Darnella Frazier is third from right, recording the murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020.
Minneapolis Police Department via AP
It’s gospel for First Amendment advocates that lawsuits against news organizations chill freedom of the press. But in an era of rampant misinformation, such legal actions may be more accepted.
Headlines and headaches for those unable to escape their past.
Wikimedia Commons
At the end of the 1925 movie ‘Red Kimono,’ the protagonist, Gabrielle Darley, throws away her garment and moves on to a better life. Real life is more complicated.
Student speech in public schools has less protection than speech by adults in the community at large.
Noam Galai/Getty Images
Can schools discipline students for remarks made online? The answer is not entirely clear.
Legal rally of the National Socialist Movement, one of the major neo-Nazi groups in the United States, on April 21, 2018, in Draketown, Georgia.
Spencer Platt/AFP
The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects Americans’ freedom of speech, so much so that even the most hateful speech has the right to be quoted.
GameStop logo is seen at one of their stores in Athens, Ohio.
Stephen Zenner/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
It’s up to the courts to draw a line between free speech and illegal market manipulation. And the Supreme Court has never ruled on this specific question.
Twitter’s ban of Trump has concerned free speech advocates across the political spectrum.
Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images
It’s concerning that tech executives can exercise so much power over who can use their platforms. But the alternative – government intervention – could be much worse.
The first amendment could not have anticipated the rise of digital media which has profoundly changed the nature of public speech.
People see bias in the stories that favor the other party, but they tend not to see bias in stories favoring their own party.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
Charges of media bias are nothing new, though they’ve gotten louder since 2016, led by President Trump. But a press free to take a variety of viewpoints was the founders’ intention.
People gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court building as news spread of Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Sept. 18 death.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
A 6-3 conservative court will hear a broader range of controversial cases, shift interpretations of individual rights and put more pressure on local democracy to make policy decisions.
Banning TikTok and WeChat would cut off many Americans from popular social media.
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
Banning the Chinese-owned social media platforms raises free speech concerns and could worsen the US-China trade war.
Some church members have no problem wearing masks; others say it’s an unconstitutional mandate.
Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
A Florida minister and a conservative lawmaker filed suit against a county law mandating mask wearing, saying it violates the freedom of religion. A constitutional law professor says they’re wrong.
Federal officers using large amounts of tear gas against protesters in Portland, Oregon on July 21.
John Rudoff/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
The lawsuits filed in Portland sparked by the presence of federal law enforcement agents sent there by President Trump are a preview of the legal battles to come in cities across the US.
A protester during an anti-mask rally on July 19 in Indianapolis, Indiana, against the mayor’s mask order and the governor’s extension of the state shutdown.
Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
A constitutional law scholar says that the arguments made by anti-mask protesters that the Constitution protects their freedom to go maskless are just wrong.
The ministerial exemptions ruling is one of several cases involving religious employers in front of the Supreme Court.
Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images
In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court said that teachers at a Catholic school performed religious duties and were not protected by workplace discrimination laws.
Friends no longer: US president Donald Trump with his then national security adviser John Bolton in 2018.
EPA-EFE/Justin Lane
When a person or agency backed by the power and resources of the government tells a lie, it sometimes causes harm that only the government can inflict.