President Trump's day-one deluge of executive orders against censorship pressure, "politically motivated" law enforcement, "erasure of sex" and diversity, equity and inclusion, among 22 others, and rescission of dozens of his predecessor's orders, sets a clear direction for the federal government he now leads.

But they don't necessarily affect state and local decisions nationwide on the same contentious issues, such as freedom of expression in public meetings, where litigation continues against government officials not answerable to Trump.

A federal court ordered Florida's Brevard Public Schools on Tuesday to comply with an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last fall that found some restrictions on public comment at board meetings unconstitutional, rejecting its view that ongoing restrictions were based on policies the Atlanta-based appeals court did not fault.

U.S. District Judge Roy Dalton, nominated by President Obama, approved the temporary restraining order sought by Moms for Liberty's Brevard County chapter. He said a "school board’s hardship in needing to redraft part of its policy is greatly outweighed by the deprivation of free speech rights" to the chapter's members if the policy remains enforced.

"The school board's continued enforcement of policies that a federal court already ruled unconstitutional shows an alarming disregard for parents’ First Amendment rights," Institute for Free Speech senior attorney Brett Nolan, representing M4L Brevard and its members, said in a press release. "It’s unfortunate that today’s order was even necessary."

The district's lawyers did not respond to Just the News queries.

The chapter sued the district, whose COVID-19 policies spurred the national group's formation, amid a nationwide inundation of recall attempts and litigation against school board members for censoring public comments in 2021.

Its lawyers at the Institute for Free Speech won an early victory against a district in Pennsylvania for editing out an allegedly racist comment, cutting off comments against an equity program and chilling expression by putting law enforcement in subsequent meetings. 

That fall was also marked by a hailstorm of backlash against the National School Boards Association's request to the Justice Department to investigate some criticism of school boards as "domestic terrorism," reportedly spurred by then-Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.

Pennsylvania's NSBA affiliate was the first of a torrent of exodus from the group in protest of the DOJ letter, for which NSBA later apologized.

An Arizona mother filed an amended complaint Friday against the city of Surprise, former Mayor Skip Hall and ex-police officer Steven Shernicoff after a Maricopa County judge banned the municipality from arresting and prosecuting her again for speaking at city council meetings.

Rebekah Massie added claims of assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress based on new evidence since filing the First Amendment suit last summer over her arrest, in front of her daughter, for criticizing the city's lawyer.

Her lawyers at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said Surprise shot itself in the foot with Shernicoff's bodycam footage, which shows him admitting to throwing Massie to the ground because she was "resisting arrest," and Police Chief Benny Pina's public defense of Massie's arrest as "in alignment with what our policy is and what our philosophy is."

"Shernicoff acted with intent to cause harmful and offensive contact" with Massie by arresting her and directing another office to search her, and she suffered bruises and "serious emotional distress" as a "proximate result" of his behavior, the amended suit says.

The conduct of the officer and former mayor, including "preventing Massie from calling or otherwise locating her daughter while in police custody, was so extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency," requiring "ongoing psychiatric care" to treat her "serious mental anguish" that has also "manifested in physical symptoms and injuries."

The city's lawyer did not respond to Just the News queries.

Incidents that sparked M4L Brevard's lawsuit include then-Board Chair Misty Haggard-Belford cutting off a speaker for saying the "liberal left" supports puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgical procedures for gender-confused children, and another for reading a sexually graphic library book passage when she reached the word "sh*t."

The moms filed a motion for temporary restraining order Friday, ahead of Tuesday night's board meeting, because "Defendants will not agree to stop enforcing" bans on "abusive" speech, "personally directed" comments and reading aloud from allegedly age-inappropriate books in school libraries under the guise that it's "obscene."

Board Chair Gene Trent "informed speakers that they were governed by the unconstitutional policies" at its November and December monthly meetings, before the 11th Circuit rejected a request for full-court rehearing and the case returned to district court, according to the filing.

In a Jan. 10 phone call, the district's counsel refused to "confirm that his clients would cease enforcing the unconstitutional policies" but would rather "first need to formally adopt a new policy, a process that could take some time," M4L Brevard said.

Plaintiff Amy Kneessy said her planned testimony at the Jan. 21 meeting would violate the policies the 11th Circuit rejected but that Trent refused to promise her on Jan. 16 he wouldn't enforce them because he claimed they were enforceable until replaced. 

Hence she will "refrain from speaking – as she has done for years," which the 11th Circuit explicitly said is a result of policy enforcement that "objectively chills expression."

The district's lawyers responded Monday that M4L Brevard does not face "imminent threat of irreparable harm" because the board "and in particular" Trent is refraining from "applying the portions" of the "Public Participation Policy" deemed unconstitutional, claiming that Trent's interruptions at three meetings were based on other policies.

He told one speaker Oct. 15 to hold his comment on a policy amendment that was "next up on the agenda," another Oct. 22 that his comment was "irrelevant," and a third Dec. 10 because "the speaker accused the student of sexually abusing the speaker’s child."

At the November and December meetings invoked by M4L Brevard, Trent simply read from "a standard script that was not updated because the Policy has not yet been amended per the rulemaking process," the district said.

Florida statutes and bylaws "preclude BPS from simply providing 'written confirmation' through an email from counsel that BPS will revise its Policy" and its lawyer "cannot just pick up the phone or send a quick email to BPS’ in-house counsel" to get board approval to implement policy changes "in settlement of Plaintiffs’ demands," it said.

Judge Dalton's ruling Tuesday, hours before that night's board meeting, says the plaintiffs have "already succeeded" on the merits and the board cannot "keep enforcing the old unconstitutional" policy" just because it "has not yet had time to adopt a new policy."

He mocked Trent's "eleventh-hour pledge not to enforce the unconstitutional prohibitions" to avoid an injunction and said "inconsistent enforcement" is one reason why the 11th Circuit rejected them in the first place. "Trent’s vacillation does not allay that threat –it makes it all the more likely."