Marielle Williamson, a former student at Eagle Rock High School in Los Angeles, has had her lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) dismissed by a federal judge. Williamson, a vegan, claimed that the USDA’s policies violated her First Amendment rights by restricting her ability to criticize cow’s milk marketing at her school. U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin ruled that Williamson lacked standing to sue the USDA because she had already graduated.
The judge stated, “Mere allegations of a subjective chill are not an adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm.”
The case began when Williamson, then a 17-year-old senior, was informed by school administrators that she could not distribute materials promoting non-dairy milk and criticizing the dairy industry unless she also provided literature supporting dairy milk. Williamson, along with the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, sued the USDA and the Los Angeles Unified School District in May 2023.
Judge dismisses USDA milk lawsuit
While the school district settled in November 2023, acknowledging students’ right to criticize dairy and agreeing to support the provision of free soy milk, Williamson continued her legal battle against the USDA. She argued that the USDA’s requirement for schools in the National School Lunch Program to serve dairy milk was unconstitutional. However, Judge Olguin noted that there were no allegations of the USDA directly threatening Williamson or that the law authorizing the lunch program included a mechanism to punish students for their speech.
Williamson, now a sophomore at Duke University studying in China, has seen her case come to an end. Deborah Press, associate general counsel at the Physicians Committee, stated that the nonprofit would consider further legal actions, saying, “The problem remains that there are thousands of students who rely on school meals and need an alternative to cow’s milk.”
Spokespeople for the USDA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the court’s decision.
