FIREwire — April 24, 2026
FBI sues The Atlantic, Texas Tech censors sex, and the FCC wants to rate trans content
“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.’”
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,” Graham Piro writes in a recent piece, “Faculty now need to walk across the verbal equivalent of broken glass if they dare include material that could conceivably violate these rules.”
What critics get wrong about the Charlie Kirk Act
Tennessee lawmakers are advancing the “Charlie Kirk Act,” which would require public universities to adopt the Chicago Statement and prohibit retaliation against professors for their speech. As Michael Hurley explains:
The Charlie Kirk Act will allow members of the campus community to speak with renewed confidence. Professors can contest university positions with more protection against retaliation. Students and faculty can invite speakers without worrying that the school will shut them down because others protest. Bottom line: that’s a significant win for free expression at Tennessee’s public universities.
Below the fold
FCC Director Brendan Carr made yet another effort to regulate content by floating the idea of TV ratings for transgender material. But with “ratings” legislation, as Bob Corn-Revere once wrote, “The circuitry in and of itself is neutral. It does nothing until someone decides what programs should be blocked.”
In response to the FBI investigating a New York Times journalist for reporting on Patel’s girlfriend receiving government security and transportation, Aaron Terr 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,” Adam Thierer and Greg Lukianoff 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.