The FIREwire is a weekly news roundup of the biggest stories involving free speech, as well as reports, essays, fresh data, and original analysis.

“Censorship is not a remedy for tragedy.”

— Sarah McLaughlin, on the campaign for Arday’s Law, which proposes limiting the number of articles that can be published about a person within a given timeframe.

First things first

Free speech had a funny week. Almost every story below begins with a reasonable-sounding impulse — protect Jewish students from antisemitism, protect Christian worshippers from disruption, protect black professors from racism, protect young people from social media. But the trouble begins one step later, when someone proposes giving an institution the power to decide which speech has become too dangerous, too offensive, too disruptive, or simply too politically inconvenient.

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The best defense of free expression is not that every speaker is virtuous or every idea wise, but that power is dangerous whenever it can control who gets to speak, how often, or under what conditions. This week’s stories are variations on that theme.

FIRE’s GUARD Act protects professors

Professors need more than rights they can vindicate only after years of litigation, so FIRE has drafted the GUARD Act to put those protections directly into state law.

The proposal responds to an increasingly awkward reality. FIRE recently recorded a massive spike in the number of incidents involving politicians trying to silence faculty, while the old threats of administrative censorship remain. The GUARD Act would protect faculty as well as universities, which cannot plausibly promise intellectual freedom while treating controversy itself as evidence of misconduct.

Speech codes won’t end antisemitism

Students who disrupt invited speakers are interfering with expression, but as argues in part three of his series on antisemitism, universities shouldn’t respond by adopting viewpoint-discriminatory speech codes. Focusing on several incidents involving pro-Israel speakers, Friedman explains that students have no First Amendment right to seize control of an event simply because the speaker’s views are offensive or unpopular. But, he adds, if schools incorporate the IHRA’s vague and politically loaded definition of “antisemitism” into campus harassment policies, this just ends up creating yet another kind of censorship.

“Rather than responding to illiberalism with more illiberalism,” says Friedman, “universities and state actors should adopt policies that empower and protect the right to boldly speak back.”

Below the fold

International

The death of Cambridge professor Jason Arday has triggered grief, anger, scrutiny of the press, and a political campaign for new government limits on reporting. ’s argument is brutally simple: People can condemn what they see as cruel or irresponsible journalism without resorting to prior restraint. Her essay also carries an important warning for American readers, because the First Amendment’s protection of press freedom is not merely a celebration of the importance of journalistic work. It’s a rejection of the idea that any government should ever become the editor of the public record. As she puts it:

Arday’s Law, or similar restrictions on press freedom, will not end cruelty or public speculation. They might, though, just give the powerful yet another tool to shut down much-needed inquiry into their conduct or even their crimes.

Also this week, McLaughlin reports that foreign journalists will soon face social-media vetting to obtain U.S. visas. This message is clear: Be careful what you say about the United States if you want to come here. McLaughlin places this alongside a striking international roundup, from Singapore barring Massive Attack after a pro-Palestinian show to Russia reportedly blacking out passages about LGBT people in Pope Francis’ memoir. If there’s a pattern, it seems to be that restrictions introduced for one supposedly exceptional category tend to become precedents for the next.

Media

A Reconstruction-era law designed to crush the Klan, and tested against the Mafia, is now being used to prosecute Douglass Mackey over a meme and Don Lemon over his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a church. ’s history lesson takes us through the meaning of “conspiracy” itself, the evolution of Section 241, a few wild passages of Klan and Mob history, and skillfully pulls it all together to make the larger point that a law can have an admirable origin, but still become dangerous if prosecutors stop treating its limiting words as limiting words.

Also in media news, Disney is suing the FCC and Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel at FIRE and former chief counsel to FCC Chair James Quello, appeared on The Lead with Jake Tapper to discuss. When Tapper asked why The View, which is produced by Disney-owned ABC News, cannot book political figures, Corn-Revere replied, “Well, they can, but they’re taking the risk of further action by the FCC. When the FCC announced it was going after The View, it was because of the fact that they were booking political candidates for news interviews. Except programs like The View historically have been treated as exempt from the equal opportunities rule.”

In January, the FCC issued a public notice warning TV broadcasters that talk shows are not exempt from the rule, which says that if a broadcast station gives one political candidate airtime, it has to give that candidate’s opponents an equal time. Corn-Revere added that Congress amended the Communications Act in 1959 to create an exemption for bona fide news interviews. He said the FCC has been trying to reinterpret the law to deny that exemption to The View, as President Trump and Chairman Carr have criticized the ABC program.

Podcasts

The Blessings of Liberty explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea,” hosted by bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen.

In this episode, law professor joins to discuss the philosophical underpinnings of the American Founding, the original meaning of “the pursuit of happiness,” the centrality of education to the formation of virtue, and the importance of structural safeguards for the protection of liberty.

So to Speak takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define free speech — hosted by FIRE’s Nico Perrino.

This month’s member webinar tackled a grab bag of First Amendment questions, from a Washington journalist facing a campaign-finance investigation to the Supreme Court’s recent conversion-therapy decision, the FCC’s pressure campaign against Disney and ABC, and FIRE’s fight for noncitizens’ speech rights. The conversation repeatedly returned to one theme — governments cannot evade the First Amendment by relabeling speech as conduct, whether they are regulating therapy, journalism, entertainment, or academic debate.

Today in history with

On Aug. 17, 1979, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, an outrageous parody of biblical times that is widely regarded as one of the greatest comedy films of all time, opened in the United States. The movie tells the story of Brian Cohen, who is born on the same day as, and next door to, Jesus, leading to his being mistaken for the messiah. Because of its controversial subject matter, the movie’s financing was pulled at the last minute by EMI Films, leading former Beatle George Harrison and his business partner Denis O’Brien to provide financing.

The film was generally well received by critics, who found it hilarious but recognized its potential to offend with its coarse language and religious satire. In Britain, the BBC and ITV declined to show it for fear of offending Christians. Protests and censorship efforts followed: rabbis and nuns picketed screenings in New York, while South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond demanded the distributor withdraw it, generating even more publicity. Other evangelical figures called for the cast to be prosecuted for blasphemy. The film was banned or suppressed in several U.S. states and towns, including Shreveport, Alabama, Alexandria, Louisiana, and Georgia, which cited its “lewd exhibition of genitals.” It was also banned for a year in Norway and eight years in Ireland.

Originally, the film was planned to open on 200 U.S. screens, but after religious groups’ protests, that number tripled. Swedish theaters advertised the film as “so funny it was banned in Norway.”

By the numbers

As the poet Paul Valéry once said, “The future is not what it used to be.” ’s latest data dive asks readers to predict where campus speech culture is heading. Using FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings data through 2025, he marks the trend lines — and they’re not particularly cheerful. Over the past five years, students who say violence against speakers is ever acceptable went from 18% to 34%.

“Free speech is a constitutional right that we must all stand up and protect.”

— Rep. Pramila Jayapal, commenting on the University of Washington’s decision to cancel a speaking event featuring communist influencer Hasan Piker.

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First things first

There are many ways to put speech on a leash. Sometimes it’s bureaucratic, such as when government officials try to punish reporters for asking hard questions. Or sartorial, such as when university officials threaten to punish students for not “dressing right.” Sometimes, it’s just a friendly call from the police. The theme in this week’s stories, it seems, is control. Control of reporters, clothing, graduation, AI, even Hermione Granger’s extremely unauthorized love life.

There is one encouraging wrinkle. Americans who seemingly cannot agree on the color of the sky are converging on something remarkable: Higher education has become a left-wing echo chamber. And if the rest of the week’s news gets too depressing, just remember that somewhere out there, a federal judge has read 6,000 pages of paranormal romance so you don’t have to.

The Pentagon wants reporters on a leash

The Pentagon has spent more than a year tightening access for journalists, threatening their credentials, moving them outside the building, and forcing them to go through escorts all while fighting The New York Times in court over whether the Constitution lets the government yank credentials away for asking hard questions.

Yes, the Pentagon can protect classified information and secure sensitive areas. But what it cannot constitutionally do is make favorable coverage the cost of entry. Rather than bend the knee, more than 30 outlets surrendered their badges — then went right back to reporting on the military. This week, breaks down the whole story.

Tuskegee says suit up — and forget the durag

Tuskegee University’s new dress code says durags, bonnets, baseball caps, bedroom slippers, sagging pants, and clothing depicting everything from profanity and sex to alcohol and tobacco are banned in classrooms, the cafeteria, and at university events.

Tuskegee is private, so they are within their rights, but the university also promises students expressive freedom, and as argues, those promises are hard to square with telling adults what they can wear to grab lunch. Lasky doesn’t claim scuff slippers are as professional as black leather pumps. “But,” she says, “teaching students how to dress for a job interview doesn’t require turning the cafeteria into one.”

Below the fold

• A federal judge dismissed the Trump administration’s Title VI lawsuit against Harvard, holding that DOJ had not plausibly alleged Harvard was currently engaged in systemic discrimination against Jewish or Israeli students.

• The Department of Homeland Security launched an infiltration and surveillance operation earlier this year in Minneapolis, targeting progressive organizations, labor unions, and groups protesting immigration enforcement.

International

Sarah McLaughlin reports that the UN Convention Against Cybercrime, which is supposed to help governments team up against serious online crime, may give oppressive governments more tools to pursue speech they already criminalize — and may encourage them to criminalize even more speech under “cybercrime” laws.

Tech

Here’s a new nightmare for your AI bingo card: American chatbots are importing authoritarian taboos along with their training data. The Wall Street Journal reports some U.S.-made AI systems are more hesitant to criticize authoritarian leaders such as China’s Xi Jinping, compared to democratic political figures. Researchers point to possible contamination from state propaganda in the training data.

Culture

The Dramione-to-bookstore pipeline has now produced the free-speech legal question nobody knew civilization was approaching. Namely, how much Draco Malfoy can be in your novel before J.K. Rowling’s lawyers get interested? This week, Ally Duong takes up the increasingly commercial world of fanfiction “filing off the serial numbers,” where writers turn stories built around copyrighted characters into original novels by changing the details. Fifty Shades of Grey famously began as Twilight fanfiction. Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis began with Rey and Kylo Ren.

One federal judge had to read more than 6,000 pages in a paranormal-romance copyright battle before deciding author Tracy Wolff is not guilty and arriving at the judiciary’s greatest contribution to literary criticism: Nobody dast blame this woman. A romantasy is got to have hot paranormal boys. It comes with the territory.

Podcasts

The Blessings of Liberty explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea,” hosted by bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen.

In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Beverly Gage joins to discuss her most recent book, This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History. In this book, Gage recounts her travels to the museums, historic sites, roadside attractions, reenactments, and souvenir shops where Americans learn and fight about our history. From the birth of the nation in Philadelphia to Disneyland and the California dream, This Land Is Your Land offers a guided tour of 13 places and 13 key moments that define America’s greatest successes and challenges.

So to Speak takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define free speech — hosted by FIRE’s Nico Perrino.

Long before the First Amendment, John Peter Zenger stood trial for publishing criticisms of New York’s then colonial governor. Although the law seemed to guarantee a guilty verdict, a jury refused to convict him. Zenger’s trial was an early indication that the American colonists harbored a view of liberty more expansive than that offered to them by the British Crown.

Few people are better suited to explain the case than Michael Tigar. Over a legendary legal career spanning more than six decades, Tigar has argued before the Supreme Court (multiple times), represented civil rights activists and other controversial clients, taught generations of lawyers, and written what has become the definitive stage play about the Zenger trial. In this episode, Nico speaks with legendary criminal defense attorney Michael Tigar about the Zenger trial and his own remarkable career, from the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the Chicago Eight trial to jury nullification and lawyers’ First Amendment rights.

Today in history with

On Aug. 11, 1984, Congress passed the Equal Access Act (Title VIII), which says that if a public secondary school allows noncurricular student clubs, it cannot pick and choose among them based on their views. The Act followed the Supreme Court’s 1981 ruling in Widmar v. Vincent, which held that a public university could not allow student groups while also excluding one because it met for religious worship or discussion. Christian groups pushed for the law in part to protect students who wanted to hold Bible studies and other religious meetings at school. Since then, the Act has also protected gay-straight alliances, religious clubs, and secular groups.

By the numbers

Here is a sentence you don’t encounter often in 2026: Liberals, moderates, and conservatives agree about something. FIRE’s latest National Speech Index finds 57% of Americans consider the lack of ideological diversity in higher education a somewhat or very serious problem. That includes half of very liberal Americans and 62% of liberals.

The intriguing question isn’t whether professors lean left — that’s been documented for decades. It’s why so many liberals now see the imbalance as a problem themselves. Sean Stevens dives into the data, and explains that we shouldn’t get too excited. There’s still a lot of disagreement and vision. But agreeing that intellectual monocultures are unhealthy is at least a solid starting point.

