coalition, the ACLU and co-counsel Urban Peace Institute and Munger Tolles and Olson challenged the city’s enforcement of injunctions without first providing a hearing on active gang membership, claiming this practice violated their constitutionally protected due process rights.

A federal court agreed, finding that the process was prone to error and granting a preliminary injunction prohibiting the city from enforcing its injunctions against anyone who has not had the opportunity to challenge the designation in court before they were made subject to the injunction.

This is one of many recent victories both recognizing that police-imposed gang labels are often inaccurate yet carry serious criminal and immigration consequences, and creating a process to challenge these designations before they take effect.

Gang injunctions restrict people’s freedom, often without a shred of due process, on questionable “evidence,” and with no significant public safety benefit. The costs far outweigh even the alleged benefits and the ACLU and others will continue to fight to ensure that police don’t continue to destroy people’s lives by unilaterally imposing gang labels.

Following his campaign where he declared that “Islam hates us” and vowed to ban Muslims from entering the country, President Trump was quick to bring people who shared his hostility toward Muslims into his administration. Current and former officials like Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, Mike Flynn, Ben Carson, Frank Wuco, Jon Cordova, and Carl Higbie have all expressed anti-Muslim views, something Trump likely considers to be an asset.

Another appointee with a long and troubling record of animosity toward Muslims, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, is now receiving a promotion to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, as Trump announced earlier this month.

Before leading the CIA, Pompeo was a member of Congress, where he used his position to smear Muslims as a threat not only to security but also to Christianity -- promoting the idea that religions are at war with each other and undermining our nation’s values of religious freedom and pluralism.

In one speech, he read a prayer that lamented that America “worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism and endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle,” appearing to show disdain for the country’s religious diversity.

He also lashed out at Muslim leaders by falsely claiming that they refuse to denounce violence, warning that they could be considered “potentially complicit” in attacks like the Boston Marathon bombing. While running for his seat, Pompeo even promoted an article ridiculing his Indian-American campaign rival as a “turban-topper,” for which he eventually apologized.

Then-congressman Pompeo partnered with groups well known for their religious bigotry and discriminatory policies like ACT for America and the Center for Security Policy. In 2015, Pompeo was interviewed by Frank Gaffney, the president of CSP and an activist who promotes conspiracy theories that there are secret Muslim plots to take power over everything from the Missile Defense Agency to the internet. Pompeo agreed with Gaffney’s baseless statement that President Obama has “kind of an affinity for, if not the violent beheading and crucifixions and slaying of Christians and all that, but at least for the cause for which these guys are engaged in such activities, the raising up of the Muslim Ummah.” Pompeo said, “Frank, every place you stare at the president’s policies and statements, you see what you just described.”

With the State Department involved in refugee determinations, it is extremely troubling that Pompeo co-sponsored a bill to effectively ban all refugees from resettling in the U.S. and praised Trump’s xenophobic presidential campaign.

While the ACLU does not take a position on nominees, we believe nominees to the highest offices of government must uphold the law — which includes upholding religious freedom and preventing discrimination. Senators must hold Pompeo accountable for his hostility toward Muslims in America and around the world, and ensure that such religious bigotry has no place in shaping State Department policies.

The Senate will have to decide whether someone who has repeatedly attacked a whole religious community both at home and abroad — including some of the closest and most important allies of the United States — is fit to serve as the chief diplomat of the United States. The State Department was rocked by Tillerson’s yearlong purge of senior career diplomats and his pulling back from human rights advocacy. The Senate must weigh the extent of damage to human rights that could be caused by confirming a person with a long record of falsely demonizing a religion and its adherents.