In the first few weeks of his second term, President Trump has issued a wave of executive orders attempting to place conditions on how recipients of federal funding appropriated by Congress can speak and associate. The orders have targeted diversity programs, Black History Month, human rights advocacy, anti-war speech, and the use of disfavored pronouns. Some of these orders have already been challenged on First Amendment grounds; many other court challenges are likely to be filed in the coming months.

Contemporary First Amendment doctrine is confusing and even incoherent on the question of when the government may regulate speech by imposing conditions on federal funding. The Supreme Court has said that Congress has broad power to tax and spend for the general welfare, and that this power encompasses the authority to impose limits on the use of the funds to ensure that the funds are used for the purpose Congress intends. At the same time, the First Amendment precludes the government from denying a benefit on a basis that infringes the applicant’s freedom of speech, even if the applicant does not have an entitlement to that benefit.

Reconciling these two principles is not straightforward. For example, is the government regulating private speech (as in USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International (2013)) or merely controlling its own message (as in Rust v. Sullivan)? Is the government imposing an “ongoing condition” (as in Alliance for Open Society) or choosing a “selection criterion” (as in NEA v. Finley)? And what limits does the First Amendment impose on the government’s ability to impose the latter? When does a funding program give rise to a limited public forum, such that the government cannot discriminate on the basis of viewpoint (see Rosenberger v. University of Virginia)? None of these questions yields easy answers. As Chief Justice Roberts acknowledged in Alliance for Open Society, “The line is hardly clear.”

To explore these questions, the Knight Institute will host a one-day closed convening at Columbia University on Friday, May 23, 2025. Participants will be asked to write a short (1500-2000 words) note in advance of the convening engaging, in one way or another, with the convening’s theme. These notes will be shared with other participants and then published on the Knight Institute’s website.

Scholars, practitioners, regulators, academic administrators, and others interested in participating in the convening are invited to submit statements of interest to [email protected] by Friday, March 21, 2025. A statement of interest should be no more than a few paragraphs and should describe the applicant’s relevant background, what specific questions are of most interest to the applicant, what the applicant expects to be able to contribute to the discussion, and how the applicant hopes to use any insights gained from the convening. We anticipate inviting 10-15 people to participate. The Institute will cover participants’ reasonable travel costs. The Institute may also invite some participants to write longer papers for publication by the Knight Institute; invitees who agree to do so will be paid an honorarium.