Law Professor at George Washington Law. President of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. Author of Fearless Speech (2024) and The Cult of the Constitution (2019). First Amendment, civil rights, technology, criminal law, family law, firearms law.
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Video of the lively discussion of "A More Perfect Union: Free Speech, DEI, and America at 250" with me, ACLU attorney Emerson Sykes, legal scholar Eugene Volokh, Above the Law founder David Lat, & a guy trying to heckle me around the 30:00 mark www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SCS... @digiphile.bsky.social
This was an excellent discussion of free speech in the USA. I was pleased to meet @maryannefranks.bsky.social in person after years of admiring her scholarship, OG legal blogger Volokh of @volokhc.bsky.social, @davidlat.bsky.social, & get inspired by @aclu.org’s EmersonSykes. Recording to come.
"No": "a weapon that these men do not want women to have, which is why the spectre they always invoke is so relentlessly feminine; maternal & dominant, the figure that so many men can most relate to as the first woman who did them wrong because she had power" www.liberalcurrents.com/gender-graha...
"Offloading the struggle to a chatbot does not 'free students up for higher-order work.' It deprives them of building the strength to do any substantial cognitive work at all." www.chronicle.com/article/my-s...
As part of my fellowship the Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression in May, I gave a public lecture via zoom on "The Perils of Free Speech Culture," which is now available, complete with a lively Q&A, on YouTube: @thechicagoforum.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yguu...
I joined @npr.org's Throughline to talk about cross-burning, stalking, and the line between free speech and "true threats": www.npr.org/2026/06/11/n...
Tomorrow evening at the Library of Congress, I'll be in dialogue with Above the Law's David Lat, legal scholar Eugene Volokh, and ACLU attorney Emerson Sykes about the current state of free speech in America. Free and open to the public (registration required): the-nxtlevel.com/campaigns/vi...
Franks described a “shell game of censorship” where American nationalists wail of being “silenced” by tech companies, while banning books, issuing orders & pushing laws that would limit protected speech.
As she noted, private censorship is not going to put you on jail, deported, or shot in streets.
Has America's 250-year-old free speech tradition advanced freedom and equality for all? Or become a shield for the powerful?
Eugene Volokh and @maryannefranks.bsky.social will debate the legacy of the First Amendment on America's 250th birthday at the 2026 Global Free Speech Summit. 🧵
For the antifeminist leftist, the HR Lady symbolizes the empty triumph of managerial liberalism and girlboss feminism, to be vanquished by a pair of sapient Carhartts.
www.liberalcurrents.com
@maryannefranks.bsky.social led off by observing that the First Amendment has never truly been extended to all Americans in our history, which is true.
Look back: Who was protected, & what did they say? Who wasn’t protected, and what they say?
The same questions & chilling effects are relevant now.
