The Courts

U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
State Law Change Prompts Dismissal of Suit
Over ISD “No Israel Boycott” Contracts

Ruling: Consolidated lawsuits filed by various speech pathologists who claimed they lost out on ISD and university contracts because they refused to sign “No Boycott of Israel” stipulations are dismissed as “moot” — as is a federal judge’s preliminary injunction. Bahia Amawi v. [Texas Attorney General] Ken Paxton,
No. 19-50384. Issued April 27.

A three-member Fifth Circuit panel concluded that the claims by the speech pathologists — who are all members of the pro-Palestinian rights group BDS — were made moot when Gov. Abbott signed into law a revised version of the “No Boycott of Israel” law so that the law no longer applied to sole proprietorships.

The justices concluded that because the speech pathologists claimed that their contracts as sole proprietors to provide speech pathology services were rejected because they didn’t sign the “No Boycott of Israel” stipulations, then they have nothing left to sue about because the revised law doesn’t apply to sole proprietors.

  • Note: The public educational entities the speech pathologists originally sued were the Pflugerville, Klein and Lewisville ISDs, and the University of Houston and Texas A&M University systems.

Declined to Rule
Although the justices dissolved a preliminary injunction that had been issued by a federal judge barring the state from enforcing the law, the Fifth Circuit panel declined to rule on whether the law, as revised, is constitutional. (The preliminary injunction had been issued 16 days before the governor signed the revised legislation removing sole proprietorships from the original law’s provisions.)

The justices also quashed efforts by the speech pathologists to keep their litigation alive by pointing out that two Texas ISDS — which were not among the districts who were originally sued — were continuing to require sole proprietors to sign the stipulations roughly three months after the revised law removing sole proprietorships from the law’s provisions became effective.

“Two Stray Incidents”
The justices said that these “two stray incidents” were most likely a “mistaken application of old law” and that this didn’t suggest Texas would revert to the old law if the litigation was dismissed as moot.