From the feed

Finally, because today’s hero image features the incredible Sonny Rollins in durag, you know I have to drop his most FIRE-friendly song ever. Have a good weekend, folks.

“We’re Americans. We get to do that.”

— First Amendment attorney Gary Edinger, commenting on the Florida wildlife agency accessing driver’s license records of critics, citing safety concerns, and the apparently radical proposition that Americans may criticize their government.

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First things first

Free speech dies by inches, not bonfires. A city council decides two words are too ugly for democracy. A government meeting decides five claps are five claps too many. College students become convinced there’s simply no value in listening to bigots. Foreign nations discover that passports and app stores make pretty good speech regulations. Meanwhile, AI manages to make an old First Amendment question sound new again: If bad info hurts someone, can we punish the person who supplied it?

Free speech has never promised the answers will be pleasant. It promises something far more useful. Namely, that government doesn’t get to make those decisions for us. If this all sounds a little heavy for August, look below the fold. We’ve also got teens proving their skin is thicker than most of ours. There’s hope for civilization yet.

Two words

Los Angeles City Hall officials banned citizens from saying the words “nigger” or “cunt” during public comment, not even to quote someone or protest the ban itself. But the real issue, argues, is not the words but the sweeping authority the council is claiming to decide which words citizens may use in a public forum.

When asked if the ban was only a first step, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said, “Absolutely. This is as much a step as we can take at this moment, we believe. But we think it will open us up to take additional steps in the future.”

Five claps

Police arrested high school physics teacher Lux Claridge for clapping five times at a city commission meeting in Emporia, Kansas. Attendees were discussing a proposed data center when officials told them to stop applauding between speakers. Emporia’s rules allow for removing disruptive people, but as writes, Claridge was nothing of the kind. On the contrary, the most significant disruption was the arrest.

“Officials can require order — the First Amendment does not force them to let meetings become ungovernable,” Brito writes, “but they can’t demand monastic silence and perfect stillness from everyone in the room.”

Below the fold

• Black blues musician Daryl Davis once met a KKK leader and his armed bodyguard in a hotel room — and walked out of the encounter to later become friends. Davis now travels with a collection of Klan and Nazi regalia given to him by people who say conversations with him helped pull them out of racism. That was the opening lesson for nearly 200 high school students at FIRE’s third annual Free Speech Forum, where and report students spent a week debating hard questions, and “learned that sometimes the first step toward defeating an idea is having the courage to speak with the person who holds it.”

• ICE has built a 24/7 social-media surveillance program that scans nearly 20 platforms, uses contractors and AI to gather “anticipatory threat intelligence,” which sounds like a line out of Minority Report, and has prompted hundreds of subpoenas and at least 131 doxxing/threat investigations, even though reportedly no charges have been filed in the dragnet.

International

This week’s dispatch from reads like a nightmare atlas of censorship tools. Australia is taking legal action against Telegram over allegedly extremist content. Russia charged the platform’s founder Pavel Durov with aiding terrorism and put him on an international wanted list. Germany turned away (and reportedly later relented on) the frontman of British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan. Argentina gave its government new power to exclude foreigners who “insult national symbols,” France approved an under-15 social-media ban, India targeted the source code for Jack Dorsey’s decentralized messaging app Bitchat, and Italy is holding a journalist responsible for comments other people posted on his Facebook page.

Tech

Nearly 40 years ago, two mushroom hunters followed an encyclopedia’s advice, ate poisonous mushrooms, and needed liver transplants. They sued the publisher. The Ninth Circuit said no, ideas are not defective products in the same way exploding appliances are. Now Tyler Tone asks what happens when the encyclopedia talks back. Nearly 100 tort cases reportedly have been filed against AI developers, including lawsuits alleging chatbots supplied dangerous medical information or encouraged users toward suicide and violence.

But if every harmful chatbot answer can turn its developer into the manufacturer of a “defective product,” the obvious incentive is to make chatbots say much less. Goodbye mushroom identification. Goodbye home-repair tips. Goodbye medical information. Tyler’s proposed dividing line is a useful one: Ask whether liability targets what AI said or what AI did. Books, records, video games, conversations, and now chatbots can contain terrible ideas without becoming defective toasters. But when the toaster learns to pick locks, tort professors may finally get their revenge.

Culture

Podcasts

The Blessings of Liberty explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea,” hosted by bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen.

In this episode, journalist Joanne Lipman moderates a conversation with legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg and host Jeffrey Rosen about the overarching themes, historical context, and future developments of the biggest cases from the Supreme Court’s most recent term.

Today in history with

Before the First Amendment existed, a jury told the government where it could put its censorship. On Aug. 4, 1735, a New York jury acquitted printer John Peter Zenger of seditious libel for publishing attacks on colonial Gov. William Cosby, who had tried to crush Zenger’s opposition newspaper, ordered issues burned, and jailed him for more than eight months. Zenger had plainly printed the offending material, and truth was no defense under the law. But lawyer Andrew Hamilton urged jurors to look beyond the rule and ask whether a man should be punished for publishing truthful criticism of government. Their answer: Not guilty.

The verdict did not change libel law overnight. But it helped establish a distinctly American principle: Government officials should not be able to punish people merely because criticism stings. Three centuries later, technology has changed, but the temptation has not. This week, Los Angeles officials defended a list of words citizens may not utter at City Hall, while police in Kansas arrested a teacher after he applauded criticism of local government. The official complaint remains remarkably durable: You may criticize us, just not like that. Sometimes the most American answer is still the simplest: “We’re Americans. We get to do that.”

By the numbers

Tolerance for right-wing speakers on campus has always been thin, but now tolerance for left-wing speakers is plunging, dragging the overall average to a five-year low. One reason could be that the right has decided to fight fire with fire (paging Chris Rufo). But a darker possibility is that we are witnessing a generational retreat from the liberal notion that part of education is confronting offensive ideas. Tread carefully, Chloe Ratner’s analysis may keep you up at night.

“I don’t tell people not to be offended. I tell them I don’t care if they are. Be offended if you want. It makes it funnier for me.”

— Ricky Gervais in a recent radio interview.

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Minnesota woman convicted for racial slur

Minnesota woman Shiloh Hendrix was convicted of disorderly conduct after repeatedly saying “nigger” to a Somali man who challenged her to do so, in response to Hendrix directing the same slur to a black child who allegedly took an applesauce pouch from her diaper bag.

“A public argument does not become a crime because a speaker used a particular word,” writes Aaron Terr. “Yes, that means we must sometimes tolerate speech we find repugnant. But that’s the only way to ensure the speech we value remains free.”

The man who wants back into San Quentin

After 14 years teaching literature at San Quentin, Bill Smoot was fired for writing a novel about a prison teacher who helps an inmate escape. In a gripping new essay, William Harris explores whether Mount Tamalpais College’s security concerns can be reconciled with its stated commitment to academic freedom — and why Smoot, who holds no grudge, still hopes to return to the classroom where he gave incarcerated students “a seat at the cultural table.”

Bias response teams are disappearing

Bias response teams appear to be disappearing from campuses, according to FIRE’s 20th Spotlight on Speech Codes. FIRE has long argued that these systems often encourage students and faculty to report one another for protected speech, creating a chilling effect on campus. While the report doesn’t quantify the decline, our annual review of nearly 500 campus policies suggests many institutions are eliminating or reforming these systems, and increasingly replacing them with narrower processes focused on unlawful discrimination and harassment.

The report is packed with other encouraging news, including a record-low number of institutions earning our worst “red light” rating. What else did we find? Read the full report to see how campus free speech policies continue to change across the country.

Below the fold

• Student journalists are asking publications to remove bylines or delete politically sensitive work as the Trump administration’s targeting of international students for pro-Palestinian speech fuels fears of deportation and visa revocation.

• A Pennsylvania court challenge could force the University of Pittsburgh Police Department to disclose records under the state’s open-records law, after freelance journalist Henry Bard was denied information about officers’ use of less-lethal munitions during the university’s 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment.

International

In this week’s Free Speech Dispatch, reports that Georgia’s new Division for Combating Hate Speech sent 150 cases to court in its first month, including that of journalist Vakho Sanaia, who was fined and jailed for sarcastically telling Facebook users not to call two politicians “dicks.”

Georgia joins Germany, France, and Italy in punishing insults aimed at public officials — a temptation now visible in the United States, where FIRE sued after federal agents warned a man for comparing the head of ICE to a Nazi.

McLaughlin also writes this week that UK police are reviewing an Instagram post briefly shared by Green Party leader Zack Polanski because one image showed a man wearing a guillotine T-shirt reading “We’re only making plans for Nigel.” Reform UK called it incitement against Nigel Farage and demanded arrests. This follows the murder of Ann Widdecombe and arrest of a woman who celebrated her death online.

Tech

In his latest on AI and free speech, explains how lawmakers are rushing to regulate political deepfakes, but many AI-generated ads — candidates in throuples, dresses, foxholes, or pugil-stick duels — are merely the latest form of political satire.

Courts have repeatedly protected fabricated quotations and ridiculous depictions, including a Hustler ad suggesting evangelist Jerry Falwell drunkenly lost his virginity to his unconscious mother in an outhouse. Fraud, defamation, and impersonation are already covered by current law. For everything else, lawmakers should stop treating every digital joke like democracy’s last gasp.

Culture

Lou Koller, the 59-year-old lead singer and co-founder of New York hardcore band Sick of It All and an unlikely free speech champion, has died. Reason senior editor remembers Koller, praises the band for blending punk, metal, and hip-hop, and recalls its raucous 1990s shows, focusing on a 1992 controversy after mass shooter Wayne Lo appeared in court wearing a Sick of It All shirt.

When The New York Times suggested Lo’s embrace of hardcore music helped explain his violence, Koller and his bandmates publicly mounted a forceful defense of artistic expression and rejected the claim as shoddy scapegoating that unfairly demonized musicians for a listener’s crimes. Rock on, Lou.

Podcasts

The Blessings of Liberty explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea,” hosted by bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen.

In this episode, esteemed presidential historian Stephen Knott joins to discuss his most recent book, Conspirator in Chief: The Long Tradition of Conspiracy Theories in the American Presidency. Knott takes readers on a sobering tour of how presidents have engaged in reckless conspiracy-mongering about their political opponents.

So to Speak takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define free speech — hosted by FIRE’s .

In this episode, Nico covers the Office of Management and Budget’s proposed changes to how the federal government awards billions in research grants. Supporters say the plan would curb waste and fraud, but critics warn it would politicize funding by giving political appointees more control over which projects receive support.

Joining to discuss the proposal and its implications are Yale professor , Harvard senior fellow , and FIRE research director .

Today in history with

On July 28, 1917, the Silent Parade was organized by a coalition of civil rights groups led by the recently formed NAACP. The silent march was intended to draw national attention to the racial violence and discrimination faced by black Americans, in direct response to racist attacks in 1916 and 1917, including the East St. Louis massacre and lynchings in Waco and Memphis. The marchers hoped the federal government would enact anti-lynching legislation, and many called directly on President Woodrow Wilson, who had just pledged to make the world safe for democracy, to take action.

Aside from the sound of drums leading the procession, the march was entirely silent. Several hundred children marched at the front of the parade, followed by several thousand women dressed in white. Many men wore military uniforms. An estimated 10,000 people marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Newspapers across the country covered the march, raising public awareness of lynchings and other acts of racist violence. The protest also increased the visibility of the NAACP. The Silent Parade was the first large protest in New York organized exclusively by black Americans and is considered one of the most important early events in the civil rights movement for demonstrating the power of organized mass protest.

By the numbers

Student-censorship campaigns tend to come from the left on campus, and from the right off campus, reports , but both exert substantial influence over university administrators. Faculty-led efforts succeed most often, producing punishment 48% of the time, followed by student-led efforts at 42%, political pressure at 41%, and activist campaigns at 26%.

Administrators also react differently depending on who applies the pressure: They are more likely to condemn the targeted speech when students or faculty demand action, but off-campus campaigns by politicians or activists are more likely to produce severe sanctions such as suspension, expulsion, or loss of recognition or funding.

Whatever the source, universities should resist demands to punish constitutionally protected expression.

“There’s nothing you can say, particularly anything that’s mildly interesting or contentious or your viewpoint, that someone somewhere won’t find offensive.”

— Ricky Gervais, comedian and actor, on calls to tone down his controversial comedy.

Meta report finds AI models censor some political criticism

A new report from Meta’s Oversight Board reveals that many popular AI models — including those created by Anthropic, DeepSeek, and OpenAI — are less likely to criticize repressive regimes than freer countries. In some cases, the LLMs used a desire to abide by censorship laws as justification for refusing to generate critical material.

“What a victory it represents for authoritarians to see their repression ripple far beyond their own police and prisons into technology that shapes what people say and understand about them and the world,” Sarah McLaughlin writes. “If we’re not careful to guard against the willful or unintentional influence of foreign censorship laws or practices, the intelligence these models provide may prove artificial indeed.”

