By  Casey Mattox
Jun 25th, 2020

The first responsibility of government is to protect its citizens and their inalienable rights.

As the Declaration of Independence puts it, “to secure these rights [of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], Governments are instituted among Men.” But what happens when the government officials whose first job is protecting your rights are the ones who are violating them? If government officials can violate your constitutional rights and not be held accountable, your rights aren’t worth the parchment they’re written on. Qualified immunity is the judge-made law that allows government officials to fail their first responsibility and avoid accountability.



.....I’ve sued dozens of public universities for violating the First Amendment rights of students. Every time I sued a university that told a Christian student group they couldn’t share their faith without advance permission from the Office of Student Affairs or literally arrested students for handing out the Constitution on their campus on Constitution Day, concerned conservatives told me: “Make the universities pay! That will stop this!”

That’s a truth that’s universal — people change their behavior when they’re accountable for bad outcomes. If we want government at any level to prioritize protecting constitutional rights, officials must be motivated to prioritize it.

.....But the reason speech advocates can’t  “make the universities pay” for these violations — and thus encourage them to prioritize getting these policies right — is qualified immunity.