“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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3 days 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

11 days 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…

Listen now

24 days 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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a month 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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a month 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.

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• 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.

Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety. Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same. But the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country. It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth. However well-intentioned, any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an ‘egregious’ assault on both of those commitments.

– Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the Supreme Court majority in Chiles v. Salazar, holding that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy violates the First Amendment.

Supreme Court strikes down Colorado conversion therapy ban

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8–1 that Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy may violate the free speech rights of licensed counselor Kaley Chiles, who provides talk therapy to clients on sexual orientation, and sent the case back to lower courts to reconsider it under the toughest constitutional standard — strict scrutiny.

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Strict scrutiny requires the government to show that its goal is important, that the law helps it achieve that goal, and that there’s not a less restrictive way to do it. The decision could affect similar laws in nearly 30 states and marks a major expansion of speech protections into professional and medical regulation, despite opposition from major medical groups.

Ohio restricts drag shows to adult venues

Ohio lawmakers passed a bill expanding the state’s public indecency and adult entertainment laws to restrict adult drag shows in places where minors could be present.

The law imposes potential felony charges for drag shows deemed obscene if performed in front of anyone age 12 or younger. Critics warn this could chill artistic expression and disproportionately target LGBT performers under the guise of obscenity regulation.

UK looks to curb policing lawful speech

After years of logging tens of thousands of “non-crime hate incidents” over perfectly lawful speech, the UK government now says NCHIs will be “scrapped” to “end policing of petty squabbles,” scaling back a widely criticized system that blurred the line between crime and protected speech.

Still, as carefully explains, there are reasons to remain concerned — and already signs that similar practices are quietly emerging in the United States.

Terms of service

What if the next big threat to free speech doesn’t come from banning content, but from making it too engaging? In their latest issue of Notice and Takedown, and take aim at the latest wave of lawsuits blaming “addictive design” (think infinite scroll and algorithms) for social media harms. They argue it’s a clever — but dangerous — end run around the First Amendment. Basically, if courts accept that platforms can be punished for making speech compelling, they’re effectively creating a rule against speech that works too well. Even if you’re skeptical of Big Tech, this is a sharp analysis that forces you to think more critically about where product design ends and protected expression begins, and what happens if we get that balance wrong.

Know your rights

The encrypted messaging app Signal has been in the news lately, and people have questions. What’s the news story? How does Signal work? Can using it get me in trouble? Can it help me get away with murder? The first thing to know is, your rights are the same as if you were speaking in person or on the phone. The First Amendment protects your ability to communicate, organize, and even criticize the government, while the Fourth Amendment limits how the government can access your data without a warrant. Signal’s strong encryption means it collects very little information, but that doesn’t mean it can shield illegal activity. If you break the law, you can still be investigated through other means. In his latest explainer, addresses all these questions and more concerning Signal.

This week in history

On March 29, 1940, the New York legislature unanimously authorized what became known as the Rapp-Coudert Committee — a sweeping inquiry into alleged “subversive” activity in the state’s schools, specifically Brooklyn College, City College of New York, Hunter College, and Queens College. Over the next two years, the committee spent the equivalent of more than $11 million today to identify and purge suspected communists and sympathizers from public education.

The investigation produced a list of more than 600 names, which was shared with law enforcement and later federal authorities, and led to the dismissal of roughly 40 faculty and staff from municipal colleges. It also helped dismantle two local teachers’ unions, with the support of the American Federation of Teachers. This episode, which forms part of the broader “little red scare” that preceded McCarthyism, is a reminder that politically driven censorship campaigns—and the urge to root out ideological “threats”—have not been confined to any one party or era.

By the numbers

The 1970s were the high-water mark of campus deplatforming with a total of 19 attempts. While earlier controversies centered around political views and the Cold War, deplatforming efforts in the 70s pivoted sharply to race. That shift was driven largely by repeated controversies involving the Nobel physicist and eugenicist William Shockley. This week, explores the data going back to 1947 and tells the story of how campus deplatforming has evolved since World War II.

“I’m tired of being a ‘free speech Barbie.’”

– Salman Rushdie on being reduced to a symbol after surviving an Islamist attack in 2022.

White House unveils AI framework

A new federal proposal aims to protect expression in the AI era while raising questions about issues such as age verification.

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Here’s FIRE Legislative Counsel for AI and Free Expression :

FIRE appreciates the proposed protections for expressive rights embodied in the Trump administration’s new policy framework for artificial intelligence. There are elements that warrant caution and scrutiny, and the devil will inevitably be in the details. But FIRE supports several aspects of the proposal that, if enacted, would go a long way to protecting free speech rights in the AI era.

