First Amendment

By Clay Calvert College campuses often are crucibles for free-speech controversies. The first eight months of 2017 were no exception, witnessing multiple incidents where conservative speakers like Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos drew opposition, anger and sometimes violence. So what happens when a controversial person – perhaps a non-student who…

Jasmine McNealy, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Telecommunication assistant professor, is the author of “Spam and the First Amendment Redux: Free Speech Issues in State Regulation of Unsolicited Email” recently published in Communication Law & Policy, Volume 22, 2017 – Issue 3. The article focuses on unsolicited…

By Clay Calvert President Donald Trump’s fondness for criticizing news organizations, “heckling journalists” and spouting points of public policy via his Twitter account is clear. News of his nomination of Christopher Wray to be the next FBI director, for example, came by tweet. His tweets carry the stamp of government…

By Austin Vining The federal government recently established a department tasked with identifying truth. Department officials search for errors in news, entertainment, the arts and books and fix them — all according to what they believe to be true. While this scenario plays out in George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” it’s…

By Clay Calvert Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for United States Supreme Court justice nominee Neil Gorsuch are fast approaching. It’s time to consider some key questions about First Amendment speech rights the senators should ask during the constitutionally mandated advice-and-consent process. These hearings often are contentious. That was the case for Justice Clarence Thomas in the early 1990s. And they surely…

By Clay Calvert The aftermath of Donald J. Trump’s stunning victory over Hillary Clinton brought with it much handwringing in news media circles and on social media platforms about the dangers of fake news. Some blame fake news for causing Clinton’s defeat, with the erstwhile candidate herself calling it “an epidemic.” But there’s…

Understanding the battle between Amazon.com and The New York Times. Was it simply bad press?

The Supreme Court will soon decide if it will hear a case involving the off-campus speech rights of students.

The friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project with the U.S. Supreme Court in the true threats case of Elonis v. United States is cited in the Nov. 24, 2014 story in the Washington Post, “Supreme Court case tests the limits of free speech on Facebook…