US District Judge Robert Pitman, an appointee of Barack Obama, ruled against a law in Texas that would prevent the state from doing business with companies that supported the boycott of goods from Israel. The court ruled that such a law violates freedom of speech and threatens to “manipulate the public debate through coercion rather than persuasion.” More than half of US states have such laws on the books. Federal courts have struck down similar anti-boycott laws in Kansas and Arizona. The ACLU says the three courts protected the right to boycott under the First Amendment.