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Arrested demonstrators of the University of California Free Speech Movement during their trial in Berkeley, California, 1965.

America Needs a New Free Speech Movement

Donald Trump is showing us what an unaccountable class of corporate decision-makers looks like—and it looks like a lot of fear, and a terrible loss of freedom.
by Zephyr Teachout via The Nation on March 19, 2025
Berkeley students and protesters gather during a protest and celebration at Berkeley, California in 1969.

The Left’s Reversal on Free Speech

Historically, liberals defended the First Amendment and our free speech rights. Now, too many on the left seek to undermine constitutional protections.
by Patrick M. Garry via Law & Liberty on November 18, 2024
Judge Learned Hand.

Learned Hand’s Spirit of Liberty

Eighty years ago, Americans embraced a new definition of their faith: “The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.”
by Lincoln Caplan via The New Yorker on July 4, 2024
Parental advisory sticker warning of explicit content.
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Who Gets to Regulate #*%&? Free Speech in Popular Culture

When speech offends, who decides where boundaries should be drawn?
via Retro Report on January 18, 2024
AI-generated illustration of a blue neural network, surrounded by code and data graphics, against dark background.

How Machines Came to Speak (and How to Shut Them Up)

On the intertwined history of free speech law and media technology.
by Alex Sayf Cummings via Society for U.S. Intellectual History on September 24, 2023
Person typing on keyboard at computer decorated with pro-choice pins.

A Forgotten 1990s Law Could Make It Illegal to Discuss Abortion Online

The provision, which makes it a felony to talk about abortion online, has been on hold since the Clinton administration. Could it be enforced in the future?
by Melissa Gira Grant via The New Republic on August 1, 2022
Eugene V. Debs, in prison clothes, flanked by Socialist party leaders.

Free Speech Wasn't So Free 103 Years Ago

When 'seditious' and 'unpatriotic' speech was criminalized in the U.S.
by Eric Robinson via The Conversation on May 13, 2021
Mugshot of Eugene Debs

Eugene Debs Was an American Hero

He forced the country to engage in a three-year conversation about the meaning of free speech that shaped policy and law after World War I.
by Shawn Gude, Ernest Freeberg via Jacobin on June 16, 2020

The Radical Roots of Free Speech

Conservatives like to claim that leftists are opponents of free speech. But that’s nonsense.
by Chase Burghgrave, Laura Weinrib via Jacobin on July 25, 2019

The Bosses' Constitution

How and why the First Amendment became a weapon for the right.
by Jedediah Britton-Purdy via The Nation on September 12, 2018
Huey Long

How ‘the Kingfish’ Turned Corporations into People

Seventy-five years before Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that newspapers were entitled to First Amendment protections.
by Adam Winkler via New York Review of Books on February 28, 2018

Violence and Free Speech

Does our approach to the First Amendment need to change in the wake of this summer's violence in Charlottesville?
by Jennifer Petersen via Public Books on November 22, 2017

When Speech Meets Hate

A legal expert offers a First Amendment analysis of the summer’s violent rallies.
by Frederick Schauer via Virginia Magazine on November 21, 2017

Flip-Flopping on Free Speech

The fight for the First Amendment, on campuses and football fields, from the sixties to today.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on October 9, 2017
White nationalist demonstrators use shields as they guard the entrance to Lee Park in Charlottesville, Va. on Aug 12, 2017.

The ACLU's Free Speech Stance Should Be About Social Justice, Not 'Timeless' Principles

When the organization first defended Nazis, it did so for practical reasons.
by Laura Weinrib via Los Angeles Times on August 30, 2017
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When ‘Free Speech’ Becomes a Political Weapon

What we can learn from liberal anti-communists.
by Jennifer Delton via Made By History on August 22, 2017

Conservatives Say Campus Speech Is Under Threat. That’s Been True for Most of History.

There’s never been a golden age of free speech at American universities.
by Todd Gitlin via Washington Post on August 11, 2017
Chelsea Manning photo

How The Espionage Act Became a Tool of Repression

This isn’t all history, of course. The Espionage Act is still on the books: Chelsea Manning was charged under it in 2011.
by Geoffrey R. Stone, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on June 23, 2017
Alleged enemy aliens on way to detention camp, Gloucester, New Jersey, 1918.

The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated

Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.
by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on April 25, 2025
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his aide Roy Cohn.

Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump

The target then was the nonexistent threat of Communist teachers; today, it’s the supposed radicalism of the academy.
by Ellen Schrecker via The Nation on April 3, 2025
Harry Bridges surrounded by a group of men.

Before Mahmoud Khalil, There Was Harry Bridges

The U.S. government repeatedly tried to deport the midcentury labor leader over his alleged ties to the Communist Party.
by Clay Risen via The Bulwark on March 24, 2025
Joseph McCarthy with a map.

Joseph McCarthy in Wheeling, West Virginia: Annotated

Senator Joseph McCarthy built his reputation on fear-mongering, smear campaigns, and falsehoods about government employees and their associates.
by Joseph McCarthy, Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on March 24, 2025
Two people wrestling. One wearing blue and the other wearing red.

Understanding the Evolving Culture-War Vernacular

The Right is exploiting a manufactured moral panic.
by Isaac Kamola via Academe on March 24, 2025
A UC Berkeley student picket supports a strike protesting demonstrators’ arrests, 1964.
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Whose Side Are College Administrators On?

There’s a long history of politicians targeting student protesters — and of campus leaders abetting those efforts.
by Lauren Lassabe Shepherd via HNN on March 19, 2025
The L.A. Eight, in 1987.

The Last Time Pro-Palestinian Activists Faced Deportation

Mahmoud Khalil’s case is eerily similar to that of the L.A. Eight when students were targeted not because of any criminal activity but because of their speech.
by David Cole via The New Yorker on March 18, 2025
Mary Beth Tinker and her mother.
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How Tinker v. Des Moines Established Students’ Free Speech Rights

“The lesson of the Tinker case is: Speak up. Stand up,” Mary Beth Tinker told us.
via Retro Report on March 13, 2025
Actress moves away from a microphone held a red hand.

How the Red Scare Shaped American Television

The fear of communism silenced actors, writers and producers, altering the entertainment industry for decades.
by Carol Stabile via PBS on February 28, 2025
Cover of The Moving Image by Peter Kaufman.

The Power of the Moving Image

Video has become our dominant cultural medium, yet we lack reliable archives for the audiovisual record.
by Peter B. Kaufman via Los Angeles Review of Books on February 11, 2025
Protest encampment at University of California Berkeley.

The Free Speech Movement at Sixty and Today’s Unfree Universities

Can speech be free when billionaires buy influence on campus?
by Robert Cohen via Academe on December 4, 2024
A drawing of protestors wrestling a tax collector to the ground.

A Prudent First Amendment

Often, the proper scope of the First Amendment can be determined only by considering both text and context.
by David Lewis Schaefer via Law & Liberty on November 7, 2024
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