Archive
Gavel

North Carolina Supreme Court To Decide on ‘Actual Malice’ in a Defamation Suit Against a Local Newspaper

N&O reporter Mandy Locke is facing a defamation lawsuit over a series of articles in which she appeared to question the judgement of a State Bureau of Investigation agent. The case was heard in North Carolina's Supreme Court on Monday.

Read More

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Unblocks Follower from Twitter, Issues Public Apology

“I have reconsidered my decision to block Dov Hikind from my Twitter account,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement on Monday. “Mr. Hikind has a First Amendment right to express his views and should not be blocked for them.” 

Read More

E. Jean Carroll Files a Defamation Suit Against Trump for Saying She Lied About Sexual Assault

“Decades ago, the now president of the United States raped me," said Carroll in a statement. "While I can no longer hold Donald Trump accountable for assaulting me more than 20 years ago, I can hold him accountable for lying about it and I fully intend to do so."

Read More

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Federal Judge Dismisses $300 Million Defamation Suit Against Three Media Companies Brought by Former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio

On October 31, a federal judge dismissed a $300 million defamation suit brought by the former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joseph Arpaio against CNN, HuffPost and Rolling Stone. In December, Arpaio […]

Read More

Jack Dorsey

Tentative Applause Follows Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s Decision to Ban Political Advertisements

Twitter announced on Wednesday, October 30th that his company would no longer accept political advertising on its platform. While notably more positive than Facebook's reception, Twitter's wasn’t universally warm.

Read More

Des Moines Police

A U.S. District Judge Dismissed a Police Recording Case in Iowa. The ACLU Says Judge Erred in His Ruling.

According to the plaintiff’s complaint, Daniel Robbins was filming outside a police department in May 2018, having noticed that a police vehicle had been parked in a “no parking” spot. Citing suspicious behavior, the officers detained Robbins, seized his cell phone, recording equipment, and memory cards.

Read More

Law Professor Timothy Zick talks about his new book “The First Amendment in The Trump Era”

The book is as much a portrait of today’s free speech landscape as a refresher in First Amendment history. Zick highlights the fragility of narrowly won protections for free speech and press, and the very real need to defend them. 

Read More

Authors Share Excerpts on Free Speech: Timothy Zick on The First Amendment in the Trump Era

In The First Amendment in the Trump Era, Timothy Zick catalogs and analyzes the various First Amendment conflicts that have occurred during the Trump presidency. It places these conflicts in historical context–as part of our current digitized and polarized era but also as part of a broader narrative concerning attacks on free speech and press. We must understand what is familiar in terms of the First Amendment concerns of the present era, but also what is distinctive about these concerns.

Read More