FIRE supports challenge to social media warning label law

FIRE, joined by organizations such as the ACLU and EFF, filed an amicus brief supporting a challenge to a Colorado social media law. The law would require social media platforms to display a warning to minors that social media is harmful to their health.

“From dime novels and comic books to television, music, and now social media, lawmakers have repeatedly tried to shield children from the supposed menace of the moment,” writes Gill Sperlein. “But the First Amendment does not allow the government to censor or coerce speech in the name of protecting minors.”

Below the fold

• NIL agreements regulate activities that qualify as a form of speech. Congressional bills like the Protect College Sports Act aim to regulate the NIL landscape, but they could potentially limit expression by providing governing bodies broad discretion in regulating conduct. As Amuda Balu argues, NIL regulators have to keep an eye out for First Amendment concerns.

• Until its repeal in 1986, Act 57 made English mandatory in all Hawaiian public and private schools. The law nearly eradicated the Hawaiian language, until activists brought it back. Elyse Everest tells the story.

• Parody is not a statement of fact made with actual malice and is thus protected under the First Amendment. However, FCC pressure to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show — along with other examples — indicates satirical speech is still under fire. Athena Rem takes a closer look at why protecting such speech matters.

• In 1923, the entire cast of Got fun nekome, a play portraying a Jewish family that defined gender and social status norms, was found guilty of obscenity. Some Jewish leaders worried that the film would further antisemitic stereotypes, but Max Friedman argues the mere possibility does not justify eradicating the play in the name of Jewish safety.

• After Major League Baseball players altered their uniforms as a form of protest, the MLB faced significant pressure from government officials to change their rules on uniform alterations. Athena Rem’s latest piece explains how such encroachment holds concerning implications for the speech of private employees.

• Major news networks NBC, ABC, and CNN chose not to broadcast President Donald Trump’s prime-time address on Thursday on their primary platforms. Now, Trump is calling for the networks that did not air his speech to have their licenses revoked, placing pressure on the media organizations.

International

The Trump administration announced it will shorten the duration of visas for foreign journalists from years to 240 days, cutting those for Chinese journalists down to only 90 days. The move prompted China to threaten retaliatory measures against the visas of U.S. journalists and raised serious concerns about press freedom.

Tech

A new bill proposed in California would require California State University and the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges to establish procurement standards for GenAI in line with state requirements. Under these requirements, GenAI tools would have to be evaluated to ensure they will not produce “harmful” or “illegal” content, vague definitions that are often based on subjective judgement. In their latest, Michael Hurley and John Coleman warn that the passage of the bill could leave those in higher education without the tools necessary for research and exploration.

In recent years, there has been a significant uptick in copyright infringement lawsuits against AI companies. Organizations like Universal Music Group and The New York Times filed massive lawsuits against companies like Anthropic and OpenAI alleging that training AI models on copyrighted lyrics and news articles constitutes theft. AI companies argued for the fair use of these materials to make a new expressive product. Both sides believe that the future of free expression is on their side. Join Tyler Tone for a deep dive into the application of copyright to AI and what exactly its implications are for the First Amendment.

Culture

Podcasts

The Blessings of Liberty explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea,” hosted by bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen.

In this episode, leading originalism and executive power scholars Jed Shugerman and Ilan Wurman break down the historical arguments underlying two of the Court’s most consequential cases this term: Trump v. Barbara (the birthright citizenship case) and Trump v. Slaughter (the presidential removal power case).

Today in history with Sheridan Macy

The Indian government ordered the expulsion of three foreign correspondents after they refused to sign pledges committing them to abide by censorship rules the country had established as part of the state of emergency declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on June 25, 1975. The reporters were from London papers The Times and The Daily Telegraph, as well as Newsweek. Earlier in the month, Washington Post journalist Lewis Simons, who had been stationed in the country for three years, was expelled after the newspaper refused to recall him for publishing statements critical of India’s president. The newspaper was then not allowed to send another journalist or continue operating in India. Many of the foreign correspondents stationed in New Delhi were asked to sign the censorship pledges or face expulsion.

Over the course of the state of emergency, more than 200 Indian journalists were arrested and jailed, power was cut to major newspaper offices, and a chief censor was appointed with strict guidelines on what could be published. Many journalists and newspapers protested by publishing blank editorial columns. The Emergency was officially declared in response to threats to national security, including a recent war with Pakistan. However, it was more likely a move to preserve the power of the prime minister in the face of increasing opposition and corruption charges.

By the numbers

Who is trying to punish scholars for their speech?

Drawing upon data from our Scholars Under Fire database, we found some notable trends. The first is that sanction attempts are more likely to come from the right of the scholar’s expression than from the left.

The second is that sanction attempts from the right are more likely to involve off-campus actors, while attempts from the left are more likely to involve on-campus actors.

Almost half of the sanction attempts initiated from the right of the scholar’s expression involve public officials, and about three-quarters involve public officials, activists, and/or members of the general public. On the other hand, 61% of the attempts initiated from the left of the scholar’s expression involve students, and 89% involve students and/or faculty.

“We are going to court to defend our journalists’ rights to report freely on the administration and to provide the public with stories that matter.”

— David McCraw, senior vice president of The New York Times on filing a motion to quash subpoenas served on journalists over Air Force One coverage.

America is failing its own free speech standards

Federal agents showed up at a New York man’s home over an email telling former ICE head Todd Lyons his conscience will haunt him forever. That’s the sort of government response Americans usually criticize abroad, not something we should normalize here.

“Even children sitting in their first American civics class could tell you that freedom is most adequately defined by what we are free from,” writes for The Next Move. “It’s time our leaders relearned that lesson.”

Colleges pay fat settlements over Kirk firings

Public colleges and other government employers that punished faculty and staff for protected speech about Charlie Kirk’s assassination are now writing checks worth hundreds of thousands, and in some cases millions, of dollars. It’s a costly reminder that government officials don’t get to suspend constitutional rights without paying the price.

“Just as the First Amendment protects those who praise Kirk’s work and legacy,” writes , “it also protects those who criticize the man. A cancel-culture cycle in the wake of a tragedy is nothing new. But censoring speech only scares people from voicing their opinions.”

Below the fold

• Michigan State University’s new ethics policy tells trustees to keep disagreements behind closed doors once the board votes. That’s tidy for administrators, but not so much for journalists, who just lost some of their best sources. tells the story and explains why the policy raises serious transparency and First Amendment concerns.

• The New York Times wants a federal court to quash grand jury subpoenas served on reporters for their coverage of security concerns over President Trump’s Qatari-donated aircraft. The paper says the subpoenas strike at the heart of press freedom by threatening journalists’ ability to gather news and protect sources. The case could become a major test of federal protections for reporters.

International

Germany is considering legislation that would make publicly denying Israel’s right to exist a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Whether one agrees with the sentiment or not, it’s another reminder of how dramatically European speech laws diverge from the First Amendment’s much broader protections.

A newly disclosed Canadian government memo reveals officials are developing a national strategy to combat misinformation. Exactly what that entails remains anyone’s guess, thanks to heavily redacted sections discussing possible legal action. That uncertainty alone is enough to raise concerns about government pressure on platforms — or worse, penalties for protected speech dressed up as anti-misinformation efforts.

In her latest Free Speech Dispatch, Sarah McLaughlin tells how the global crusade to ban teens from social media is advancing across Europe, Hong Kong arrested five booksellers on sedition charges, Germany brought new criminal charges against author , JK Rowling is suing Amnesty UK, and SpongeBob SquarePants has run afoul of Russia’s LGBT ban.

Tech

In the latest in our ongoing series on AI and free speech, asks a deceptively simple question: Should you have to flash your ID before asking a chatbot a question? He argues that age-gating can quickly morph into full-blown ID checks, requiring selfies, biometric scans, government IDs, or other personal data just to access lawful information. The result, Coleman warns, could be a “papers, please” internet where people think twice before researching sensitive topics, exploring controversial ideas, or even asking awkward questions — because nothing encourages free inquiry quite like having to upload your driver’s license first.

Government

Culture

Podcasts

So to Speak takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define it, hosted by FIRE’s .

In this episode, Nico sits down with University of Chicago professor Ada Palmer to explore the history of censorship from the Renaissance to the present day. They discuss what motivates censorship, why it evolves alongside new communication technologies, how effective it has been throughout history, and what historical patterns can teach us about today’s free speech debates.

The Blessings of Liberty explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea,” hosted by bestselling author and constitutional scholar .

In this episode, New York Times journalist joins to discuss his new book, The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People’s Constitution. This biography tells the story of James Wilson, a Founding Father whose bold vision shaped American democracy, but whose legacy was lost to scandal.

Today in history with

On July 14, 1798, President John Adams signed the Sedition Act into law as part of the Alien and Sedition Acts, a package of laws that lengthened the naturalization process, expanded the president’s authority to detain and deport noncitizens, and restricted political speech. The Sedition Act made it a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the federal government, Congress, or the president. In practice, the law was used to silence critics of the Adams administration. Newspaper editors, publishers, and political opponents affiliated with Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republican Party were among those prosecuted.

One of the Act’s earliest targets was Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin and editor of the Philadelphia Aurora. In September 1798, Bache was arrested on charges of seditious libel after accusing Adams of nepotism and mocking him as “the blind, bald, crippled, toothless, querulous Adams.” He was released on bail but died of yellow fever before his trial. The law — which expired on the final day of Adams’s presidency in 1801, after Congress declined to renew it — also reached ordinary citizens. Luther Baldwin was convicted and fined $100 after, upon hearing a cannon salute during a parade attended by Adams in Newark, New Jersey, he remarked, “I hope it hit Adams in the backside.”

By the numbers

While censorship efforts from the left and the right occur with similar frequency, writes Sean Stevens, they take fundamentally different forms.

Efforts from the left typically originate on campus and are usually led by students, while efforts from the right typically originate off campus and are usually led by activist groups, public officials, or wealthy donors. Efforts from the left tend to use op-eds, social media, and online petitions to get their message across while efforts from the right threaten budgets, launch investigations, and demand resignations.

Another major difference is that efforts from the left tend to be more successful — about 50% succeed, compared to only about 40% from the right.

“It’s satire and free speech.”

—Jonathan Rinaldi, New York City Council candidate, after being charged with forgery over AI-generated fake endorsements and news reports.

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FIRE sues DHS

FIRE is suing the Department of Homeland Security after agents tracked down New York resident David Streever for emailing then-ICE head Todd Lyons that his conscience would haunt him forever. Five months later, while Streever was overseas with his 7-year-old daughter, agents visited his home, then attempted to locate him at a New York hotel after he returned.

“If someone is really threatening a government official, you don’t wait five months to act on it,” said FIRE Senior Attorney . “The fact that authorities didn’t respond immediately shows that David presented no threat. This pursuit is designed to intimidate lawful speech, pure and simple.”

Court blocks Florida’s Stop WOKE Act

Following a lawsuit by FIRE, a federal appeals court ruled that Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” — a broad ban on what faculty at public universities can say in the classroom — violates the First Amendment rights of Florida university faculty and students.

“Today’s important decision means that college remains a place where professors and students are allowed to debate controversial topics,” says FIRE senior attorney Greg Greubel, “even if politicians disagree with them.”

Below the fold

• For nearly 40 years, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier has given public school officials broad authority to censor student speech. In her latest, argues it’s time for the Supreme Court to revisit the decision before things get worse.

• From Kentucky to Taiwan, governments are using AI-powered civic forums to broaden public participation by helping officials make sense of thousands of citizen voices. explains how AI can improve democracy.

Signal and noise

This week, argues that new laws regulating AI in hiring, health care, and other high-stakes decisions target the wrong thing. Although AI use in these areas can produce biased or unfair outcomes, instead of punishing discriminatory or negligent decisions, lawmakers are burdening AI itself with disclosure and design mandates that violate the First Amendment. The result is a provocative challenge to one of today’s biggest policy debates: Should the government regulate bad outcomes — or the tools people use to reach them?

Blessings of Liberty

Bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen’s new podcast, The Blessings of Liberty, explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea.”

In this episode, former president of FIRE explores evolving threats to free speech, the rise of Christian nationalism, the importance of religious liberty, and the thorny legal issues posed by AI and social media.

Jeffrey Rosen

Free Speech and Religious Liberty with David French

SHOW NOTES: In this episode of The Blessings of Liberty, former president of FIRE David French explores evolving threats to free speech, the rise of Christian nationalism, the importance of religious liberty, and the thorny legal issues posed by AI and social media…

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2 months ago · 23 likes · 1 comment · Jeffrey Rosen

Today in history with

On July 9, 1868, Georgia ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, becoming the final state whose approval enabled the amendment’s certification later that month. Congress had required the former Confederate states to ratify the amendment as a condition of regaining representation.

