This week, the National Constitution Center convened the 2024 National First Amendment Summit, in partnership with FIRE and NYU’s First Amendment Watch. America’s leading legal thinkers joined for a vigorous discussion on the state of free speech in America and around the globe, which included a keynote conversation with Jason Rezaian of The Washington Post. In this episode, we share two panels from the summit. “Free Speech on Campus Today” features Mary Anne Franks, author of the new book Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment; FIRE’s Vice President of Campus Advocacy Alex Morey; and Keith Whittington, author of You Can't Teach That!: The Battle over University Classrooms. “Free Speech In and Out of the Courts” features Nadine Strossen, author of Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know; Jonathan Turley, author of the new book The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage; and Kenji Yoshino of NYU School of Law and Meta's Oversight Board.
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Today’s episode was produced by Tanaya Tauber, Lana Ulrich, Samson Mostashari, and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Advanced Staging Productions, David Stotz, and Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Samson Mostashari, Cooper Smith, Gyuha Lee, Matthew Spero, and Yara Daraiseh.
Participants
Mary Anne Franks is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor in Intellectual Property, Technology, and Civil Rights Law at the George Washington University Law School. She is also the president and legislative and tech policy director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. She frequently advises legislators on various forms of technology-facilitated abuse and also several major technology platforms on privacy, free expression, and safety issues. She is the author of Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment.
Alex Morey is vice president of campus advocacy at FIRE, where she leads their Campus Rights Advocacy program. Her commentary is frequently featured by media outlets like The New York Times, the BBC, CNN, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Hill, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico. She is also a member of the First Amendment Lawyers Association.
Keith Whittington is David Boies Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He is the author of You Can’t Teach That! The Battle Over University Classrooms, Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech, as well as works on constitutional theory and law and politics. He serves as founding chair of the Academic Freedom Alliance’s Academic Committee and as a Hoover Institution Visiting Fellow. He blogs at the Volokh Conspiracy and hosts The Academic Freedom Podcast.
Nadine Strossen is the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School and past president of the American Civil Liberties Union. She is also a senior fellow with FIRE and serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, and the National Coalition Against Censorship. Her most recent books are HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship and Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know. She is also the host and project consultant for the film series Free To Speak.
Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law, Director of the Environmental Law Advocacy Center, and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners at the George Washington University Law School. He has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades and has testified before Congress over 100 times. His most recent book is The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.
Kenji Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law and the director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. He previously served as deputy dean at Yale Law School and has published four books, including his most recent (co-authored with David Glasgow), Say the Right Thing: How to Talk About Identity, Diversity and Justice. Yoshino currently serves on the oversight board for Meta.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. Rosen is also a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. His most recent book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.
Additional Resources
- 2024 National First Amendment Summit
- FIRE: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
- NYU’s First Amendment Watch
- Mary Ann Franks, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment
- Keith Whittington, You Can’t Teach That!: The Battle over University Classrooms (2024)
- Nadine Strossen, Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know (2023)
- Jonathan Turley, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (2024)
- Meta Oversight Board
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