Reconstructing Free Expression
The Trump administration is engaged in a full-scale assault on First Amendment rights and values, violating laws and using threats to create a climate of fear and self-censorship. Its attacks—often successful—have exposed significant, longstanding weaknesses in the laws, institutions, and norms that underwrite public discourse. The Institute’s “Reconstructing Free Expression” initiative is an effort to understand the precise nature of those weaknesses and to identify ways in which both public and private institutions can better protect the expressive and associational freedoms that are essential to democracy.
This blog channel highlights the Institute’s ongoing research and education efforts related to this initiative.
Research
Essays and Scholarship
Participatory Journalism and Its Potential in AI-Assisted Local News
The adoption of AI in local journalism should go hand in hand with implementing more equitable, civically focused, participatory forms of journalism
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Essay Series
Lawyering Without Law: The Legal Profession in an Age of Authoritarianism
A project studying the crucial role that lawyers can play in preserving democratic freedoms and institutions
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Essays and Scholarship
Surveilling Border Lawyering
Lawyers who serve migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border face surveillance and attempts to suppress their work by U.S. and Mexican government officials
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Podcast
"The Bully's Pulpit: Trump v. The First Amendment"
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