The Fourteenth Amendment transformed the Constitution by guaranteeing citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people. It also prohibits states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law and requires states to provide equal protection of the laws to everyone within their jurisdiction. Through a series of Supreme Court decisions, the amendment’s Due Process Clause became the primary basis for the incorporation doctrine, which made most of the protections in the Bill of Rights — including the First Amendment — applicable to state and local governments.

In the feed by

On June 30, the Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants and visitors. In dissent, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch cited an article by University of Minnesota law professor Ilan Wurman arguing the contrary. Fordham law professor John Pfaff, who agrees with the Court’s decision, then posted on Bluesky:

But Wurman did what constitutional scholars are supposed to do: interpret the Constitution. Pfaff’s initial call to punish Wurman would chill that process. As Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in the Court’s seminal opinion on academic freedom, Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957), such inquiry “must be left as unfettered as possible.” Consider also that four Supreme Court justices have endorsed some version of Wurman’s claim.

Pfaff later deleted the post and softened his rhetoric, adding that he still stands by his position and believes the “fictitious” marketplace of ideas is not enough, but that scholars like Wurman should face punishment, just “generally” not institutional punishment. That’s not walking it back far enough. As ever, the best way to counter scholarship is with better scholarship.

By the numbers

Among liberals and moderates, there’s very little relationship between economic class and tolerance. But among conservative students, the poorer you are, the more tolerant you’re likely to be. The effect holds for both men and women, and it’s no small effect: at roughly 10 percentage points in both dimensions, the gap between rich and poor conservatives almost rivals the gender gap. Indeed, among men, poor conservatives are nearly as tolerant of left-wing speakers as liberals of all classes.

“We’re proud to join the revolutionary struggle that is core to our country’s founding and all humanity’s dignity. It remains revolutionary two and a half centuries later, and will undoubtedly stay revolutionary forever.”

— , “250 years later, free speech is still revolutionary”

KIDS Act will let Washington dictate how we talk online

Its supporters say the KIDS Act is about protecting children online, but and argue it would actually hand the government sweeping new power over how Americans communicate — reshaping social media, chatbots, and other online platforms in ways that violate the First Amendment and threaten free speech.

Child safety is an important goal. But it can never become a license for the government to dictate how Americans speak, read, and communicate online.

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How a Leninist principle is reshaping faculty politics

Educational institutions are increasingly adopting so-called One Voice policies that require governing board members to publicly support board decisions — and sometimes prohibit them from criticizing the board, speaking to the press, or even posting independently on social media.

Drawing on examples from across the country and several ongoing lawsuits, makes the case that institutions dedicated to teaching civic values should encourage dissent, not silence it. Besides, he adds, “Suppressing dissent over critical decisions doesn’t make the dissenters go away — it makes them madder and more determined.”

Below the fold

• German lawmakers want to narrow a law that protects politicians from insults, journalists say they were removed from a U.S. Embassy Fourth of July event in Brussels after questioning Ambassador Bill White, and Canada has a new hate crime law. For this and more, see ’s latest Free Speech Dispatch.

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, FIRE is proud to present the limited series “Figures of Speech,” looking at the heroes and villains of free speech in American history. We began with Joseph McCarthy, the senator who scared America silent. Then we looked at Thomas Paine, American history’s winter soldier, and Woodrow Wilson, our worst president for free speech. Today we turn to Frederick Douglass, whose legacy represents the very best of what it means to be American.

In 1860, Frederick Douglass watched a violent pro-slavery mob storm the stage at the Tremont Temple Baptist Church in Boston before he could even begin speaking. Abraham Lincoln had just been elected to the presidency the month before on the promise to halt slavery’s expansion westward. In response, rumors spread from below the Mason-Dixon that South Carolina was convening to discuss secession. Other states were making similar calls to delegates. War was looming. The nation was a powder keg. Continue reading...

Terms of service

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we create, communicate, and access information — and lawmakers are rushing to control it. So what role should a free speech organization play in all this? Tyler Tone takes readers inside FIRE’s growing work on AI, from state legislatures and federal courts to research and grantmaking.

Also, Anthropic dropped its latest model yesterday — Fable 5 — which it had previously released before pulling it off the shelves, so to speak, in order to make some adjustments to please the federal government. Not good, folks:

In the frame

Citizen Vigilante is a thriller directed by Uwe Boll and starring blacklisted actor Armie Hammer as an American living in Europe who takes justice into his own hands and embarks on a campaign of extrajudicial violence against corrupt officials, violent youth, and a Muslim rape gang — as well as one of the rapist’s entire family. Critics have called the film xenophobic, while Boll says it’s a critique of government failures and actual crimes, rather than an attack on migrants as a whole. Germany’s film ratings board (FSK) refused to classify the movie, saying it could incite violence against migrants, which means the film cannot be widely screened or advertised in Germany, and is effectively banned. Elon Musk posted the entire film on X for 48 hours, turning a niche release into an international debate over censorship. Boll says he’s suing the FSK, calling their decision “against the constitution.”

So to Speak

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your right to free speech. Hosted by FIRE’s Nico Perrino.

Book bans may dominate today’s headlines, but the fight over what belongs on school library shelves is nothing new. In this episode, Anthony Aycock, author of Just Plain Filthy, revisits Island Trees School District v. Pico — the Supreme Court’s only school library book-removal case—and explains how a decades-old dispute continues to shape today’s battles over free speech and censorship.

Blessings of Liberty

Bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen’s new podcast, The Blessings of Liberty, explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea.”

In this special episode of The Blessings of Liberty, a celebration of America’s 250^th anniversary, award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns walks through the Declaration of Independence, clause by clause, to encapsulate the big ideas at the heart of the American story. Jeffrey Rosen, senior fellow at FIRE and CEO Emeritus of the National Constitution Center, moderates.

Jeffrey Rosen

Fourth of July Special: Ken Burns on America’s 250th

SHOW NOTES: In this special episode of The Blessings of Liberty, a celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns walks through the Declaration of Independence, clause by clause, to encapsulate the big ideas at the heart of the American story…

Listen now

2 months ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Jeffrey Rosen and Ken Burns UNUM

This week in history with

As fears of war with France mounted in the summer of 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, a series of laws that dramatically expanded federal power in the name of national security. Supporters in President John Adams’ administration argued the country needed stronger national security and tighter control over “dangerous” speech. But one part of the law, the Sedition Act, went much further.

The law made it a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing” against the government or the president. In practice, that meant journalists, newspaper editors, and political critics could be fined or jailed for speaking out against those in power.

The impact on free speech was immediate and chilling. Several newspaper editors were prosecuted, and political criticism of the federal government became risky at a moment when public debate was still shaping what the young republic would become.

Opponents, including Thomas Jefferson, argued the laws violated the First Amendment and turned political disagreement into a punishable offense. The controversy helped fuel one of the nation’s earliest debates over whether the government itself could decide what counted as “acceptable” speech. Even after the laws expired or were repealed, the episode became a lasting example of how quickly free expression can come under pressure in moments of political fear.

This month in history with

Can the government punish people for organizing a boycott? On July 2, 1982, the Supreme Court answered with a resounding no. In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., the Court held that a civil rights boycott of white-owned businesses in Mississippi was protected by the First Amendment. Even though some participants had engaged in threats or intimidation, the Court ruled that those actions did not erase the constitutional protection for the boycott itself. The decision cemented peaceful political boycotts as one of the First Amendment’s most powerful forms of collective expression.

By the numbers

In this week’s data dive, dives into one of the stranger corners of FIRE’s campus free speech survey: the students who skipped conventional religious labels in favor of answers like “Disciple of Cthulhu,” “Pastafarian,” and “Baseball Gods.” With tongue firmly in cheek, he explores whether these unconventional respondents differed in their willingness to allow controversial speakers on campus, uncovering some surprisingly suggestive patterns about tolerance, thoughtfulness, and the kinds of people who take the time to give unconventional answers, ultimately answering the question, “how tolerant are disciples of Cthulhu?”

FIREwire is a roundup of the free speech stories shaping the news — including curated essays, podcasts, history, and data — delivered weekly.

“Nothing could be less compatible with the Communications Act and the First Amendment limits embedded therein than the spectacle of an FCC chairman, at the president’s behest, calling out particular news reports and specific reporters and threatening regulatory repercussions, including license revocation.”

— Robert Corn-Revere on the FCC’s campaign against ABC.

ABC campaigns against FCC probe

ABC’s The View became the week’s most significant media free speech story by transforming its FCC investigation into an on-air First Amendment campaign. The show aired ads featuring Barbara Walters encouraging viewers to “use your voice” and submit comments opposing the FCC inquiry, making the regulatory dispute itself part of the program’s editorial content and prompting widespread debate over government oversight of broadcast journalism.

Supreme Court considers age-gating case

The Supreme Court is deciding whether to reinstate a pause on Texas’ App Store Accountability Act while a constitutional challenge to the act is litigated. The law requires parental consent and age verification before minors can download apps, potentially redefining how First Amendment protections apply to children in the digital era.

Below the fold

• Algeria’s media regulator is warning outlets to blunt their criticism of the country’s World Cup team after its 3-0 defeat at the hands of Lionel Messi and Argentina “and to prioritise institutional support for the national team.”

• Japan’s ruling party is pushing a bill criminalizing “publicly damaging, removing, or defacing” Japan’s flag in a “way or situation that evokes significant discomfort or disgust in people.”

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, FIRE is proud to present the limited series “Figures of Speech,” looking at the heroes and villains of free speech in American history. We began with Joseph McCarthy, the senator who scared America silent. Then we looked at Thomas Paine, American history’s winter soldier, and Woodrow Wilson, our worst president for free speech. Today we turn to Ida B. Wells, a journalist, activist, civil rights icon, and free speech hero.

In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. received a suspicious package. Inside was an audio recording and a letter denouncing him as “a complete fraud and a great Liability to all of us Negroes.” The letter accused King of “countless acts of adultery and immoral conduct lower than that of a beast,” before ending with a chilling message: “King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days.”

The package had not come from a disillusioned admirer. It came from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. King suspected as much and understood the ultimatum as an invitation to kill himself before his private life was exposed.

The episode was part of the FBI’s broader campaign of surveillance and harassment against King, which included wiretapping his home and offices and planting hidden microphones in his hotel rooms. Whether the bureau hoped King would take his own life or merely withdraw from public life, it was attempting to silence the nation’s leading voice for racial equality.

This was J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Continue reading...

Terms of service

Artificial intelligence is far from an authorless machine, argues in his latest essay, “How does the First Amendment apply to AI?,” but rather a long chain of human editorial and creative decisions — from selecting training data to writing system prompts — and it therefore deserves First Amendment protection as expressive speech.

Far from a simple probabilistic machine, AI models are the direct result of human judgments about what information they should absorb, what values they should prioritize, what tone they should adopt, and what kinds of answers they should avoid.

In 1845, abolitionist Cassius Clay founded an anti-slavery newspaper in Lexington, Kentucky, just one block from one of the nation’s largest slave markets. Clay knew it would make him a target. But as threats mounted, he didn’t back down. Instead, he turned his newsroom into a fortress, defending the freedom of the press and keeping the fight against slavery alive by any means necessary. As writes, that included “two brass cannons, iron-barred windows, and an arsenal of Mexican lances and pikes.” Read his incredible story here.

In the frame

The Secret Service has reportedly contacted shock-metal band Gwar over its latest stage show, in which performers theatrically disembowel a fake President Donald Trump. But as carefully explains, this is a decades-old satirical routine the band has previously inflicted on figures ranging from Barack Obama and Joe Biden to Queen Elizabeth and Elon Musk.

“Mock executions may be crude, offensive, or disturbing,” Eduardo writes, “but they are hardly new. Americans have used symbolic depictions of violence against political figures for centuries to express dissent.”

Where there’s smoke…

ICE agents tracked down Syracuse resident Paigelynne Gonyea on Tuesday, reportedly warning that her Instagram post identifying the ICE agent who shot and killed protester Renee Good might lead to “federal or state prosecution.” The information about the ICE agent had already been widely reported in news outlets, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune, before Paigelynne’s post. Here’s :

A free America doesn’t dispatch federal law enforcement agents to intimidate someone for an Instagram post of publicly available information. Free speech is the bedrock of a free society, and the First Amendment squarely prohibits ICE agents from intimidating Americans for nothing more than repeating information from a newspaper report. As we approach the 250th anniversary of our independence from England, where police now hassle residents over social media posts, let’s not follow their lead.

You can see FIRE’s original statement here.

So to Speak

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your right to free speech. Hosted by FIRE’s .

What happens when someone uses satire to test the limits of religious freedom? In this episode, activist explains how his provocative campaigns — from founding the satirical Church of Satanology to challenging government displays of religion — have forced courts and public officials to confront difficult First Amendment questions about free speech, religious equality, and whether the Constitution protects unpopular beliefs as vigorously as popular ones.

Blessings of Liberty

Bestselling author and constitutional scholar ’s new podcast, The Blessings of Liberty, explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea.”

