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Research & Learn

Explore ��֭��'s library of resources and research on free speech and other civil liberties.

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Issue Pages

Secondary effects doctrine overview

The secondary effects doctrine allows government officials to treat patently content-based laws as content-neutral.

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Issue Pages

Intentional infliction of emotional distress

Speech classified as “intentional infliction of emotional distress” has to be in some sense gratuitous and serving no valid social or communicative purpose.

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Issue Pages

Time, place, and manner limits on speech

The government is allowed considerable discretion in what kind of time, place, and manner restriction it imposes, as long as the restriction is truly viewpoint neutral.

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Issue Pages

What is the government speech doctrine?

In recent years, courts have examined the government speech doctrine in a variety of contexts ranging from monuments in parks, to license plates, to regulation of federal trademarks, the flying of flags on city hall, and more.

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Issue Pages

Recording police in public: What you need to know

The First Amendment protects your right to take photos or videos of government agents in public spaces.

Issue Pages

Free speech and private universities

Because private colleges have such broad freedom to determine their own policies, and because state laws vary so widely, it is safest to speak of having only “potential” rights on a private campus.

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Issue Pages

Compelled speech

It is unconstitutional for the government to adopt a point of view on a particular subject and force citizens to agree.

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Issue Pages

Freedom of conscience and the Supreme Court

Free individuals disagree about and debate such views, and they seek to change each other’s beliefs by persuasion and argument, not by coercion and force.

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Issue Pages

The indispensable right to private conscience

Support for freewheeling debate and the freedom to challenge reigning assumptions are the cornerstones of our American culture of civil liberties.

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Issue Pages

How and why the Constitution does not allow prior restraint

��֭��’s position is that colleges and universities should never seek editorial control over student newspapers.

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Issue Pages

Viewpoint neutrality and student fees on campus

Mandatory fees, the funding of student groups, and the often arbitrary standards by which such funding occurs raise issues of the highest constitutional and moral importance.

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Issue Pages

Faculty speech rights at public universities

Faculty members are often shocked to learn that many of the same rules that apply to employees of the postal service also apply to professors at public universities.

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Issue Pages

Academic freedom of professors and colleges

The best protection from restrictions on faculty classroom speech may come not from the First Amendment, but from the school’s individual academic freedom policy.

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Issue Pages

State protections for speech at private colleges

Too often, students and student groups at private colleges and universities face discipline not for conduct, but for so-called “offensive” speech.

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Issue Pages

Procedural protections in academic cases

Student misconduct cases involving academic issues, such as grading and plagiarism, require lesser procedural protections because universities have greater leeway to make academic determinations.