What are chilling effects, and why is First Amendment law concerned with them?📍NEXT MONDAY at 12:30pm ET: Join our online webinar on chilling effects with @carriedecell.bsky.social, @evelyndouek.bsky.social, @stacylivingston.bsky.social & Jonathon Penney. RSVP: knightcolumbia.org/events/litig...

Can vouch for the fact that it is excellent and students love it

Want to learn more about chilling effects and why they matter to the First Amendment? Join our webinar with litigators and experts on Monday, Nov. 17, including @carriedecell.bsky.social @evelyndouek.bsky.social @penney.bsky.social @stacylivingston.bsky.social: knightcolumbia.org/events/litig...

every day thumbing their nose at the first amendment's promise of an uninhibited, robust, and wide-open public sphere www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The primary and most pervasive form of speech suppression that this Administration employs is chill; it's pervasive but much harder to quantify than outright censorship. But stories like this must be happening everywhere. www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Vaguely remember there being some sort of concern about a government leveraging control over TikTok to extract user data and manipulate content, but anyway I am sure this is fine www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...

I wrote about an under-appreciated aspect of AAUP v. Rubio. It is the first case of the Trump Era to explicitly identify and reject the primary and most pernicious form of speech suppression employed by this Administration: Chill. balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/aaup...

I wrote about an under-appreciated aspect of AAUP v. Rubio. It is the first case of the Trump Era to explicitly identify and reject the primary and most pernicious form of speech suppression employed by this Administration: Chill. balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/aaup...

The Trump Administration’s “Compact of Excellence” for Universities is... far from excellent! Indeed, it’s unconstitutional. In this post, let me count the ways. blog.dividedargument.com/p/the-uncons...

Nothing says "free speech" like "you shall abstain from speech relating to societal and political events"

Judge Young: "The First Amendment does not draw President Trump’s invidious distinction and it is not to be found in our history or jurisprudence." An extraordinary, historic victory for democratic freedom. knightcolumbia.org/content/in-l...

This non-citizen is still trying to find the right words about this, but it's nice to know that when I do at least one judge (and a whole bunch of passionate and amazing lawyers) agrees those words are protected

I talked with Jeffrey Rosen and Eugene Volokh about the law of jawboning, Brendan Carr's threats against ABC, the Trump admin's threats against universities, and the deep problems created by a public sphere in which the gov pulls so many purse strings. open.spotify.com/episode/1sZo...

Very cool and very free speechy, no notes

In this post I explain why the suspension of Kimmel’s show looks like a blatant 1A violation, as all NINE members of SCOTUS last year made clear.... but also why courts may not be able to do much about it (and yet Kimmel should still sue!) blog.dividedargument.com/p/did-brenda...

Genevieve Lakier is who everyone should be reading on the risks of government jawboning in the Jimmy Kimmel case. @genevievelakier.bsky.social

The project of “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” (Exec. Order No. 14,149) sure does involve a lot of speech chilling and federal censorship

"the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express 'the thought that we hate.'" -- noted leftist Justice Alito

the president and a foreign adversary opaquely deciding the terms of the continued operation of one of the most powerful speech platforms in the country, just like the framers intended www.theverge.com/news/778087/...

public sphere so robust, uninhibited and wide-open that i'm hesitant to even be explicit about the extraordinary levels of ambient chill we are seeing

more regulation kayfabe www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

this sends a clear -- and chilling -- message to immigrants about *any* political speech, far beyond Kirk www.axios.com/2025/09/11/c...

This doesn't seem to be an idle threat. Landau is responding to people reporting posts on X with an image suggesting that they'll put permanent black marks in peoples' files or even seek to strip visas from people who "made light" of Kirk's assassination. Another betrayal of the First Amendment.

anyone that puts this mural on a tshirt can have my money

Definitely what an uninhibited, robust and wide open public sphere looks like

A good and timely reminder at the end of the Harvard opinion of why this is not just about Harvard, and it's not just about antisemitism. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Last week, Justice Kavanaugh said he thought this law was likely unconstitutional but he just wasn't convinced the balance of harms and equities favored putting the law on hold while the case proceeded. Such a speech-protective court! www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

Gosh, good thing there's no reason to think that the platform has any incentive to artificially increase the reach of this account or in any other way bend the rules www.reuters.com/world/us/whi...

