AOC Apologizes To and Unblocks Dov Hikind in Agreement Reached on First Amendment Lawsuit

A resolution has been agreed upon in the First Amendment case I brought against congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. As part of the agreement, my account has been unblocked and the congresswoman has issued an apology, admitting she erred in blocking me in the first place.

First, I’d like to commend the congresswoman for coming to the right conclusion about my First Amendment rights. We’ve had and will continue to have very sharp disagreements on a range of policy issues from her use of “concentration camps” to describe American detention facilities to her tacit support for Palestinian terrorism and BDS against Israel, and I’ll continue to voice my opinion in critical terms as needed. I’ve let her team know that I’m ready to meet anytime, any place, to have a more constructive dialogue rather than remain necessarily adversarial on Twitter. The ball is in her court.

Second, this is a big victory for freedom of speech! The consequences of this case are much farther reaching than my own Twitter account, because it affirms the Constitutional right of American citizens to directly petition those in positions of power without the threat of being shut out from conversations that affect everyday life. With that said, I hope that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has not only unblocked me but several other critics who deserve the same restoration of free speech (namely journalists, Ryan Saavedra, Liz Wheeler and Harry Cherry). And I sincerely hope that this further cements the legal precedent so that other public officials don’t waste people’s time and resources by needlessly blocking them. If you don’t want to hear what someone is telling you on Twitter you can “mute” them without blocking them out of the conversation and depriving citizens of their right to petition.

Finally, I must commend and thank my talented legal team, Jacob and Israel Weinstein, for enthusiastically taking this case on and seeing it through to a successful resolution.