NPR Lawsuit Over Federal Funding Cuts Nears Ruling.

As the lawsuit filed in May 2025 against the Trump administration by NPR, along with three Colorado public radio stations — alleging that federal funding cuts are “a clear violation of the Constitution and the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech and association and freedom of the press” — gets closer to a verdict following arguments presented to a district judge in December, those involved in the case have offered their perspectives.

Katie Townsend, a lawyer at Gibson Dunn, which is representing NPR, tells Columbia Journalism Review that the case has been a “long slog.” Looking back at December’s hearings, she says, “The government at no point argued that the executive order was constitutional. This is a really difficult order to defend. I would call it indefensible.”

Noting the administration’s argument that NPR is government speech — and when the government subsidizes speech, it has more control over the content of that speech — Townsend says, “That’s a really bad misreading of the relevant precedent. It certainly is the case that when the government is speaking, it has control. But that’s not what NPR is.”

Steve Zansberg, the lawyer for the three co-plaintiffs — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio, and tribal station KSUT Ignacio, CO (91.3) — points out that the government’s justification for taking down public media included a story on NPR’s “Short Wave” science program noting that clownfish often change sex. The administration referred to the story as about “queer animals” which “suggested the make-believe clownfish in Finding Nemo would’ve been better off as a female, that ‘banana slugs are hermaphrodites,’ and that ‘some deer are nonbinary.’” 

“I don’t know what it must have been like to be a fly on the wall in the room of DOJ lawyers and White House lawyers to pick these,” he says. “You know, I choose to laugh at all of this because it is so farcical.” 

Zansberg also says that the lawsuit is in no way a new argument from conservatives. “The Republicans in particular have, for many, many years, leveled this accusation against public broadcasting,” specifically that it is “spewing propaganda.” He took the case against Trump as it represents a “blatantly unconstitutional order that is so highly offensive to my sensibilities as a First Amendment practitioner.”

Although the rationale for the lawsuit, following Congress’ vote to defund public media in July, came up during December’s hearings, NPR and the Colorado stations argued that even if this government pulled back funding, others could restore it, and a ruling in Trump’s favor could prevent that from happening in the future.

Aspen Public Radio Executive Director Breeze Richardson contends that as there is no money for the station as a result of the case, it is primarily “symbolic” and about “[making] sure the historical record documents this moment.” Although donations to Aspen Public Radio have exceeded expectations, Richardson says the “question on every public radio leader’s mind today” is how much of that money a station might expect to see moving forward.

KSUT Executive Director Tami Graham feels that Randolph Moss — the U.S. District Court judge for the District of Columbia presiding over the case, an appointee of former President Barack Obama — “knows that this ruling is really important, [and] I think he really wants it to stand the test of time.”

“Hopefully we’ll hear something fairly soon and have a reason to celebrate.”