Supreme Court and freedom of the press conversation
The United States Supreme Court is one of our more secretive institutions, but it has been in the spotlight recently because of controversial decisions on abortion, gun control, school prayer and more. Some of those decisions were controversial because they broke from precedent, the principle that previous court rulings should be respected.
What about the future of other precedents that have not been on the Supreme Court’s docket lately, such as opinions favoring freedom of the press?
Two law professors, RonNell Andersen Jones of the University of Utah and Sonja R. West from the University of Georgia, recently embarked on a project to determine the Supreme Court’s attitude about freedom of the press by examining every Court decision since the Court’s first session. They were able to plot the trajectory of the Court’s feelings about press freedom and identify the press’s greatest protectors. If you are a fan of press freedom, the work of Professors Jones and West should concern you, particularly in light of statements by two Supreme Court justices recently questioning one of the Court’s landmark First Amendment rulings.
The IU Media School’s Center for International Media Law and Policy Studies and the Barbara Restle Press Freedom Project will welcome Professors Jones and West for a conversation about their work. Center Director Anthony Fargo will moderate.
The forum is free to the public, but registration is required.
Meet the presenters:
RonNell Andersen Jones is the Teitelbaum Chair in Law at the University of Utah and an Affiliated Fellow at the Yale Law School Information Society Project. Her scholarship and commentary on the relationship between the press and the courts is widely published in dozens of top law reviews and in major media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio. A former law clerk for Judge William A. Fletcher of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, she was recently elected a member of the American Law Institute.
Sonja R. West is the Brumby Distinguished Professor in First Amendment Law at the University of Georgia School of Law where she focuses on legal protections for the press. Her work has appeared in top legal journals such as the Harvard Law Review, the UCLA Law Review, and the California Law Review. A graduate of the University of Chicago School of Law, Professor West served as a law clerk for Judge Dorothy W. Nelson of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.