FCC warns media over Iran coverage

Over the weekend, FCC Chair Brendan Carr effectively threatened to censor news about the Iran war, invoking the “public interest” standard to suggest broadcasters will risk losing their licenses if their reporting is deemed misleading.

Writing for , Aaron Terr explains:

If the past is prologue, Carr will continue to reach for any excuse to justify the FCC’s unconstitutional crackdown on the press. But in America, the people decide for themselves what is true — not federal bureaucrats. Principled broadcasters must lead the way by refusing to cave in to Carr’s lawless demands.

Below the fold

• Wales’ plan to criminalize “false or misleading” political statements aims to curb dishonesty but risks empowering governments to police truth.

• Spain is launching an AI system to track online “hate,” but it could easily blur into government-driven censorship of lawful speech.

In the frame

The musician Afroman (“Because I Got High”) won a legal victory this week after a group of Ohio sheriff’s deputies sued him for defamation, emotional distress, and misuse of their likenesses. This comes after a 2022 raid on his home that turned up no evidence of any crime. In response to that raid, which damaged his property, Afroman did what Afroman does and turned the experience into content, using his own security footage to create satirical songs and videos mocking the officers, including the viral track “Lemon Pound Cake.”

Terms of service

In their second installment of Notice and Takedown, and explain that the current wave of lawsuits blaming AI chatbots for tragic outcomes — suicides, delusions, erratic behavior — is less a sound legal development than a familiar moral panic dressed up in new technology. While the underlying events are undeniably real and devastating, the authors explain that the legal theories driving these cases are fundamentally flawed because they seek to treat speech as a defective product. A particularly alarming signal, they note, is a judge openly questioning whether AI-generated text even counts as “speech,” a position that, if adopted, could open the door to sweeping government control over what AI systems are allowed to say.

The authors draw parallels to earlier cultural panics over new media, from Dungeons & Dragons in the 1980s to violent video games and heavy metal music. In each instance, grieving families and public pressure produced lawsuits claiming that media content caused real-world harm, only for courts to reject those claims on the grounds that ideas themselves cannot be treated as dangerous products. That distinction applies today. Extending product liability to chatbot outputs would create a powerful incentive for companies to strip their systems of anything remotely controversial or emotionally complex, resulting in bland, heavily sanitized tools that limit both what users can hear and what they can say.

This week in history

James Madison was born on March 16, 1751, on his family’s Virginia plantation. He fathered the Constitution and wrote nearly a third of the Federalist Papers defending it and the establishment of a strong federal government. The Anti-Federalists fought back, fearing centralized power would strangle individual liberty. They won a concession — 10 amendments known as the Bill of Rights that protect people’s freedoms explicitly.

Madison was notoriously shy and quiet. He hated public speaking, which is wild for a Founding Father. There’s even a story that he was so soft-spoken at the Constitutional Convention that people had to lean in to hear him. He was also deeply devoted to his wife Dolley, who was much more outgoing. Madison steered the Bill of Rights through the first Congress, fighting hard for press freedom and religious liberty. Later, he became secretary of state under Jefferson and the fourth president of the United States. After leaving office, he retired to his Virginia estate Montpelier, where he spent his final years reflecting on the young republic he had helped shape.

By the numbers

At hyper-liberal schools, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more than twice as difficult for liberals to discuss as any other issue, even though they are surrounded by more like-minded peers than any other students. This week, we dive into the data to find out why.

FIRE Update

Imagine a pro-Israel student club wanting to invite a pro-Israel elected official and an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces reserves to speak at their events.

Sounds... absolutely normal, right?

That’s because it is. What’s not normal is what happened next.

Catholic University denied the event requests because the club didn’t include speakers from “both sides” of the issue.

That’s right. The university is forcing Students Supporting Israel to invite someone who doesn’t support Israel — or they can’t hold the event.

Student clubs, regardless of their perspective, are allowed to advocate for their beliefs and provide programming that supports those beliefs. Requiring a group to host a speaker they oppose is textbook compelled speech — and we’ll fight it every step of the way.

Imagine if the university forced its environmental club to bring in representatives of the oil industry? Or if Catholic clubs had to pair their guest speakers with speakers representing other world religions?

But they’re not: Other groups at CUA have hosted speakers — including Democratic officials and pro-life advocates — without being required to include opposing viewpoints. When rules like this are applied inconsistently, it’s clear they’re not about “balance” but about control. That’s how viewpoint discrimination happens — even when it’s dressed up as neutrality.