In this episode, award-winning historian joins to discuss his new book, American Patriarch: The Life of George Washington. From his early military career to his leadership during the American Revolution and reluctant return to public service as the first president of the United States, American Patriarch brings to life the man who was called to lead time and again by his peers.

This week in history with

On June 29, 1927, as public outrage and state censorship laws mounted, Hollywood’s major studios took a decisive step toward self-censorship by adopting a list of “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls” that would become the foundation of the Hays Code.

The film industry faced growing pressure from reformers and state legislatures to curb what many considered morally objectionable content. With states adopting inconsistent censorship laws, studios hoped voluntary self-regulation would stave off government intervention and create a single national standard. At the urging of Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), a committee drafted the guidelines, informally dubbed the industry’s “Magna Charta.” Three years later, they were incorporated into the Motion Picture Production Code, better known as the Hays Code.

The “Don’ts” flatly prohibited depictions of profanity, nudity, illegal drug use, and what the code called “sex perversion,” among other subjects. The “Be Carefuls” instructed filmmakers to treat topics such as religion, marriage, crime, firearms, the American flag, sedition, and international relations with restraint and “good taste.” Many great films ran afoul of the Hays Code, either by being heavily edited, denied approval until changed, or effectively banned from mainstream theatrical distribution. Some of the best-known examples include:

• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) – Elia Kazan’s adaptation of the 1947 play by Tennessee Williams, starring Marlon Brando, removed references to his character’s brother-in-law being gay, which is a central element of the play.

• Psycho (1960) – Alfred Hitchcock battled censors over the famous shower scene, toilet-flushing shot (the first in a major American film), and sexual content.

• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) – The film’s profanity and sexual themes forced negotiations with censors and marked one of the final blows to the Code.

By the mid-1960s, filmmakers increasingly ignored the Code, and audiences were becoming receptive to more mature subject matter. In 1968, the Hays Code was abandoned and replaced by the MPAA ratings system, which later evolved into G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 ratings. Still, the Hays Code may be gone, but the argument over who gets to edit culture is still playing to packed houses.

By the numbers

FIRE’s new survey of 1,959 law professors at 192 ABA-approved law schools finds that while legal academics overwhelmingly support free speech in principle, many don’t feel free to practice it. About 56% say they at least occasionally self-censor out of concern over how students, colleagues, or administrators might respond. The chilling effect is especially pronounced among conservatives: 72% report self-censoring compared with only 50% of liberals, and 52% say they have hidden their political beliefs to protect their jobs, versus just 17% of liberals.

This climate of silence doesn’t just affect faculty, but shapes what students learn, as professors admit that they avoid controversial topics, alter exams, and even self-censor while teaching First Amendment cases, ultimately modeling caution rather than intellectual courage for the next generation of lawyers and judges.

— Anthropic statement on the forced shutdown of AI models

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Governments are coming to regulate AI

For over a year, FIRE has been sounding the alarm that the federal and state governments are taking steps to regulate artificial intelligence in ways that will potentially violate the expressive rights of all Americans, even though FIRE polling shows a majority are more worried about government censorship. In addition to numerous bills under consideration in Congress, last week the Trump administration imposed export controls on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 artificial intelligence models, citing national security concerns. In response, Anthropic suspended access to these systems for all users, regardless of nationality or location. The government’s demand that Anthropic effectively shut down its models to comply with the export controls threatens core First Amendment rights.

Read FIRE’s statement on the Anthropic shutdown

New York wants warning labels on AI in the news

Meanwhile in state governments, a bill pending with the New York governor would require media and digital content providers to provide warning labels on AI-assisted news content — which is written broadly to include newspapers, magazines, journals, periodicals, websites, newsletters, television or cable, radio or podcasts, and internet or satellite — if the content was “substantially composed, authored, or otherwise created through the use of generative artificial intelligence.”

Known as the FAIR News Act, this bill would set a terrible precedent by placing extraordinary power in the hands of the New York attorney general, who would be given the authority to enforce it. That’s bad news for constitutionally protected speech.

What does AI have to do with the First Amendment?

We’re kicking off a series of essays answering your questions about free speech and AI. The introductory essay explores a bedrock reality at the center of the First Amendment’s relationship with AI: The technology is increasingly influencing the future of communication, information exchange, and knowledge creation.

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field once wrote, “The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows.” That matters here. If the substance of an AI regulation controls what ideas an expressive technology may be used to generate, transmit, suppress, or prioritize, the First Amendment interest cannot be overridden by framing AI as novel, technical, or as a mere ‘product.’ The medium may be novel. The constitutional problem is not.

The online ‘safety’ trap

Writing on his Substack newsletter The Eternally Radical Idea, FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff explores one of the more common justifications for regulating digital technology, from artificial intelligence to social media: It’s all in the name of safety. But as Greg correctly points out, all too often these “online safety” bills show how “protect the children” ultimately becomes “show me your papers.”

Everyone knows we must protect children, but that doesn’t mean governments should build a national identity-checking system for the internet, give governments a foot in the door for controlling artificial intelligence, or create broad new liabilities that pressure platforms to suppress lawful expression in the name of protecting minors.

Brits may soon say goodbye to an anonymous internet

Speaking of social media . . . writing for Yascha Mounk’s Persuasion this week, FIRE Senior Scholar for Global Expression Sarah McLaughlin analyzes the implications of England’s proposed social media ban for anyone under 16. The problem? These “under-16” policies will require all users to prove their age in order to post on social media. This raises significant privacy concerns. The process of age verification will cut away vital firewalls around users’ anonymity. The truth is that we don’t need to pit our speech rights against youth safety.

Below the fold

• Wisconsin school board backs away from ban on criticism during public comment: Residents do not need to agree with public officials to speak at a government meeting. That’s the message the St. Croix Central School Board in Hammond, Wisconsin, has now received loud and clear. After FIRE warned that the board’s public comment restrictions violated the First Amendment, the board confirmed it will not enforce them moving forward.

• Telegram challenges India block, saying it will hurt free speech rights: India’s temporary block on the Telegram messaging app to prevent exam ‌fraud undermines constitutional protections and the free speech rights of its users, and must be quashed, according to the company’s filing to a New Delhi court seen by Reuters.

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, FIRE is proud to present the limited series “Figures of Speech,” looking at the heroes and villains of free speech in American history. We began with Joseph McCarthy, the senator who scared America silent. Then we looked at Thomas Paine, American history’s winter soldier, and Woodrow Wilson, our worst president for free speech. Today we turn to Ida B. Wells, a journalist, activist, civil rights icon, and free speech hero.

In 1892, a mob destroyed a Memphis newspaper after it published an anti-lynching editorial. Through death threats and violence, they tried to erase journalist Ida B. Wells’s message. Instead, they made her fight impossible to ignore.

Born into slavery, Wells became one of the most powerful voices in American journalism. After the attack, she didn’t retreat. She helped launch the first sustained anti-lynching campaign in U.S. history and fought for women’s suffrage, even defying efforts to push black women to the back of the 1913 march in Washington, D.C.

Threats followed her everywhere, but she refused to be silenced. Continue reading...

PODCAST: Stress-testing the limits of the First Amendment

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your right to free speech. Hosted by FIRE’s Nico Perrino.

Debates over religious freedom have shaped American life for centuries. From Quakers facing persecution in colonial America to The Crucible to South Park, fights over religious expression have repeatedly tested the country’s commitment to free speech and religious liberty.

At the heart of these debates are a few difficult questions: Does the Constitution protect only popular beliefs, or all of them? If the government opens the door for one form of religious expression, does it have to allow every form? And if not, where does the Constitution draw the line?

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast

Ep. 275: Stress-testing the limits of the First Amendment w/ Chaz Stevens

Debates over religious freedom have shaped American life for centuries. From Quakers facing persecution in colonial America to The Crucible to South Park, fights over religious expression have repeatedly tested the country’s commitment to free speech and religious liberty…

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2 months ago · 4 likes · Nico Perrino and T. Chaz Stevens

By the numbers

Why do so many law professors believe one thing, but teach another?

Many think judges are politically biased, but tell their classes otherwise. In our recent Law Faculty Survey, we asked law professors whether they believe that judges are politically neutral or politically biased, and we ask them what they teach their students. Professors’ personal views are listed on the right, with what they say they teach on the bottom. Each row adds up to 100%, showing what professors with a given opinion teach:

Unsurprisingly, there’s a concentration on the main diagonal, corresponding to those who teach what they believe. But the deviations from the main diagonal are striking: among law professors who think the judges are mostly politically motivated, over a third say they tell their classes otherwise, usually that judges’ motivations are mixed. If we exclude those who just don’t talk about the issue, over 40% of professors who believe judges are politically motivated teach their students something else.

The code, data, and codebook used to generate the plot above can be found on Github.

“Plaintiffs may struggle to prove jawboning because the government has secretly communicated with the private companies it is coercing. Americans may not even know they were censored by their government.”

— Senate summary of the JAWBONE Act.

FIRE backs JAWBONE Act

Senators Ted Cruz and Ron Wyden have introduced the bipartisan JAWBONE Act, backed by FIRE, which would allow Americans to sue federal officials who pressure individuals and private entities to censor lawful speech, a practice known as “jawboning.”

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“Jawboning has proven to be an enduring, bipartisan problem, and we know we cannot rely on platforms alone to protect our rights,” explains. “The JAWBONE Act empowers Americans to take their rights into their own hands.”

Illinois adopts social media tax

Illinois’ new budget imposes a first-of-its-kind tax on social media platforms, raising serious First Amendment concerns and setting the stage for a legal challenge. In his latest, says the proposal uses a vague definition of social media, fails to clearly define key terms like “user,” singles out social media companies, and above all, is just plain unconstitutional.

We’re not surprised to see a proposal like this riddled with flaws. As states have attempted to turn around the losing streak social media regulation has faced in court, we’ve seen a number of half-baked schemes to find some kind of creative workaround . . . Fortunately for free speech, the courts aren’t impressed. An attempt to punish speech is an attempt to punish speech, any way it’s structured.

Diabetes society ejects researchers

The American Diabetes Association ejected several researchers from its annual conference for distributing copies of an editorial critical of President Trump that had been published in the ADA’s own journal. weighs in:

Allowing conference attendees to hand out copies of an editorial is not the same as the organization itself promoting the editorial or adopting it as an official position. If the ADA really believes distribution of the editorial endangered its tax-exempt status, it raises an obvious question: Why didn’t the same concern stop it from publishing the editorial in the first place?

U. of Alabama shutters student mags

The University of Alabama shut down two student magazines last December — the woman’s magazine Alice and the black magazine Nineteen Fifty-Six — citing a nonbinding memo from then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that warned against “unlawful proxies” for discrimination.

“Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are fundamental to our nation,” writes , “and there’s no place where these rights should be more valued and protected than on our college campuses.”

Below the fold

• Florida’s wildlife agency enacted a social media policy that prohibits its workers from criticizing their employer.

• Jane Fonda plans to host a New York concert this Sunday for free speech and democracy on the same day MMA fighters will have a cage match on the White House lawn to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday and America’s 250th anniversary.

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, FIRE is proud to present the limited series “Figures of Speech,” looking at the heroes and villains of free speech in American history. We began with Joseph McCarthy, the senator who scared America silent. Then we looked at Thomas Paine, American history’s winter soldier. Now we turn to Woodrow Wilson, America’s worst president for free speech.

Thousands of arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and even deportations for speech occurred under his stewardship and instruction. He had even successfully established the first modern propaganda institution in American history, which also controlled and stifled the dissemination of any speech counter to his preferred narratives. Wilson’s iron grip on American speech was short-lived, but devastating at a scale not seen before or arguably since. Continue reading…

Terms of service

The Free Speech App is a member-funded platform that aims to give everyday Americans a secure, anonymous way to share opinions, vote on issues, and influence policymakers without fear of social, professional, or political repercussions. The platform emphasizes verified membership, anonymity, no ads or data mining, and the goal of getting elected officials to pay more attention to the concerns of constituents, parents, and local communities.

In the frame

Speechless is a new documentary about the escalating battles over free speech and identity politics on university campuses. Directed by Ric Esther Bienstock and filmed over eight years, it follows professors, students, administrators, and activists across institutions such as Evergreen State College, Stanford, Harvard, Cornell, and New College of Florida as they navigate various controversies. The film argues that universities have become ground zero for broader cultural conflicts, showing how pressure from the political left helped provoke a powerful conservative backlash.

But rather than taking a simple partisan side, Bienstock explores how intolerance, censorship, and institutional failures can emerge across the ideological spectrum, ultimately asking whether universities can still serve as places for open inquiry and debate. And like any good documentary, it offers no easy answers.

So to Speak

So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast takes an uncensored look at the world of free expression through the law, philosophy, and stories that define your right to free speech. Hosted by FIRE’s Nico Perrino.

