Important thread on one of the most contentious issues in contemporary antidiscrimination law.

The great virtue of the Trump administration may be that it has pushed the argument so far, and is seeking to defend such egregious presidential behavior, that virtually no one will be on board with it and the rights-privilege distinction will die a second more final death…. Here’s hoping.

I think it is very likely that the admin will lose and lose badly in the lower courts. The arguments it is making are just bad. But what would SCOTUS say? Conservative justices (most famously Scalia) have tended to like the rights privileges distinction...

Courts have for the most part rejected these args, but not entirely. This makes what happens in this case important not only because of its OBVIOUS implications for press access to the WH but more broadly for what it tells us about the current health of the zombie rights-privilege distinction

The govt gives lots of benefits that everyone can’t have (jobs, contracts, funding for projects access). If the 1A didn’t apply to decisions about these kinds of privileges it would give the govt tremendous power to shape the marketplace of ideas and retaliate against its enemies. Uhhhh wait….

The admin is arguing in other words that because access to the White House is something that not EVERYONE can enjoy, the President is not constrained by the 1A when deciding who in fact gets the benefit of that access