Touro University, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center professor Rodger D. Citron discusses the civil rights history of New York Times v. Sullivan with legal historian Samantha Barbas in a podcast conversation regarding her book, Actual Malice. Professor Citron highlights Barbas’s findings that Alabama officials weaponized libel law to suppress coverage of the civil rights movement and emphasizes that this racial context remains essential to understanding the case’s legal legacy.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat examines the Trump administration’s legal battle against several prominent law firms targeted by executive orders, following the administration’s erratic appellate strategy through the D.C. Circuit. Professor Sarat argues that the executive orders constitute clear First Amendment retaliation, that the administration’s legal claims are meritless, and that its portrayal of the president as a free-speech victim is both legally untenable and absurd.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar and professor emeritus Alan Brownstein explore the constitutional complexities of enacting buffer zones around houses of worship to regulate expressive activity, particularly in light of recent events in New York and longstanding First Amendment jurisprudence. Professors Amar and Brownstein argue that while such buffer zones may be lawful under specific, narrowly tailored conditions, their constitutionality ultimately depends on avoiding viewpoint discrimination and satisfying exacting legal scrutiny, especially given the distinct expressive role of religious institutions in public discourse.

University of Pennsylvania professor Marci A. Hamilton explores the intersection of free speech, political overreach, and the First Amendment in the context of Donald Trump’s attempts to silence critics like Jimmy Kimmel and suppress damaging information such as the Epstein files. Professor Hamilton argues that despite the Trump administration’s efforts to control narratives and promote its narrow cultural and religious views, the American public’s constitutional right to free expression remains a powerful force that will ultimately expose truth and resist authoritarianism.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the history of free speech in America and recent controversies surrounding it, particularly on college campuses. Professor Dorf argues that while there was once a bipartisan consensus supporting free speech, recent events have led to inconsistent stances on both sides of the political spectrum, with many people supporting free speech only when it aligns with their views.

Illinois Law dean Vikram David Amar and professor Jason Mazzone comment on another free-speech controversy related to a student-invited speaker at the University of Pittsburgh. Dean Amar and Professor Mazzone describe the demand letter sent to Pitt officials by the Alliance Defending Freedom and explain why some of their arguments are on solid legal ground while one is tenuous at best.

Illinois Law Dean Vikram David Amar critiques a recent decision by a federal district judge in Colorado on free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Dean Amar points out the essential problems with the court’s reasoning and assesses what those errors might mean about the shortcomings of legal education and the legal system.

Continuing his discussion of the incident at Stanford Law School, UF Levin College of Law professor Neil H. Buchanan explains the essential difference between disagreeable speech and intimidation and threats of physical violence. Professor Buchanan reminds us that the consequences of being disfavored and vulnerable are not a matter being socially unpopular, but matters of life and death.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf comments on the recent Supreme Court oral argument in Counterman v. Colorado, which raises the question of what may constitute a “true threat,” which is outside the scope of First Amendment protection. Professor Dorf argues that, notwithstanding the present case about stalking, the Court’s rulings gutting the Voting Rights Act, greenlighting extreme political gerrymandering, and expanding the scope of the Second Amendment are the true threat to democracy.

In this second of a series of columns in response to a recent controversy at Stanford Law School, UF Levin College of Law professor Neil H. Buchanan considers how universities should respond to organized efforts to stir up politically useful controversy on campus. Professor Buchanan argues that it is a recipe for disaster to fail to see through the schemes of individuals or organizations who are acting in bad faith and that other universities should not play along.

UF Levin College of Law professor Neil H. Buchanan assumes the role of president of a fictional university writing in response to the recent “shouting down” incident at Stanford Law School. Specifically, Professor Buchanan takes on the claim some have advanced that the law student protesters were acting like children, and he argues that in fact, the (adult) federal judge behaved in the most juvenile manner.

