Malik Leigh v. State Bar of Florida
1. Whether disciplining or disbarring a civil rights
attorney for speech critical of judicial bias and racial
injustice violates the First Amendment, especially
when the alleged conduct involved no harm to clients,
no criminality, and was overtly expressive in nature.
2. Whether the racially disparate treatment and eventual
disbarment of Petitioner, while white attorneys with
more egregious conduct were not disciplined, violates
the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
3. Whether the Florida Supreme Court 's arbitrary
procedures, reliance on tainted referrals, and
imposition of disproportionate sanctions violated
Petitioner 's rights to procedural and substantive Due
Process.
4. Whether the Thirteenth Amendment affords parens
patriae special protection to Black Americans
(descendants of Freedmen) and imposes a strict
constitutional liability standard on federal and
state actors to prevent any badge or incident of
racial subjugation —violated here by the targeting,
discipline, and disbarment of Petitioner for racial
truth-telling.
Whether disciplining or disbarring a civil rights attorney for speech critical of judicial bias and racial injustice violates the First Amendment, and whether racially disparate treatment in professional discipline violates the Equal Protection Clause