Free Speech in Crisis & the Limits of the First Amendment

Register online¹ for the conference. Space is limited. Pre-circulated papers will be shared with registered participants beginning March 15, 2025.

Recently, the law of free speech has been marked by two seemingly inconsistent phenomena. On the one hand, the Roberts Court has been both praised and decried for its highly speech-protective view of the First Amendment. The First Amendment, we are told, has been weaponized; it is “imperial”; it is stronger than it has ever been. On the other hand, the First Amendment has been ineffective in combating the recent explosion of speech-restricting laws and government actions. Similarly, there has been pronounced private mobilization to suppress speech, ranging from doxing trucks that have plagued many campuses to powerful donor threats that have prompted universities to crack down on student speech. Here too, the imperial First Amendment has been largely unavailable as a safeguard of private speech.

This conference will explore these twinned phenomena from both normative and pragmatic perspectives. Is the fact that so much speech regulation lies beyond the scope of the First Amendment a problem for the doctrine? Or is it, conversely, a virtue? How can free speech values be protected and strengthened at a moment of political polarization and intensifying repression at all levels of government?

Questions? Contact Mikey McGovern or Heather Branch

Friday, March 28

8:30 a.m. | Breakfast & Registration | SLB 122 & Dining Hall

9:15 a.m. | Welcome/Opening Remarks | SLB 129

• Organizers: Jack Balkin, Genevieve Lakier, Mikey McGovern

9:30 a.m. | Panel 1: Media Environment | SLB 129

• Chair: Paul Starr, Princeton University
• Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School
• Mary Anne Franks, George Washington University School of Law
• Eugene Volokh, Hoover Institution

11:00 a.m. | Coffee Break | SLB 122

11:15 a.m. | Panel 2: Polarization | SLB 129

• Chair: Robert Post, Yale Law School
• Nicole Hemmer, Vanderbilt University
• Liliana Mason, SNF Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University 
• Ganesh Sitaraman, Vanderbilt Law School

12:45 p.m. | Lunch | Dining Hall

2:15 p.m. | Panel 3: Political Marketplace | SLB 129

• Chair: Rick Hasen, University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
• Rick Pildes, NYU Law School
• Bradley A. Smith, Capital University Law School
• Ann Southworth, University of California, Irvine School of Law

3:45 p.m. | Coffee Break | SLB 122

4:00 p.m. | Panel 4: Workplace | SLB 129

• Chair: Amanda Shanor, University of Pennsylvania
• Helen Norton, University of Colorado School of Law
• Benjamin Sachs, Harvard Law School
• Liz Sepper, University of Texas Law School

Saturday, March 29

9:00 a.m. | Breakfast | Dining Hall

9:30 a.m. | Panel 5: Knowledge Production | SLB 129

• Chair: Amy Kapczynski, Yale Law School
• E.J. Fagan, University of Illinois Chicago 
• Vicki Jackson, Harvard Law School
• Naomi Oreskes, Harvard University

11:00 a.m. | Coffee Break | SLB 122

11:15 a.m. | Panel 6: Campus Politics | SLB 129

• Chair: Genevieve Lakier, University of Chicago Law School
• Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley 
• Athena Mutua, University at Buffalo School of Law
• Keith Whittington, Yale Law School

12:45 p.m. | Grab boxed lunch | Dining Hall

1:00 p.m. | Wrap-Up Conversation | SLB 129

• Organizers: Jack Balkin, Genevieve Lakier, Mikey McGovern