A short excerpt from the long opinion in Jackson Fed. of Teachers v. Fitch, decided yesterday by Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, joined by Judge Kurt Engelhardt:
In April 2025, Mississippi enacted House Bill 1193 (H.B. 1193), a law designed to keep Mississippi public education funds from being spent on diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI") initiatives and similar controversial programs.
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Mississippi → decide → initiatives
The law prevents government-run institutions from requiring activities such as diversity training or pushing DEI ideology, so defined, in the course of government-funded business.
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law → prevent → business
H.B. 1193 does four main things.
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H.B. → do → things
First, it prevents educational institutions from mandating DEI programs and diversity trainings in a variety of contexts.
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it → prevent → contexts
Second, it stops public educational institutions from punishing students for their views on DEI.
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it → stop → DEI
Third, it prohibits regulated institutions from endorsing or promoting DEI through course materials.
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it → prohibit → materials
Finally, it prevents institutions and their educators from otherwise engaging in DEI methods or actions, preventing bad actors from circumventing prohibitions and frustrating its purposes.
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it → prevent → purposes
The statute also creates an administrative process to handle claims that a given educational institution is not in compliance.
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institution → create → compliance
H.B. 1193 excepts several activities from its sweep, including scholarly work, the activities of students and their groups, and creative engagement.
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H.B. → except → students
Plaintiffs sued, claiming (among other things) that the law violated the First Amendment, but:
The proceedings in the district court were a botch job, to say the least.
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proceedings → sue → least
Judge Henry Wingate issued a temporary restraining order ("TRO") enjoining enforcement of H.B. 1193 that contained several factual assertions nowhere to be found in the record, or indeed, in any proceeding of the case.
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that → issue → case
Those included mention of plaintiffs and defendants not in the complaint, supposed "declarations" from non-existent or never-present individuals, false quotations purporting to be taken from the text of H.B. 1193, and several erroneous claims that the law had already led to the demise of apparently fictitious programs.
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law → include → programs
After this came to light, Judge Wingate replaced the TRO without explaining.
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Wingate → come → TRO
Forging forward despite the bungled TRO, Judge Wingate issued a pre-enforcement preliminary injunction.
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Wingate → forge → injunction
The various state defendants appeal.
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defendants → appeal → ?
At oral argument in this court, it was discovered that even the "corrected" TRO—which was incorporated by reference into the preliminary injunction order—still contained hallucinated information (namely, a citation to a purported Fourth Circuit case, "Cousins v. School Bd. of City of Norfolk," that does not exist).
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that → discover → Norfolk
This district judge carelessly exercised his Article III power by issuing sloppy edicts based on falsehoods and fabrications.
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judge → exercise → falsehoods
Upon discovering some of these falsehoods, Judge Wingate dug in his heels and claimed that the hallucinated claims had no bearing on its reasoning; he offered no explanation as to why he included such apparently irrelevant material in the original TRO or why the TRO nevertheless was justified in its absence.
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TRO → discover → absence
Moreover, the district court got the law wrong.
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law → get → ?
The TRO and preliminary injunction order rested on impoverished legal analysis that barely paid lip-service to the precedents of the Supreme Court or this court, seeming at times purposely to misconstrue the law by manipulating the words of statutes and cases, without regard to their texts' meaning as a whole.
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that → rest → whole
The district court—or perhaps, being charitable, its AI agent—ignored and manipulated governing law, apparently to satisfy a policy agenda.
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court → ignore → agenda
Because of the extraordinarily grave errors by the district court, we vacate and remand for assignment to a different district judge.
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we → vacate → judge
Per the Supreme Court's decision in Moody, we instruct the new judge to conduct proceedings consistent with federal law as interpreted by the Supreme Court and this circuit….
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we → instruct → Court
The original TRO—the one actually issued on July 20, 2025—named as plaintiffs eleven individuals and organizations who had never been party to the case; named as defendants two officials who were not actually sued; claimed, without evidence, that three post-secondary institutions had already cancelled DEI initiatives or programming because of the act; further declared, again without evidence, that staff at another school had been told not to discuss certain topics, including "historical interpretations involving systemic racism"; misquoted H.B. 1193 as applying to "race or sex stereotyping," "race or sex scapegoating," "critical race theory," and "institutional bias," despite none of these terms' appearing in the act's text; and referenced purported declarations of four individuals who do not appear in the record at all and may not even exist….
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who → issue → record
On July 22, 2025, defendants filed a motion to clarify, pointing out these errors.
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defendants → file → errors
In response, the court, without explanation, replaced the original TRO with a seemingly corrected version.
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court → replace → version
Though that document was docketed on July 22, it was backdated to July 20.
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it → docket → July
Defendants requested that the original order be restored to the docket to keep the record whole and requested that the court explain the inaccuracies in the original order.
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court → request → order
The district court denied that motion, claiming the factual inaccuracies were merely "clerical."
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inaccuracies → deny → motion
In response, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley accused the district court of using artificial Intelligence ("AI") to prepare the TRO, with the substantive errors' arising from AI-generated hallucinations.
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errors → accuse → hallucinations
Fifteen days later, Judge Wingate admitted the errors, claiming that a law clerk had used AI to assist drafting an earlier version of the TRO that was docketed by mistake.
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that → admit → mistake
His letter stated that he had removed the original TRO from the docket to avoid confusion and that the errors were clerical, in his view, because they did not relate to "core legal reasoning or the ultimate judgment on the merits" but instead to "failure to confirm the accuracy of certain information."
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they → state → information
The seemingly corrected TRO did not explain how or why the factual inaccuracies were not necessary to the reasoning of the original TRO.
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inaccuracies → correct → TRO
The merits analysis failed to cite a binding authority from after the year 2000.
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analysis → fail → year
It claims that H.B. 1193 constitutes viewpoint discrimination, without any analysis whatsoever of a state government's authority to regulate its own speech.
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It → claim → speech
And the document did not correct all of the errors: At Fifth Circuit oral argument, it was discovered that the doctored TRO cited to "Cousins v. School Bd. of City of Norfolk, 503 F.2d 422, 426–27 (4th Cir. 1974)."
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TRO → correct → Norfolk
That case does not even exist; it is an apparent AI hallucination….
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it → exist → ?
Judge Catharina Haynes did not join these parts of the opinion.
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Haynes → join → opinion
There's also some interesting First Amendment analysis in the case, which I hope to blog about later today.
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I → be → which
(I'm tied up for the next several hours.)
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I → tie → hours
…and 1 more, not listed.
The Aporia