In this episode, Rainey Reitman joins the show to discuss what happens when people are denied access to financial services because of their lawful speech. Reitman is the author of Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech, which looks at how financial companies like Visa, Chase, and PayPal police silence speakers.

Blessings of Liberty

Bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen’s new podcast, The Blessings of Liberty, explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, and the “American Idea.”

In this episode, Stephen Breyer, retired associate justice of the Supreme Court, joins to discuss our republic’s founding principles, the First Amendment, and the pursuit of happiness. He also provides a preview of his upcoming memoir and his foreword for the NCC’s new volume, The Promise of America: Reflections on Our Enduring Ideals.

Jeffrey Rosen

A Conversation with Justice Breyer

SHOW NOTES: In this episode of The Blessings of Liberty, Justice Stephen Breyer, retired associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, joins to discuss our republic’s Founding principles, the First Amendment, and the Pursuit of Happiness. He also gives us a preview of his upcoming memoir and his foreword for the NCC’s new volume…

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2 months ago · 8 likes · 1 comment · Jeffrey Rosen

This week in history

On June 15, 1215, following a rebellion against his abuses of power, King John of England was forced by a group of nobles to accept the Magna Carta. This landmark document said that no one — not even the king — is above the law. Clause 61 authorized a committee of 25 barons to seize the king’s castles and lands if he violated the charter. Imagine if our Constitution explicitly gave Congress the right to seize Mar-a-Lago if President Trump ignored the law.

The Magna Carta also said no free man could be imprisoned, stripped of rights, or punished except “by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land.” That one line helped inspire the concept of due process and echoes through the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, remaining one of the most influential legal ideas ever written. The general principles established in the Magna Carta later influenced the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Bill of Rights.

Its recognition that nobles could assemble and present grievances to the king foreshadowed the rights of peaceful assembly and petition that would later be protected by the First Amendment. In 2007, financier David Rubenstein bought a rare 1297 copy of the Magna Carta at a Sotheby’s auction for $21.3 million. He then loaned it to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

By the numbers

Law professors earlier in their careers are more likely to keep certain opinions to themselves. As seniority and job security increase, self-censorship declines. But one group breaks the pattern. Adjuncts and lecturers report less self-censorship than any rank of tenure-track faculty. They’re also more comfortable discussing controversial topics and less worried about reputational harm from being misunderstood than even chaired and distinguished professors. This week, dives into the data and comes back up with a surprising explanation.

“Free speech is tested by hard cases and, in this instance, the UK is failing.”

— Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship, on the UK banning Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker from the country over fears of antisemitism.

Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker banned from UK

Britain banned Cenk Uygur, founder and host of “The Young Turks,” as well as his nephew, Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, from entering the country to appear at events in London and Oxford, citing concerns that their visit could fuel antisemitism. But as Angel Eduardo explains:

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The banning of scheduled speakers from entering your country also betrays an unwillingness or inability to engage with ideas and arguments on their merits. Barring their entry and thinking you’ve shut them down is like having your opponent killed in the locker room before a boxing match and declaring yourself the champion. This, particularly in the land that gave us John Stuart Mill, is pretty shameful behavior. And of course, preventing Uygur and Piker from entering will only increase the energy and attention surrounding their commentary . . . Keeping them from speaking on your shores isn’t going to silence them at all. It’s just going to give them even more to talk about.

Senator calls cops over Shrek dick pic

Ohio state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a powerful Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, personally asked his local police chief to file criminal charges against progressive blogger D.J. Byrnes for texting him political commentary, insults including the nickname “Young Mussolini,” and a picture of Shrek’s dick.

All this led to an investigation that largely consisted of reviewing Byrnes’ publication, The Rooster, and arresting him at the Ohio Statehouse. As Aaron Terr explains:

If all Byrnes did was send a handful of texts, this looks like protected speech. Remember, the First Amendment protects political critics even when they say harsh, crude, or offensive things about — or to — government officials, and harassment laws cannot be used as a backdoor way to punish someone when they offend you.

Below the fold

• President Trump’s proposal that federal employees sign nondisclosure agreements could discourage whistleblowers from speaking about what happens in federal agencies and make it harder for journalists to cover government abuse.

• Hong Kong police stopped artist Sanmu Chen from tying a symbolic red thread to a street signpost in the Causeway Bay shopping district in memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre. They also arrested seven others, including activist Chan Po-ying.

• A D.C. judge is allowing a local group to continue flying a banner that reads, “86 47,” rejecting the claim that it is a threat to Trump.

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, FIRE is proud to present the limited series “Figures of Speech,” looking at the heroes and villains of free speech in American history. We began with Joseph McCarthy, the senator who scared America silent. Then we looked at Thomas Paine, American history’s winter soldier. Now we turn to Frank Kameny, a leader of the early gay rights movement.

Born in 1925 and raised in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, Kameny was provided with a solid middle-class upbringing by his father, an immigrant from Poland, and his mother, a secretary from the Lower East Side. As a child, Kameny looked to the stars at night and settled on becoming an astronomer to uncover the secrets of the universe. His own secret would stymie those plans, but his response to adversity changed the course of history. Continue reading…

In the frame

As America approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, bestselling author and constitutional scholar Jeffrey Rosen is launching a new project aimed at deepening public engagement with the principles behind the American experiment. Rosen’s new podcast, The Blessings of Liberty, explores constitutional history, Supreme Court debates, the lives of the Founders, and the “American Idea.”

The show hopes to model the kind of civil dialogue that feels so rare in modern public life, and to begin, Rosen sat down with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch to discuss his career, his new book, and the state of America:

Jeffrey Rosen

Justice Gorsuch on The Blessings of Liberty

SHOW NOTES: In this inaugural episode of The Blessings of Liberty, Justice Neil Gorsuch of the U.S. Supreme Court joins to discuss the American Revolution, our Founding ideals, and the importance of civic education and civil dialogue. He also explores his recent bestselling children’s book…

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3 months ago · 23 likes · 5 comments · Jeffrey Rosen

This week in history

On June 1, 1927, the Minneapolis tabloid the Saturday Press went to war with City Hall. According to editor Jay Near, gangsters, bootleggers, corrupt officials, and a Jewish mob were running the city from the shadows while public officials looked the other way. The paper quickly earned loyal readers and powerful enemies. Those enemies found a weapon in Minnesota’s 1925 Public Nuisance Law, the “Minnesota Gag Law,” which allowed judges to shut down any publication deemed “malicious, scandalous, and defamatory.” A local judge ordered the paper silenced and the case climbed all the way to the Supreme Court where, by a 5–4 vote, the Court disagreed.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes said the power to stop publication in advance was “the essence of censorship.” The First Amendment, he explained, was designed precisely to prevent such prior restraints. If a newspaper committed libel or defamation, that could be punished afterward through the courts. But the government could not slap a padlock on the printing press before the ink hit the page. The decision became a cornerstone of American press freedom. Four decades later, it protected the publication of the Pentagon Papers and helped shape modern First Amendment law.

By the numbers

Our latest data shows conservatives self-censor far more than other students. Also, the biggest source of pressure isn’t professors but fellow students. And the place students feel least free to express themselves may not be where you think. They’re on social media, when publicly disagreeing with a professor, and in class discussions.

“I have the right to speak out, make a sign, and peacefully join a protest without fear of punishment or retribution or worse. I have learned that this fragile thing called ‘democracy’ needs to be protected, that the brilliance of our Constitution begins with the words, ‘We the people.’ I believe in the resilience of our Constitution and I believe in the goodness and strength of the people.”

— actress Sally Field on 60 Minutes in a plea to protect the First Amendment.

California drops probe into student paper

After Redwood High’s student paper The Bark published a front-page image of an anti-Zionism protest banner, administrators launched an “investigation,” ordered content removed, and then denied doing any of it after FIRE stepped in and pointed out the obvious legal problems.

That wasn’t the only incident either. Administrators also told students to alter reporting about the Epstein files after receiving a single email threatening legal action. As , FIRE student press counsel, explains:

The student journalists at The Bark deserve better. When a school receives a complaint about speech, the correct approach is to conduct a preliminary, internal review rather than sending an ominous email announcing an investigation. That would allow the district to handle complaints and offer support without chilling speech.

Below the fold

• A Belgian activist and former member of parliament was convicted for a second time on hate speech charges related to his criticism of mass migration, even though the court acknowledged he based his comments on scientific evidence and statistics and did not spread any false information.

• Romanian prosecutors added charges against influencer Andrew Tate, saying that he incited hatred against women by making sexist posts on social media.

• FIFA, the global governing body for association football, has once again banned the pre-revolution Iranian flag from stadiums, as demanded by Iran.

• A former Ball State administrator will receive $225,000 after suing the university for firing her over a private Facebook post she made criticizing Charlie Kirk in the wake of his murder. Similar cases have recently resulted in settlements of $485,000 in Florida and $500,000 in Tennessee, with more pending.

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, FIRE is proud to present the limited series “Figures of Speech,” looking at the heroes and villains of free speech in American history. We began with Joseph McCarthy, the senator who scared America silent. Then we looked at Thomas Paine, American history’s winter soldier. Now we turn to Anthony Comstock, the postal inspector who became our censor-in-chief.

In the spring of 1873, the U.S. postal inspector, a prudish Christian named Anthony Comstock, arrived in Washington carrying a box of dildos. There were also dirty books, naughty pictures, French playing cards, abortion pamphlets, “intermediate tegumentary coverings” (condoms), and enough sexually explicit material to scandalize Congress into legislating the Devil out of Americans. Continue reading…

New FIRE study

Faculty political campaign contributions skew left, according to a new FIRE-commissioned study by University of Rochester professor David Primo. The study found that politically active faculty at 55 major universities are overwhelmingly concentrated within a narrow ideological range, with the average faculty donor scoring only slightly less left-leaning than Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Humanities and fine arts faculty showed the least ideological diversity, while business and agriculture showed the most, though both still leaned left overall. The findings align with previous FIRE surveys showing conservatives feel less welcome in academia and are more likely to self-censor now than at the height of McCarthyism.

Here’s , FIRE’s campus advocacy chief of staff:

The lack of viewpoint diversity in academia is a crisis, but the cure can’t be worse than the disease. Heavy-handed measures like ideological tests or hiring quotas for conservatives would just replace one form of forced conformity with another. Instead, universities should recommit to creating a culture that makes room for students and faculty to challenge ideas from the left, right, and center.

Terms of service

Meta blocked at least seven dissident accounts inside Saudi Arabia, The Guardian reports, while Saudi authorities sought restrictions on 144 Instagram and Facebook items in April. Snapchat also reportedly slowed or removed access to some accounts without notifying users, while X said it had received Saudi requests but had not acted.

In the frame

CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a video of actress Sally Field making an appeal to protect the First Amendment. In “The Last Minute,” Fields delivers a short civic essay on speech, protest, press freedom, and democratic resilience.

This week in history

On May 30, 1967, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez published One Hundred Years of Solitude, the landmark novel that helped define the genre of magical realism. Widely considered one of the most influential works of the 20th century, the book has also faced repeated censorship efforts over the years. During the 1980s and 1990s, the novel was frequently challenged in schools because of its sexual content and coarse language. In 1986, Wasco Union High School in California removed the book from its reading list, prompting English teacher Lee McCarthy to file suit. A California Court of Appeals later ruled in McCarthy v. Fletcher that the school board could not ban the book on religious grounds. The vice president of the high school, Gerald Johnson, had recommended the book’s removal because it was “negative ... to the Catholic religion.”

Ironically, García Márquez actually met Pope John Paul II in 1979, shortly after he was announced as pope, and the two men hit it off famously. In fact, they ended up sharing stories as the pope enthusiastically patted García Márquez’s arm to emphasize his points, and García Márquez became so engrossed in the conversation that before he knew it they had run out of time.

FIRE Update

Yesterday, FIRE litigators were in California for our lawsuit challenging the provisions the Trump administration is using to deport people — who are legally in the United States — because the government doesn’t like what they have to say. Nobody should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion.

FIRE attorney Conor Fitzpatrick explained that in a free country, you shouldn’t have to show your papers to voice your opinion. Free speech isn’t a privilege the government hands out, and it can’t be taken away by any government official — of any party. We’ll keep you posted as the case progresses. Continue for the full Update…

By the numbers

The government cannot use private tech platforms as proxies to censor lawful speech online, a practice known as jawboning, and Americans across the political spectrum increasingly distrust any system where the government does so. FIRE’s latest National Speech Index finds that 75% of Americans say they are at least somewhat concerned about the government pressuring tech companies to suppress certain viewpoints. Simply put, Americans don’t trust the government to regulate social media.

— Larry Bushart after winning an $835,000 settlement over his Facebook-post arrest.