CUA is a private university not bound by the First Amendment — but it is legally and morally bound to adhere to its own promises to protect students’ free speech.

Catholic University is officially on notice. We’re calling on administrators to approve these events and make clear that all student groups are free to host speakers of their choice.

For more breaking alerts like this, be sure to sign up for FIRE Updates.

“Analyzing such distinctions in a classroom — guided by facts, context and reasoning — would give young people the civic tools they’ll need long after graduation. Encouraging open inquiry prepares them to weigh evidence and form independent opinions.”

— A Washington Post letter writer on how to teach critical thinking.

Judge weighs Pentagon press restrictions

A federal judge is considering whether a Pentagon policy forcing journalists to sign new access terms violates the First Amendment, after outlets including The New York Times and the Associated Press refused to comply and lost credentials.

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The policy requires reporters to accept limits on contact with military personnel and other rules critics say would restrict independent reporting, raising concerns about government transparency during wartime.

Australia charges pro-Palestinian protesters

Authorities in Queensland charged protesters for using phrases including “from the river to the sea,” marking the first arrests under newly enacted hate-speech legislation.

Civil liberties advocates say the law criminalizes political expression and predict constitutional challenges in Australia’s High Court.

Germany probes historian for criticizing … Hitler

German writer Rainer Zitelmann is under criminal investigation in Berlin after retweeting a Ukrainian post comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.

But it wasn’t the Putin attack that got him into trouble — it was the fact that the post included a swastika, even though he used it as an insult, because it potentially violates Section 86a of Germany’s criminal code, which bans Nazi symbols.

Below the fold

• New York Mayor Mamdani defended hosting activist Mahmoud Khalil for dinner as a matter of protecting free speech rights, while the Anti-Defamation League and others criticized the invite over Khalil’s previous remarks about October 7. This week, Khalil wrote about his experience in an op-ed for Fox News.

In the frame

In this episode of So to Speak, host breaks down the Pentagon’s targeting of the AI company Anthropic, the push for government-mandated age verification technologies, and the Department of Justice’s raid on a Washington Post reporter’s home. He is joined by , senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute, as well as Mike Godwin, AI and privacy expert at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and .

Terms of service

FIRE filed two separate friend-of-the-court briefs arguing that the Pentagon violated Anthropic’s First Amendment rights by labeling the AI company a “supply chain risk.” The dispute began when the Defense Department demanded that Anthropic allow its AI system Claude to be used for any “lawful purpose,” which the Pentagon says could include fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance.

After Anthropic refused, citing safety concerns and its internal usage policies that place guardrails on how Claude can be used, the Pentagon designated the company a supply-chain risk, a sanction that could severely harm its ability to do business with the government and with other partners. FIRE, along with a coalition of free speech advocates, argues this designation is retaliatory and violates the First Amendment.

Know your rights

Obscenity is one of the few categories of speech the Supreme Court has held is not protected by the First Amendment — but defining it has long been notoriously difficult. Early courts used the broad Hicklin test, which allowed censorship based on whether isolated passages might corrupt susceptible readers, leading to bans on works by authors like James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence. In the 1957 case Roth v. United States, the Court narrowed the concept, holding that obscenity lacks constitutional value and creating a test based on whether the work’s dominant theme appeals to a prurient interest according to community standards.

The Court ultimately established the modern Miller test in the 1973 case Miller v. California, which asks whether the average person applying community standards would find the work appeals to prurient interests, depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way defined by law, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Although prosecutions are relatively rare today, obscenity doctrine still influences debates over pornography regulation, book bans, drag shows, and online age-verification laws, including the Supreme Court’s 2025 decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, which upheld Texas’ requirement that users verify their age before accessing adult websites. For all that and more, see our explainer on the obscenity exception to the First Amendment.

This week in history

On March 9, 1964, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case New York Times v. Sullivan, establishing First Amendment limitations on public officials’ ability to sue for defamation. The Times ran an ad raising funds to defend Martin Luther King Jr. from perjury charges for allegedly signing false tax returns. The ad had several factual errors, including about the number of police arrests in Montgomery, Alabama. L.B. Sullivan, the city commissioner overseeing the police department, demanded a retraction. When the Times refused, Sullivan sued for defamation.

The Court reversed the Alabama judgment against the paper, holding that public officials must prove “actual malice” to win a defamation case. The Court defined actual malice as either knowing a statement is false or showing “reckless disregard” for the truth. Justice Brennan famously wrote that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”

“Protecting speech during wartime is neither easy nor popular. But it is precisely in such moments that constitutional principles matter most.”

