A Fifth Circuit panel pulled Judge Henry Wingate off Mississippi’s anti-DEI case after vacating his injunction and slamming orders built on falsehoods, fabrications, and an apparent AI hallucination.
The appeals court did not stop at reversing the block on the state law. It ordered the entire dispute reassigned to a different judge in the Southern District of Mississippi, a step the court itself treats as extraordinary and rarely used.
Judge Jerry Smith wrote the opinion. He said Wingate carelessly used his judicial power and produced sloppy edicts that ignored binding Supreme Court rules. Mississippi’s law restricting DEI practices in public schools and universities can now be defended again before a new district judge.
Teachers, parents, and students sued, claiming the Mississippi statute violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. In July, Wingate issued a temporary restraining order. Mississippi officials quickly flagged major factual mistakes. He replaced the order two days later.
Fox News Digital reported that the original TRO named 11 individuals and organizations as plaintiffs who were never part of the case. It also listed two officials incorrectly as defendants. The order claimed three schools had already canceled DEI programs because of the law, claims the record did not support.
Worse, the original order cited purported declarations from four people who did not appear anywhere in the record. The Fifth Circuit said those people “may not even exist.” The TRO also attributed language to the bill that does not appear in the statute, including phrases about “race or sex stereotyping,” “race or sex scapegoating,” “critical race theory,” and “institutional bias.”
Smith noted the court was lucky defendants attached the original TRO as an exhibit.
Judge Jerry Smith wrote:
"We are grateful, and, indeed, lucky, that the defendants provided a copy of the original TRO as an exhibit in their July 28 motion, ECF 58-1, given that Judge Wingate kept it from public view,"
The replacement order did not fix the deeper problem. It contained a citation to a nonexistent case. The Fifth Circuit called that citation “an apparent AI hallucination.” After public accusations of AI use, Wingate acknowledged a law clerk had used artificial intelligence to help draft the TRO.
Wingate later described the mistakes as “clerical” and said they did not affect the court’s “core legal reasoning or the ultimate judgment on the merits.” The appeals court rejected that defense. It questioned how so many mistaken facts could leave the core reasoning untouched.
Smith did not say much about the quality of the work.
Judge Jerry Smith wrote:
"This district judge carelessly exercised his Article III power by issuing sloppy edicts based on falsehoods and fabrications,"
He went further on the AI question and the legal analysis:
"the district court, or perhaps, being charitable, its AI agent, ignored and manipulated governing law, apparently to satisfy a policy agenda."
The Fifth Circuit also found Wingate misapplied two recent Supreme Court decisions. Under Moody v. NetChoice (2024), a court may strike down an entire law on First Amendment grounds only if the unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh the constitutional ones. Wingate twice called that framework “supposedly” required.
Smith treated that wording as a red flag.
Judge Jerry Smith wrote:
"That Judge Wingate twice refers to the Moody framework as ‘supposedly’ required calls into question whether he even tried in good faith to follow the law,"
Wingate also leaned on Trump v. CASA (2025), which limits judges from issuing relief beyond what is needed to protect the people who actually sued. He concluded injunctions like his “should be all-or-nothing renditions.” The Fifth Circuit said that reading is almost exactly the opposite of what the Supreme Court held. The high court cautioned against overbroad relief and told judges to tailor orders to what is absolutely necessary.
Smith put it plainly:
"That is almost exactly the opposite of what CASA says,"
On the standard for a preliminary injunction itself, Wingate’s approach also failed. He reasoned that a court “should pause when faced with an unsettled area with such dire possible consequences.” The appeals court answered that a preliminary injunction cannot stand merely because there is a possibility of success on the merits. That approach, Smith wrote, “gets the entire law of injunctive relief completely backwards.”
Judge Jerry Smith added:
"The district court’s laxity in observing the binding authority of the Supreme Court is yet another reason to doom the preliminary injunction,"
Both Wingate and Smith are Reagan appointees. That fact did not soften the rebuke. The Fifth Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction and sent the matter back to the Southern District of Mississippi for a new judge. Mississippi officials can again defend a law that restricts DEI-related practices in the state’s public schools and universities.
The plaintiffs still have their First and Fourteenth Amendment claims. What they no longer have is a district judge whose temporary and preliminary orders the appeals court found riddled with invented parties, missing declarations, phantom case law, and upside-down Supreme Court holdings. The record now shows how those errors stacked up from the July TRO through the injunction the Fifth Circuit wiped out.
When a federal judge blocks a duly enacted state law with orders this flawed, voters and legislators are not the only ones owed a straight accounting. The bench is too.