Larry Bushart, jailed over Facebook meme, wins $835,000 settlement

Tennessee officials must pay $835,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by retired police officer Larry Bushart, who was jailed for 37 days over a Facebook post he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

“It’s in times of turmoil and heightened tensions that our national commitment to free speech is tested the most,” said Cary Davis, an attorney for FIRE, which helped represent Bushart. “When government officials fail that test, the Constitution exists to hold them accountable. Our hope is that Larry’s settlement sends a message to law enforcement across the country: Respect the First Amendment today, or be prepared to pay the price tomorrow.”

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Below the fold

• After administrators at Cape Fear Community College censored a modern staging of the ancient Greek play The Bacchae, one theater student and former Marine found himself fighting for free speech.

• Clemson fired two professors and one staff member over social media posts about Charlie Kirk’s assassination, then two faculty risked their own careers to challenge the growing culture of censorship on campus — winning FIRE’s Berkson Award in the process.

• A Nevada high school allegedly praised students for protesting ICE one day, then expelled another student for posting pro-ICE stickers the next, comparing the stickers to a burning cross and prompting a federal lawsuit.

Figures of speech

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, FIRE is proud to present the limited series “Figures of Speech,” looking at the heroes and villains of free speech in American history. This week, we present Thomas Paine — American history’s winter soldier:

On June 8, 1809, 72-year-old Thomas Paine took his last breath inside a small house in Greenwich Village. The next day the pamphleteer and revolutionary’s body was loaded onto a cart and taken to his farm in New Rochelle, about 22 miles north of New York City, for burial. There was no procession, no national moment of silence, no celebration of a life fully lived. Only six people attended his funeral, including his caretaker, Madame Marguerite Bonneville, a friend from his many years in Revolutionary France, and her son, Benjamin. Continue reading…

In the frame

The Big Sea became the week’s standout free-speech media story when this award-winning documentary about pollution, surfing, and Louisiana’s Cancer Alley allegedly had its public screening shut down by parish leadership, turning an environmental film into a censorship fight. St. John the Baptist Parish President Jaclyn Hotard allegedly “vetoed” a public-theater screening of the film, which ties neoprene production to pollution in Reserve, Louisiana. Organizers say no explanation was given 16 weeks later, while a Tulane First Amendment Clinic professor called the cancellation “very clearly a First Amendment violation.”

‘Spirit of Liberty’

On May 21, 1944, Judge Learned Hand delivered a speech in New York City that famously defined the spirit of liberty as “the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.” Read the full speech on FIRE’s website.

This week in history

On May 22, 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Playboy Entertainment Group that a federal law requiring cable operators to “fully scramble” sexually explicit channels or restrict them to late-night hours violated the First Amendment.

Playboy entertainment challenged the constitutionality of the law, which was intended to prevent children from accidentally viewing adult content. The Supreme Court held that the law, Section 505 of the Communications Decency Act, did not satisfy strict scrutiny because it was not narrowly tailored and because less restrictive alternatives — such as targeted channel blocking at a subscriber’s request — were available to achieve the government’s goal.

By the numbers

We’ve seen before that students who frequently attend religious services as well as students who are studying religion are unusually tolerant of controversial speakers, meaning they are willing to let them speak on campus. This raises a few questions. Are religious people more tolerant? Which religions’ members tend to be more tolerant? In this week’s data dive, we discuss several findings related to these questions. For example, we found that students who choose to identify as Protestant are the most tolerant religious group on campus. Mormon students are also very tolerant. Atheists and agnostics are especially tolerant of left-wing — but not right-wing — speakers. And Catholic students have the lowest average tolerance.

“Part of art is about expression, so if we start censoring ourselves then we shut down the core of our creativity, which is where we can discover truth and answers.”

— Demi Moore speaking this week at the Cannes Film Festival.

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ABC accuses FCC of chilling speech

ABC accused the Trump administration and the FCC of chilling protected speech by revisiting whether The View qualifies as a “bona fide news program” exempt from equal-time rules for competing political candidates. But as FIRE explained on X:

ABC’s refusal to quietly allow the federal government to dictate the range of viewpoints it may air without fear of retaliation is welcome and commendable. The Federal Communications Commission is not and cannot become the nation’s censor-in-chief, as its chairman once recognized.

Below the fold

• Amid reports that President Trump recently labeled Iran coverage “treason,” Marie McMullan warns that officials are increasingly ignoring the post-Watergate law designed to protect reporters from government probes.

• A federal judge ordered Texas State University to continue paying philosophy professor Idris Robinson for up to one year or until his lawsuit ends, after the school fired him over a talk he gave about the war in Gaza. He was represented by Samantha Harris and Michael Allen of Allen Harris and FIRE’s JT Morris.

• Last month, a bipartisan congressional hearing on free speech in higher education exposed deep disagreements between Republicans and Democrats, Michael Hurley reports, but it also revealed a rare consensus that free expression is indispensable to our democracy.

Figures of speech

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, FIRE is proud to present the limited series “Figures of Speech,” looking at the heroes and villains of free speech in American history. We begin with the senator who became our censor-in-chief and gave America a new term for political oppression: Joseph McCarthy.

In the frame

Pegah Ahangarani’s Rehearsals for a Revolution, which premiered this week at the Cannes Film Festival, is an intimate documentary about censorship, state violence, and resistance in modern Iran. Rather than constructing a straightforward historical narrative, Ahangarani builds the film through the fragments of family archives, protest footage, personal reflections, and portraits of people she sees as embodiments of dissent across generations. The film traces the arc from the 1979 Iranian Revolution through the Green Movement and more recent protest waves, portraying a society caught in recurring cycles of hope and suppression.

But the documentary is less a journalistic explainer than a cinematic memoir, as it mainly tells the story of Ahangarani, who has suffered oppression by Iranian authorities because of her work. She was arrested after publicly supporting the Green Movement in the wake of Iran’s disputed 2009 presidential election. In 2011, she wasarrested again before leaving to Germany to cover the Women’s World Cup for Deutsche Welle. In her new film, she confronts the machinery of censorship in Iran by incorporating underground recordings, protest archives, and personal materials tied to the very events the government has sought to suppress. The film itself, therefore, is not simply about dissent but an act of dissent itself.

Terms of service

In this episode of Free Speech Future, we look at the history of tech censorship — from video games to social media — and discuss what worked, what didn’t, and where we go from here. The discussion panel includes Nico Perrino, FIRE’s executive vice president and host of the podcast So to Speak; Corbin Barthold, internet policy counsel at TechFreedom and host of Tech Policy Podcast; Christopher J. Ferguson, professor of psychology at Stetson University and co-author of Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong; and Kmele Foster, co-host of The Fifth Column and editor-at-large at Tangle News. Enjoy.

This week in history

On May 12, 1963, Bob Dylan appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, then the highest-rated variety program on American television. But during rehearsals, CBS executives objected to the song he planned to perform, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues,” a satirical attack on the ultra-conservative John Birch Society and its obsession with Communist conspiracies. The song had been approved, but network officials later feared the lyrics could provoke a defamation lawsuit. Rather than comply with the censorship demand and choose another song, Dylan walked off the show.

The incident generated widespread media attention and backlash. Even Ed Sullivan publicly criticized the network’s decision. In the aftermath, Columbia Records, which was owned by CBS and shared concerns about possible legal liability, removed the song from Dylan’s album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The controversy became one of the earliest high-profile examples of Dylan clashing with institutional censorship. He would later face similar censorship battles with the BBC and other broadcasters.

By the numbers

Last week, FIRE released results from April’s National Speech Index, a quarterly poll designed to track Americans’ changing attitudes and beliefs about free speech. The results show that the average American opposes censorship far more than college students in this country. We also found that liberals seem to support all forms of protest, even illegal ones, while conservatives tend to oppose protest tactics, even some legal ones.

“CBT changed — and probably saved — my life. And CBT has a lot in common with freedom of speech. The way we figure out truth is a process of checking and rechecking. And it doesn’t work if you just talk to people you already agree with.”

—Greg Lukianoff speaking to Psychology Today on cognitive behavioral therapy.

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Trump admin considers AI oversight

Recent reports suggest the Trump administration is considering ways to create new oversight for advanced AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. explains:

The public should be wary of arrangements that give government officials of either party a foothold over what AI systems generate. Once the government assumes a gatekeeping role over emerging forms of expression, the line between oversight and censorship gets blurry real fast.

FBI investigates journalist who wrote about Patel’s drinking

The FBI reportedly opened an unusual criminal leak investigation tied to an Atlantic story claiming Director Kash Patel has behaved erratically on the job due to heavy drinking.

Agents are reportedly examining reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick rather than a classified leak itself, centering the probe on her sourcing for a story built on two dozen anonymous accounts, despite DOJ policies historically limiting scrutiny of journalists absent classified disclosures.

UK reverses fine against school for investigating professor

Last week, the High Court of England and Wales overturned a £585,000 ($793,696) fine against the University of Sussex.

The school had allegedly violated free speech policies by investigating philosophy professor Kathleen Stock for institutional transphobia because she believes people cannot change their biological sex. But the Court said the Department of Education had unfairly targeted the school in order to make an example out of it.

Below the fold

• A federal judge permanently barred the Trump administration from cutting more than $100 million in humanities grants, saying DOGE lacked authority and violated the First and Fifth Amendments.

• More than 100 U.S. lawmakers, including 68 senators, urged President Trump to raise the issue of Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai — sentenced to 20 years over his pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily — with Xi Jinping at the May 14–15 China summit.

• IFEX and media-freedom groups condemned Zambia’s last-minute cancellation of RightsCon 2026 under Chinese pressure over delegates from Taiwan, saying nearly 3,000 journalists, digital-rights defenders, and civil-society actors were affected.

In the frame

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has intensified international scrutiny of Senegal’s prosecution of journalist and author René Capain Bassène through a newly released six-part Wolof- and French-language podcast that alleges torture, coerced testimony, fabricated evidence, and major due-process violations in one of West Africa’s most controversial press-freedom cases.

Bassène, a veteran reporter covering the Casamance separatist conflict, one of the longest conflicts in Africa, is serving a life sentence for the Bayottes forest massacre that killed 14 men in 2018, despite saying he was at a football match when it happened. CPJ’s investigation cites former co-defendants who say they were detained for years and pressured under beatings and electric shocks to implicate Bassène. The podcast argues Senegalese authorities criminalized Bassène’s journalism and ignored evidence that he had actually warned officials about escalating tensions tied to illegal logging networks and vigilante groups in Casamance while researching his fourth book on the conflict.

Following Senegal’s Supreme Court decision to uphold the conviction, CPJ is calling on President Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye to release Bassène, framing the case as a stark example of the risks faced by local journalists covering armed conflicts.

Terms of service

New York’s proposed SB 7263 would make AI companies liable if chatbots provide responses that could be construed as unlicensed professional advice — especially in law, medicine, or mental health — even when users understand they are interacting with software and no professional credentials are claimed.

This week for Free Speech Future, John Coleman explains how the bill dangerously expands already broad unauthorized-practice laws. Because chatbot interactions are tailored by ordinary exchanges — like asking whether jaywalking is illegal or how to dispute a credit-card charge — could trigger liability if deemed “legal advice.” Coleman warns that this effectively regulates speech rather than conduct, creating First Amendment concerns by making legality depend on what an AI system says.

This week in history

On May 9, 1754, the political cartoon “Join, or Die” was published. Attributed to and published by Benjamin Franklin, this is widely considered the first political cartoon published in an American newspaper. The cartoon depicts a snake chopped into eight pieces with each piece representing one of the original colonies (New England was represented as one segment rather than the four colonies it included at the time, Delaware was still part of Pennsylvania, and Georgia was omitted).

The cartoon was based on a superstition that if a snake is cut into pieces and the pieces are put together before sunset, the snake would be resurrected. The cartoon was intended to make a point about the importance of colonial unity in the French and Indian War, and was later used as a symbol of colonial freedom during the American Revolution. Political cartoons are frequent subjects of censorship attempts, demonstrating the importance of First Amendment protections.

And if it ever comes up in a game of trivia, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has the cartoon tattooed on his right forearm.

Where there’s smoke

Last week, Pensacola State College told a professor it would not print her students' LGBT stories in a student magazine, arguing they would violate Florida’s dystopian Stop WOKE Act. FIRE gave the school until the close of business on May 4 to respond to our First Amendment concerns. The school has refused to take full accountability. Now we’re taking a closer look.

By the numbers

Since noting a little over a month ago that we are on pace for a record number of campus deplatforming attempts this year, we’ve recorded another 38. That increases the tally to 108 deplatforming attempts so far this year, the fifth-highest total for a year in the entire database going back to 1998. And it’s only May.

“Yale’s data suggests that self-censorship is a real problem. In a 2025 survey by the university, nearly a third of undergraduate respondents disagreed with the statement that ‘I feel free to express my political beliefs on campus,’ up from 17 percent in 2015.”

—Yale Committee Report on Trust in Higher Education, April 10, 2026, also see Graham Piro’s essay on the report and this week’s data dive on student self-censorship.