— on calls to censor Columbia University Apartheid Divest for posting “Death to America” in response to the start of war in Iran.

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Trump admin threatens Anthropic

The Trump administration threatened to seize or blacklist Anthropic after the AI company refused to remove safeguards limiting military and surveillance uses of its models. , FIRE’s legislative counsel on AI and free expression, explains:

If the government wants AI systems without Anthropic’s restrictions, it can develop its own or contract with companies willing to provide them. (Indeed, OpenAI reportedly stepped in quickly as a replacement.) What the government cannot do is coerce a private company into abandoning its own design principles, or punish it for refusing. That violates the First Amendment.

Hamit Coksun wins Quran-burning case

Kurdish-Armenian asylum seeker Hamit Coskun has won a year-long legal battle after burning a Quran in protest near the Turkish embassy in London last February.

“Laws and prosecutions protecting religious institutions from offence and insult should be a relic of the past,” writes , “but are instead still present in dozens of countries, and are experiencing a resurgence of sorts in European countries like Sweden and Denmark, with the encouragement of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The UK appears to be heading down this path, too, giving another means of censorship to a country increasingly fond of them.”

Below the fold

• Police in Dubai, a popular haven for social media influencers, are threatening jail time for “any content that contradicts official announcements” amid attacks from Iranian drones.

In the frame

After the murder of Charlie Kirk at a Turning Point USA campus event on Sept. 10, 2025, students were left in shock and the country was left debating the future of free speech. Some blamed rhetoric, some demanded limits. Others warned that giving the government the power to decide which speech is “too dangerous” could threaten the very freedoms it claims to protect. In this episode of 1AX, FIRE sits down with the students who witnessed the shooting and explores a question that now confronts the nation: Is free speech the cause of political violence, or the only alternative to it?

Featuring firsthand accounts by professors and students, difficult conversations, an interview with , and an unflinching look at the First Amendment, 1AX asks what it really means to coexist in a country where disagreements are not small, and sometimes are life and death.

Terms of service

The U.S. government’s forced TikTok sale predictably sparked new concerns about political manipulation of online speech, Anthropic is clashing with the Pentagon over whether its AI should be used for surveillance and weapons systems, and the FCC wants to revive outdated broadcast rules to pressure talk shows critical to the administration. For analysis on all this and more — from meme regulation to age-verification surveillance risks — check out the debut issue of Notice and Takedown, a biweekly newsletter on all things free speech and tech policy, in which FIRE’s and bring readers an engaging mix of style, humor, and thoughtful analysis.

Today in history

On March 4, 1789, the U.S. Constitution went into effect. Drafted at Independence Hall in Philadelphia between May and September 1787, it was ratified by 11 of the 13 colonies. Delaware was the first to ratify. North Carolina and Rhode Island held out mainly because the Constitution did not yet include a Bill of Rights, and many people feared the new federal government would be too powerful. Since going into effect, the Constitution has been amended 27 times, including the first 10 amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, intended to address Anti-Federalists’ concerns about the potential tyranny of a strong centralized government.

By the numbers

Trump voters are not a monolith. In fact, there are basically four kinds of Trump voters. You’ve got your MAGA hardliners, your mainline Republicans who support him because they support the party, anti-woke conservatives whose animating principle is their opposition to woke ideology, and the “reluctant right” who simply voted for Trump because they thought he was less bad than Kamala Harris.

“Free speech should never become a conservative issue any more than it ever should have been a liberal issue. It is an issue for all . . . Everybody agrees with free speech in theory. But when you ask, should you defend the free speech of — and fill in whatever blank you want — the vast majority of Americans believe in free speech for me, but not for thee.”

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— Alan Dershowitz on why modern liberalism appears to have turned against free speech, speaking at RealClearPolitics’ Samizdat Prize gala on Feb. 11.

CUNY investigates professor over ‘racist’ remarks

Hunter College is investigating biology professor Allyson Friedman for allegedly making racist remarks during a school district meeting without realizing her mic was on. “If you train a black person well enough,” she said, “they’ll know to use the back. You don’t have to tell them anymore.”

But Friedman says she was simply explaining the mentality of racists to her daughter by paraphrasing the black historian Carter Woodson, who famously wrote, “When you control a man’s thinking . . . you do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told.”

Here’s Zach Greenberg, FIRE’s director of Faculty Legal Defense:

FIRE is alarmed at Hunter College’s investigation of Professor Allyson Friedman for her comments at a NYC school district meeting. Discussions of systemic racism fall squarely within the First Amendment rights this public college is legally required to uphold. Faculty have the right to discuss political issues off-hours, especially those related to their children’s schooling and local communities.