In response to the Stanford Law School controversy involving disruption of a federal judge’s speech, Illinois Law dean Vikram David Amar and professor Jason Mazzone offer thoughts about how to design a training session about the freedom of speech and norms of the legal profession should include. In this first of a series of columns, Dean Amar and Professor Mazzone focus on two key topics: (1) What, precisely is “shouting down” of a speaker, and why can such activity be prohibited and punished? And (2) What About the Venerable Tradition of “Civil Disobedience”?

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf explains the options available to the U.S. Supreme Court as it considers 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which presents a clash between a Colorado law forbidding places of public accommodation from discriminating based on sexual orientation and a conservative Christian web designer’s objection to creating material that, she says, tacitly expresses approval of same-sex marriage. Professor Dorf points out that the Court could conclude that the case does not implicate free speech at all, but instead it will almost surely rule against Colorado, which could pose a potentially existential threat to anti-discrimination law.

Cornell Law professor Sherry F. Colb explains why the view that hate crime legislation violates the freedom of speech is incorrect and has radical and undesirable logical implications. Professor Colb points out that speech in this context is used as a basis for inferring a person’s motive, and people generally agree that motive can be a relevant consideration in determining whether certain conduct is permissible.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf comments on a recent concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas in a case in which the Court vacated as moot a federal appeals court ruling that the president cannot block users’ access to his Twitter account. Professor Dorf explains why Justice Thomas’s reasoning is deeply flawed, but he points out that Justice Thomas’s conclusion that the First Amendment might permit Congress to forbid Twitter from moderating content on its site finds unlikely support in arguments historically put forth by progressive politicians and scholars. In their view, very large private actors who exercise power over people’s lives comparable to and sometimes even exceeding that of government should be subject to the same sorts of norms that the Constitution applies to the government.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf comments on a brief filed by Donald Trump’s former lawyer Sidney Powell in a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. Professor Dorf argues that Powell’s motion to dismiss the case should fail, but he notes that the argument presented in her brief is more subtle than is generally acknowledged.

Illinois law dean and professor Vikram David Amar discusses a recent controversy involving the termination of a Wisconsin public school security guard under a zero-tolerance policy on racial epithets. Amar explains why, if the guard had chosen to sue, he likely would have lost in court based on current precedent, and Amar uses the apparent injustice of that outcome to illustrate that public employees often don’t realize how much their speech can be proscribed and prescribed by their government employers.

Marci A. Hamilton, a professor and resident senior fellow in the Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania, reacts to the oral argument in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, in which the Supreme Court will decide whether a Colorado baker may refuse to serve a same-sex couple on the basis that doing so would violate his religious beliefs. Hamilton argues that lawyer for the baker, as well as the solicitor general arguing in support of the baker’s position in the case, took the nonsensical position that the cake serves as the baker’s speech in the couple’s private ceremony. Hamilton points out that the cake is actually the couple’s expression to each other and to those present at the ceremony, just as any other product is simply a product imbued only with the meaning intended by its purchaser.

Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram David Amar and UC Davis Law emeritus professor Alan E. Brownstein propose and analyze a law to prevent hostile listeners from “shouting down” controversial speakers that, arguably, would pass constitutional muster. Amar and Brownstein do not fully agree on which standard of review should apply to the regulation they propose, but they do agree that the mere fact that a general law is applied to conventionally expressive conduct does not always justify increasing the standard of review applied to it.

Illinois Law dean Vikram David Amar and UC Davis Law emeritus professor Alan E. Brownstein point out that the US Supreme Court has no comprehensive doctrine on compelled speech under the First Amendment, especially as compared to its very nuanced doctrine on suppression of speech. Amar and Brownstein identify core elements that should comprise a comprehensive doctrine and call upon the Supreme Court to adopt similar guidelines when it decides an upcoming case, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in which a baker challenges a Colorado public accommodations law on First Amendment grounds, citing compelled speech. Without taking a position on how this dispute should be resolved as a matter of social policy, Amar and Brownstein argue that the doctrinal framework they describe does not support rigorous review in this case.