DOJ indicts Comey, again

The Department of Justice indicted former FBI Director James Comey for allegedly threatening to murder President Trump by posting an image online of seashells on the beach in the shape of the numbers 8647, which critics interpret to mean “eliminate the 47th president.”

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As and recently wrote for :

The reality is that this indictment is a flimsy excuse to use government authority to punish the president’s political enemies — something this administration is quite fond of and has been thoroughly documented doing. This is all the more reason to vehemently oppose this indictment and the retaliatory actions of the administration.

If political retribution for speaking out becomes the norm in American politics, then everyone’s right to free speech could be eighty-sixed.

Below the fold

• “Elon Musk’s personal political views have no place in the California Coastal Commission’s evaluation of SpaceX’s rocket launch proposals,” wrote on X, responding to California regulators settling a SpaceX lawsuit this week.

• A New York bill would prevent AI chatbots from giving legal, medical, financial, mental health, or other advice normally provided by a licensed professional.

• A lawsuit against Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson, despite no evidence he committed or incited violence, has survived federal appeals court review, meaning protest organizers nationwide could face massive financial liability for unforeseeable acts by others.

• California lawmakers are considering making “anti-hate” training a requirement.

This week in history

In April 1989, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party died. Hu Yaobang had pushed for democratic reforms, and when students gathered to mourn him, they began to demand freedom of speech and democratic reforms themselves. Up to 100,000 students marched across the city into Tiananmen Square. As protests continued throughout May, Beijing declared martial law. On June 4, the military forcibly cleared the square, killing up to 2,000 people. The CCP removed officials who had supported reform — or opposed the massacre, discussion of which remains heavily censored in China today. Chinese sometimes use “8964” (1989, June 4) as a coded reference online to bypass censors, but even this gets picked up nowadays.

By the numbers

This week, we looked into the data behind student self-censorship. Among other things, we found that students tend to lean heavily on emotional rather than rational thinking when deciding to censor themselves. In fact, even the most principled group operates less on principle than on how situations feel.​​

“In a truly free society, we enjoy the right to debate and mock those with unsavory views to prove them wrong in the court of public opinion. What we don’t have the right to do is to prevent them from speaking entirely. Free speech is not valuable because it makes us comfortable. It is valuable because it protects the right to hear and challenge even the most offensive ideas.”

—Hannah Owens Pierre, a Yale sophomore, on Sen. Rick Scott saying the school should lose federal funding over a planned debate involving streamer Hasan Piker.

FBI director sues The Atlantic

FBI Director Kash Patel filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic over a report that his “excessive drinking” caused him to miss meetings and mysteriously disappear at times, that in April he had a “freak-out” over being fired, and that his behavior “resulted in normally unflappable agents ‘losing their shit.’”

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In New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), the Supreme Court reversed a defamation verdict over the paper’s sensationalist coverage of police actions in Montgomery, Alabama, because police commissioner LB Sullivan couldn’t show “actual malice,” meaning the paper knew it was lying or did not care — setting a high bar that Patel must now clear.

Texas Tech censors sex and gender courses

Texas Tech University System announced a “strict prohibition” on all academic programs “centered on” sex and gender, giving its schools only two months to comply.

“Forget walking on eggshells,” writes in a recent piece, “Faculty now need to walk across the verbal equivalent of broken glass if they dare include material that could conceivably violate these rules.”

What critics get wrong about the Charlie Kirk Act

Tennessee lawmakers are advancing the “Charlie Kirk Act,” which would require public universities to adopt the Chicago Statement and prohibit retaliation against professors for their speech. As Michael Hurley explains:

The Charlie Kirk Act will allow members of the campus community to speak with renewed confidence. Professors can contest university positions with more protection against retaliation. Students and faculty can invite speakers without worrying that the school will shut them down because others protest. Bottom line: that’s a significant win for free expression at Tennessee’s public universities.

Below the fold

• FCC Director Brendan Carr made yet another effort to regulate content by floating the idea of TV ratings for transgender material. But with “ratings” legislation, as Bob Corn-Revere once wrote, “The circuitry in and of itself is neutral. It does nothing until someone decides what programs should be blocked.”

• In response to the FBI investigating a New York Times journalist for reporting on Patel’s girlfriend receiving government security and transportation, recently commented, “Reaching out to the subject of a story with questions is not ‘stalking.’ It’s routine journalism at the core of the First Amendment.”

• English universities that don’t protect free speech could face fines of £500,000 ($675,078) as the UK tackles an ongoing “culture of fear” on campuses.

In the frame

Hulu just released an anthology produced by Jimmy Kimmel — 4X20: Quick Hits — made up of four 20-minute documentaries about cannabis. One of the films tells the story of the magazine High Times, directed by Kyle Thrash, who says the film is not really about marijuana, but about free speech.

High Times faced relentless censorship efforts in its early days, and was essentially run “as an act of First Amendment defiance,” the magazine reports in a review of the Hulu series. The review goes on to quote Thrash as saying, “Free speech leads to being able to speak about the things we want to speak about, which is cannabis. So they are so intertwined.”

Terms of service

In a new op-ed for R Street, “AI, free speech, and America’s real advantage over China,” and argue that while China’s censorship undermines its ability to advanced AI, the United States risks weakening its own advantage in this area by imposing speech-constraining AI regulations. Many proposed laws pressure developers to produce sanitized, government-aligned outputs that could harm both free expression and the quality of AI systems. America’s strength, they claim, lies in its tradition of open inquiry and free speech. Abandoning those principles will only jeopardize innovation and our competitive edge over China.

This week in history

On April 22, 1940, the Supreme Court decided Thornhill v. Alabama. Byron Thornhill, a union member, had joined a picket line protesting his former employer when he was arrested under an Alabama law that banned loitering and picketing near businesses “without a just cause or legal excuse.” Notably, he was the only picketer charged under the statute. In an 8–1 ruling, the Court struck down the law, holding that labor disputes are not just private matters, but issues of public concern. The Court said being able to openly discuss one’s working conditions is essential to democracy.

By the numbers

​​Two of the most controversial student groups in the country, Students for Justice in Palestine and Turning Point USA, have next to nothing in common — except that both are frequently targeted for their speech. Together, they account for 24% of all group entries in FIRE’s Students Under Fire database going back to 2020. But these groups operate in very different ways, and face very different types of censorship. This week, we dive into the data behind America’s most controversial student groups.

“This decline did not come out of nowhere, nor did it happen overnight. And we were certainly more than mere bystanders. We must acknowledge how we have fallen short . . . I accept without reservation the committee’s recommendations to protect free speech and support academic freedom . . . We must ensure that Yale is a place where people are free to take intellectual risks, including the risk to disagree and be disagreed with.”

—Maurie McInnis, president of Yale University, responding to a recent school report showing the erosion of public trust in higher education, April 15, 2026.

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You don’t need to live in China to experience China’s censorship

The UK’s Victoria and Albert Museum quietly altered its own exhibition catalogues — removing maps and an image of Vladimir Lenin — to satisfy Chinese Communist Party censors tied to overseas printing. But as explains in a chilling post, this is just one canary in a very large coal mine:

Perhaps worst of all, this influence is operating in higher education on a global scale, introducing both overt and subtle limits on universities and the people who study and teach within them. In the short term, researchers and student dissidents suffer threats and censorship. In the long run, the education, research, and discussion that the entire world relies on for knowledge generation is throttled . . . You may be thousands of miles away from the Chinese government, but its censorship is operating much closer than you think.

UNC Chapel Hill drops probe into satire

UNC Chapel Hill dropped its investigation into a satirical comedy sketch mocking performative “white liberal” attitudes. As Marie McMullan explains:

Naturally, critics are free to answer The Daily Tar Heel and Hill After Hours with more speech. They can comment on the article or videos online. Or they can make their own content in response, as some students already have. But the school itself, as a public research university, is not free to answer such speech with actions designed to chill student expression.

Below the fold

• French lawmakers withdrew a bill yesterday that would have implemented sweeping antisemitism restrictions, including banning the phrase “from the river to the sea.”

• An Alabama woman was found not guilty on all charges after attending a No Kings parade to protest the Trump administration dressed as a giant penis.

Terms of service

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the world’s primary engines of knowledge creation. And as this meaning-making system comes online, so too does the inevitable desire for government control. The following discussion from Jan. 22, “Regulating AI: Who decides?,” brings together the individuals tracking and resisting that expansion. Dean Ball — technologist, AI governance analyst, and former White House science and technology adviser — warns that “responsible AI” rhetoric often serves as an on-ramp to permanent regulatory control. Ari Cohn, First Amendment attorney and tech policy expert, brings a free speech lawyer’s clarity to where government proposals cross constitutional lines. Matt Perault, head of AI policy at Andreessen Horowitz, examines how regulatory choices shape the incentives that drive innovation. And guiding the discussion is Kmele Foster of The Fifth Column podcast, whose work is defined by a first-principles approach and an inimitable commitment to curiosity.

This week in history

On April 11, 1938, Life magazine sparked widespread controversy after publishing “The Birth of a Baby,” a photo essay depicting childbirth. The images were based on a film already banned in several cities for “indecency,” yet Life proceeded after consulting officials and warning readers in advance. Authorities in multiple jurisdictions — including parts of New Jersey as well as Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, and the state of Pennsylvania — moved to restrict or block distribution. Despite these efforts, public opinion leaned strongly against censorship, with a Gallup poll finding 76% opposed to the bans. On April 26, the Bronx Court of Special Sessions ruled the magazine was not indecent, and publisher Roy Larsen was acquitted. The controversy ultimately boosted Life’s national profile, providing significant publicity just two years after its launch in an early example of the Streisand effect.

By the numbers

Regardless of ideology, Gen Z is vastly more likely to endorse violence against speakers than Boomers. In fact, Gen Z are 9.6 times more accepting of violence against speakers than Baby Boomers and over 25 times more accepting of violence against speakers than the Silent generation.

“In light of the First Amendment to our Constitution, the government cannot properly silence the People or the Press simply because the government disagrees with public protests, demonstrations, press reporting, or other speech criticizing the government.”

– Judge Ronald M. Gould on federal immigration officers using crowd-control weapons in Los Angeles Press Club v. Noem.

Trump threatens CNN over Iran reporting

President Trump claimed on Truth Social that CNN’s reporting of a statement in which Iran declared victory in the ongoing war is disinformation, adding, “CNN is being ordered to immediately withdraw this Statement with full apologies for their, as usual, terrible ‘reporting.’”

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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr also weighed in, calling for “change at CNN.” But as we have explained before, jawboning is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

Turkey seeks to end online anonymity

The Turkish government is submitting a proposal to parliament requiring people to ID themselves to use social media. Unregistered accounts will be removed by platforms. As recently explained:

We need the ability to speak anonymously online, whether to criticize our leaders, search for embarrassing medical advice, or even just to ask the age-old question: r/AmItheAsshole? What’s happening in Turkey should signal a clear shot across the bow. We need to fight for this right, or we are going to lose it. Fast.

Below the fold

• President Trump threatened to jail a journalist in efforts to find who leaked reports that a second Air Force officer from a downed U.S. fighter jet in Iran was missing, saying, “We’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security, give it up or go to jail.’ The person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say.”

• A former philosophy professor is suing Texas State University for firing him one year after he gave a speech — in a different state as a private citizen — on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• London’s annual rap and hip-hop Wireless Festival was canceled this week after the British government refused entry to Kanye West over his antisemitic comments in the past.

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill (HB 1471) allowing him to designate foreign and domestic terrorist organizations.

Terms of service

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has called on ministers to take stronger action against social media companies that spread disinformation, calling it “the outrage economy,” after a study showed a surge in the number of people talking about the city’s crime rate, often in relation to immigration. Khan even called for the formation of a new watchdog group. “We need a new central body with the agility and authority to protect our democracy from disinformation,” he said, “and deal with the scale and speed of this crisis. And we need more aggressive enforcement of the rules we already have.”

This week in history

On April 8, 1999, FIRE was founded by UPenn professor Alan Charles Kors and Boston civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. After publishing their book, The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses, they received hundreds of pleas from college students and faculty who had been harmed by illiberal policies and double standards.

FIRE originally focused our work on college campuses before expanding in 2022 to defend free expression generally. We also changed our name to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Today, FIRE defends free speech not just on campus but across American culture, taking on threats to civil liberties wherever they arise.

Where there’s smoke

In this new FIREwire section, we’ll be covering the ongoing cases we’ve got our eyes on and the ones we think you should be watching too.

UNC Chapel Hill students celebrated April Fools’ Day by creating satirical content, including one video mocking performative liberal attitudes, then the university condemned the material and launched an investigation. But student satire is protected under the First Amendment, as recently explained.

By the numbers

People who agree with the claim “words can be violence” are generally more likely to support censorship. But how widely held is this idea, and who holds it? It turns out, this belief is not just a disproportionately liberal opinion but also a disproportionately female one. In fact, even very conservative women are more likely to think “words can be violence” than very liberal men.