Whatever they do, visa applicants should never criticize America's robust and exceptional free speech tradition

"Once dissent was squashed, TikTok no longer posed a threat." Good piece. I would add that TikTok now faces a ban at the flick of the President's pen... How could that not be affecting content moderation now? www.theverge.com/features/761...

To be fair, if a chatbot produced an image of me looking like this I would also say it was politically biased

Who could have predicted? ... Except for basically everyone who has written on internet intermediary liability for the last two decades. Age verification debates are not just about kids, and they're not just about porn. www.bbc.com/news/article...

LISTEN to today's episode with First Amendment legal scholar @genevievelakier.bsky.social and Wesleyan President Michael Roth discussing the Trump administration’s #jawboning and extortion campaign against U.S. universities. More on the conversation below. ⬇️ podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...

Recent law grads — we're now hiring for legal fellows to begin in Fall 2025. Our First Amendment rights are under daily assault. I hope you'll consider applying to work with us at @knightcolumbia.org to push back. knightcolumbia.org/page/legal-f...

Whether the President "really likes" a major speech platform should be completely irrelevant to its fate. Pretty sure that's somewhere in the Constitution? Congrats to everyone involved in getting us here--including a unanimous supreme court! www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

It's hard to write stories about chilling effects, because... how do you write about the absence of something? But the silence is also deafening, and notable. Good piece by @caseynewton.bsky.social www.platformer.news/trustcon-tru...

throwing in a reference to Orwell like they want to make absolutely sure you don't miss the doublethink required here www.politico.com/news/2025/07...

My colleague @ramyakrishnan.bsky.social makes the critical point: If noncitizens have no First Amendment rights in the deportation context, they have no First Amendment rights at all, because the threat of deportation will hover over every statement they make. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/u...

Kudos to @charlottewillner.bsky.social for her opening speech at #trustcon calling out how the US government is making the role of trust & safety more dangerous... And how many people couldn't even come to the event because it's not safe to travel to the US.

The conservative pressure campaign that turned all the big tech companies into Trump appeasers is now coming for AI. It's totally unconstitutional, and might work anyway. I talked to some legal experts about it: www.platformer.news/andrew-baile...

Good two-part post on the Balkinization blog by Chicago's @genevievelakier.bsky.social‬ about how First Amendment doctrine is and isn't equipped to check the current Administration's war on political opponents and knowledge institutions. (Linking to Part 1 of 2.) balkin.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-...

I wrote about the strong analogies btw the current moment of govt speech repression and the McCarthy Era--and the ways in which 1A law is and also IS NOT better able to safeguard free speech values this time around. First part is here balkin.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-... .... ⬇️

As the Paramount news makes clear, the Trump admin has effectively leveraged fed $$ to control what is supposed to be the INDEPENDENT marketplace of ideas. I wrote about how this happened, why the 1A allows it and to suggest it's time for 1A scholars to begin thinking about what is to be done...

"Concerns about complying with the TikTok law have not been salient as the deal has been coming together."

Today, Media Matters is filing a lawsuit against Trump’s FTC to protect our First Amendment rights.

Stanford Law's @evelyndouek.bsky.social, a First Amendment scholar, recently appeared on the Stanford Legal podcast to discuss the tension between free speech and Trump administration policies targeting dissent by non-citizens. Listen here: law.stanford.edu/stanford-leg...

More relevant today than ever I’m afraid.

Welcome to the US, where public debate is "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open"! Remember not to say anything mean about any Americans and enjoy your stay!

Gonna be a national security threat again www.forbes.com/sites/emilyb...