Below the fold

• In this week’s Free Speech Dispatch, reports how governments are using hate speech laws, anti-terror statutes, cybercrime rules, and platform regulations to silence political expression — from barroom posters in Australia and gender commentary in Canada and Brazil to protests in the UK, internet access in Russia and India, satire in Asia, and journalism pretty much everywhere.

• U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has dropped the case against six Democratic lawmakers who urged military and intelligence personnel to refuse illegal orders.

• Amid campus tensions over controversial political speech, Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute launched its “Reconstructing Free Expression” research initiative to “reinforce First Amendment protections.”

Know your rights

In the last month, we’ve seen anti-ICE student walkouts at secondary schools in Oklahoma, Illinois, Virginia, Texas, Washington state, Ohio, Florida, and more. In Texas, the state is investigating whether school employees encouraged the walkouts. In Florida, the state teachers union has openly said their members don’t support walkouts. This week, answers the question:

In the frame

This week we turn to a classic, the 2020 documentary Mighty Ira, about the longtime executive director of the ACLU, Ira Glasser, and his unapologetic defense of free speech — even for people almost everyone hated. Directed by FIRE’s , Aaron Reese, and Chris Maltby, the film centers on the ACLU’s 1977 decision to defend the right of American Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, a town with many Holocaust survivors. But rather than a mere history lesson, this is a meditation on the nature of free speech itself and what its advocacy looks like in the modern age.

Today in history

On Feb. 24, 1969, the Supreme Court heard the landmark case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District, involving a public school principal who suspended four students (the three Tinker siblings and one friend) for wearing black armbands at multiple schools to protest the Vietnam War. The Court held that officials can only censor students if their speech significantly interferes with school discipline, or if school authorities reasonably think it will, which the armbands did not. This became known as the Tinker test. As Justice Abe Fortas famously wrote, “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

By the numbers

Americans’ confidence in U.S. colleges and universities remains near historic lows. Though some have suggested public opinion about higher education may be stabilizing or rising, our latest survey finds little evidence of meaningful recovery. Instead, explains, it shows that almost a third of Americans say they have little or no confidence in American higher education.

— Emmanuel Macron on social media platforms and the tech executives who run them, during a discussion in New Delhi on university partnerships between India and France.

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Stephen Colbert defies CBS

Stephen Colbert said CBS lawyers told him not to interview, or even mention not being able to interview, Texas Democratic state representative James Talarico, who is running for U.S. Senate. Colbert then promptly blasted the decision on-air, accusing the network of over-complying with guidance by the FCC, which isn’t going after conservative radio stations that do something similar.

The reasoning is that this would violate “equal times” rules that say American broadcast stations must provide equal access to competing political candidates, but as FIRE Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere has explained:

Brendan Carr’s FCC is continuing its streak of naked partisanship by wielding the agency’s power in new and laughable ways . . . Candidate interviews have long been exempt from “equal time” rules for good reason. It would be wrong if a Democratic administration demanded conservative talk radio hosts give equal airtime when they interview candidates, and it’s wrong for the Trump administration to demand the same of late night talk show hosts.

Australian police declare café a crime scene

In Canberra, authorities declared a café a crime scene and took down satirical posters depicting world leaders in Nazi uniforms under newly enacted hate-speech laws.

The incident triggered backlash from artists and civil liberties advocates who argue this is an overreach that chills political expression and protest art.

Below the fold

• The UK’s ruling on its Palestine Action ban has only cast even more doubt on the nation’s troubling mass arrests of peaceful protesters.

• The UK Crown Prosecution Service appealed a court’s decision to reverse the guilty finding against Hamit Coskun, who burned a Quran outside London’s Turkish consulate last year. Speech advocates in the UK are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the appeal and Coskun is reportedly under consideration for asylum by U.S. authorities if he is again found guilty.

Today in history

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn,” Ernest Hemingway famously wrote. That book was published in the United States on Feb. 18, 1885. Following the story of Huckleberry “Huck” Finn as he travels down the Mississippi River with the runaway slave Jim, the novel is one of the most frequently challenged in the country, with school districts pulling it from curriculum and school libraries, often due to the book’s use of “nigger” more than 200 times, even though the book itself is a scatching indictment of racism.

By the numbers

It’s a common refrain that hyper-liberal colleges make students intolerant of conservatives and unwilling to engage them in productive conversation. But is that true? In this week’s data dive, we explore the question and consider why the effect doesn’t seem to work in reverse.