Ballard Spahr: Sixth Circuit Sides with ‘The New York Times’ in Defamation Suit

Reprinted with Permission from Ballard Spahr An article in The New York Times about controversy surrounding an Ohio State University cancer researcher was not defamatory because reasonable readers would understand it was “a […]

Ballard Spahr: Second Circuit Affirms That President Trump’s Blocking of Opponents on His Twitter Account Violates First Amendment

Reprinted with Permission from Ballard Spahr The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit yesterday became the third federal circuit court to hold that the interactive space of a […]

Gene Policinski Commentary: New Assange Charges Raise Two First Amendment Alarms

The Newseum Institute’s First Amendment expert, Gene Policinski, originally published this commentary on June 13, 2019, on the Newseum blog, and has given First Amendment Watch permission to reprint. For […]

Gene Policinski Commentary: Journalists May Be Stuck With Assange’s First Amendment Defense

Certain charges in Assange's case might threaten legal protections afforded to those who report confidential information obtained by others.

Catherine J. Ross: Trump’s Latest Threat To Free Speech And The Academy

Catherine J. Ross, professor of law at George Washington University Law School, explains the possible issues that could arise if President Trump signs an executive order requiring colleges to support free speech on their campuses in order to receive federal research funds. "Ultimately, the central constitutional risk inherent in Trump’s proposed executive order is all too familiar: it will chill protected speech. What’s more, it will likely violate central tenets of the Speech Clause when enforced," she writes.

Handman and Zycherman: “Fear Not: New York Times v. Sullivan Heartily Embraced by the Court’s Newest Jurist, Justice Kavanaugh”

The post is another essay in response to Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence from a denial of certiorari in the case of  McKee v. Cosby (2019). The previous post was by Lee Levine […]

Ballard Spahr: Recent Ruling Invokes Colorado Press Shield Law To Absolve Reporter From Disclosing Unpublished Information

Reprinted with Permission from Ballard Spahr A district court in Boulder, Colorado, recently applied Colorado’s Press Shield Law to a subpoena for a reporter to testify at trial—even though the […]

Levine and Wermiel: “Dubious Doubts and ‘the Central Meaning of the First Amendment’—A Preliminary Reply to Justice Thomas”

By Lee Levine and Stephen Wermiel There are any number of obvious responses to Justice Clarence Thomas’s misguided assertion in McKee v. Cosby (2019) that New York Times v. Sullivan […]