Washington, D.C., July 08, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — New Civil Liberties Alliance clients Brianne Dressen, Shaun Barcavage, Kristi Dobbs, Nikki Holland, and Suzanna Newell all suffered serious, debilitating injuries following Covid vaccination. Ernest Ramirez, vaccinated without incident, lost his previously healthy 16-year-old son five days after the teenager received his first Pfizer dose. The autopsy attributed his death to an enlarged heart and myocarditis—a widely recognized vaccine side effect most prevalent in young men. NCLA’s clients turned to social media to share experiences, seek medical research and potential treatments, exchange hopeful stories and advice, and connect with a supportive vaccine-injured community.
The Biden Administration and private intermediaries met these expressions with heavy censorship in a successful, sprawling government/private joint campaign. The censorship operation spanned numerous agencies—including the Surgeon General’s Office, CDC, HHS, DHS, CISA, and the White House. Coercing, encouraging, and colluding with social media companies, the campaign targeted online speech and association of individuals who suffered serious medical injuries following Covid vaccination, flagging it as “misinformation,” shadow-banning it, or removing it altogether. Stanford University—through the now-defunct Stanford Internet Observatory and its “Virality Project”—served as a key arm of the enterprise. It tracked and flagged speech the Virality Project deemed worthy of censorship for social media companies (e.g., any Covid vaccine-related speech that did not align with the Biden Administration’s preferred Covid policies—regardless of whether the speech was true).
NCLA filed the Dressen, et al. v. Flaherty, et al. lawsuit on behalf of these targeted clients. The unconstitutional censorship campaign continues to impair NCLA’s clients’ still-vital rights to speak, associate privately and exchange information with other community members in closed online support groups. Yet the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas wrongly dismissed the case at the pleading stage, despite detailed factual allegations and before any discovery. The NCLA has now filed its opening brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to overturn the dismissal, allowing the lawsuit to move forward.
The district court imposed too narrow and exacting a standard to decide that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the Stanford Defendants and individual government Defendants. It also fundamentally misapplied the Supreme Court’s decision in Murthy v. Missouri, which considered whether other NCLA clients had produced sufficient evidence to establish standing for a preliminary injunction—a higher standard that does not apply here. Dressen Plaintiffs allege in detail a nationwide censorship conspiracy that intentionally harmed social-media users and their audiences in Texas and across the country, more than what is required at this stage for the case to proceed. In addition, the district court wrongly dismissed the Plaintiffs’ civil-rights conspiracy claim under 42 U.S. Code § 1985(3) because they did not allege racial discrimination. The statute does not mention race at all, protecting “any person or class of persons” deprived of their rights through an invidiously discriminatory conspiracy. The Supreme Court has expressly said § 1985(3) can apply to non-racial classes.
NCLA released the following statements:
“To call what happened to our clients ‘troubling’ is a massive understatement. After suffering devastating medical injuries following Covid vaccination, they turned to social media as a lifeline for support and connection with others who understood. Rather than compassion or aid, the Government responded with relentless censorship—maligning them as liars and conspiracy theorists and cutting off the lifelines that they depended on. Their only offense was that their lived experiences, pain, and even private conversations in online support groups contradicted the Administration’s preferred Covid-vaccine narrative. The cruelty and injustice are difficult to overstate.”
— Casey Norman, Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“We are confident the Fifth Circuit will correct the District Court’s numerous errors in dismissing the complaint, which included taking an inappropriately narrow view of personal jurisdiction and ignoring that not just speakers, but also potential listeners, suffer harm resulting from unlawful government censorship.”
— Caitlin Moyna, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“Lower courts are misapplying the Supreme Court’s Murthy v. Missouri decision, and the ruling below here is a prime example. The Murthy decision set a high bar for standing in the context of a preliminary injunction to stop future censorship. But no PI was sought here, so the Murthy standard is not applicable. If Bri Dressen cannot satisfy standing—when the defendants called her out by name in their censorship tracking—then no one will.”
— Mark Chenoweth, President and Chief Legal Officer, NCLA
For more information visit the case page here.
ABOUT NCLA
NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.
Joe Martyak New Civil Liberties Alliance 703-403-1111 joe.martyak@ncla.legal
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