Court Rules NIH Can't Delete Animal Testing Comments

In a significant ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit determined that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) violated the First Amendment rights of animal rights activists by deleting social media comments critical of its animal testing practices. The NIH had implemented a policy to remove comments containing specific keywords such as "animal," "testing," and "cruel," which activists argued infringed upon their rights to free speech. The case originated in 2021 when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed a lawsuit against the NIH, asserting that the agency's social media platforms functioned as "traditional public forums." While the appeals court ultimately sided with PETA regarding the violation of First Amendment rights, it did not classify the NIH's comment sections as traditional public forums. Instead, the court recognized them as "limited" public forums, allowing for some content moderation. Despite this classification, the court found the NIH's restrictions on speech to be excessively stringent. Judge Bradley N. Garcia emphasized that comments related to animal testing are inherently relevant to the NIH's posts, which often discuss research involving animal experiments. The court criticized the agency's blanket filtering of comments, stating that it lacked common sense and failed to demonstrate that such comments disrupted the NIH's communication objectives. The ruling serves as a reminder for government agencies to exercise caution when imposing speech restrictions, ensuring they do not engage in viewpoint discrimination or suppress legitimate criticism of their actions.