Research is surprisingly slim on whether free expression helps or harms the cause of social progress. Does it entrench an unjust status quo (as some movements on campus claim), or does it provide critical support for groups wishing to advance and change culture? Voices for Liberty seeks to answer these questions. From senior scholars to exciting new thinkers, we present cutting-edge research on the role freedom of speech plays in advancing civil rights movements.
Our authors look to the past, present and future from a range of disciplines and areas of expertise. Read on, and click links to access full papers and author bios.
WORKING AND PUBLISHED PAPERS
PAPER: “First Amendment Rights on Trial: A Critique of the Time, Place, and Manner Doctrine”
PUBLISHED: SSRN (October 2023); Oklahoma Law Review (forthcoming)
AUTHOR: Alec Greven, J.D. Candidate at the University of Chicago Law School
ABSTRACT: This article argues that the current First Amendment time, place, and manner doctrine needs to be reformed because it grants excessive deference to government authorities to regulate speech they disfavor by modifying the channels in which speech can be presented, burdening speech in places disproportionately used by certain social groups, and selectively enforcing these regulations. Several solutions are proposed to ensure a robust right to assemble and enable groups to speak freely and drive social progress.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2023 symposium, featuring Alec Greven, Emerson Sykes, and Timothy Zick, with Christopher Newman moderating.
PAPER: “Free Speech for All or None: Mobs, Abolitionists, and Democrats and the Public Constitutional Fights over the First Amendment During the American Civil War”
PUBLISHED: SSRN (October 2023)
AUTHOR: Nicholas Mosvick, Buckley Legacy Project Manager at the National Review Institute
ABSTRACT: This paper discusses the issues of free speech in the Civil War North by examination of partisan newspapers and other popular accounts in order to understand the popular constitutional discourse around the First Amendment during the war. The paper considers many episodes which resulted in public constitutional discourse, including riots, private and military attacks upon newspaper presses, and the arrest and military trial of one of President Abraham Lincoln’s greatest critics, Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2023 symposium, featuring Reuben Kirkham, Robert Dinerstein, and Doron Dorfman, with JoAnn Koob moderating.
PAPER: “Section 230 as Civil Rights Statute”**
PUBLISHED: SSRN (September 2023); Cincinnati Law Review
AUTHOR: Enrique Armijo, Professor of Law at the Elon University School of Law
ABSTRACT: Many of our most pressing discussions about justice, progress, and civil rights have moved online. But the convergence of mobility, connectivity, and technology is not the only reason why. Thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act’s immunity for online platforms, websites, and their hosts, speakers can engage in speech about protest, equality, and dissent without fear of collateral censorship from governments, authorities, and others in power who hope to silence them.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2023 symposium, featuring Enrique Armijo, Eugene Volokh, and Kate Ruane, with David E. Bernstein moderating.
**Watch our co-sponsored webinar with FIRE on this paper, Webinar: Free Speech, Civil Rights, and the Liability of Social Media Companies.
PAPER: “Religious Minorities and Secular Rights”
PUBLISHED: SSRN (March 2025); Washington & Lee Law Review (forthcoming)
AUTHOR: Josh McDaniel, Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
ABSTRACT: When religious claimants sue to protect their ability to practice their faith, they usually invoke constitutional and statutory guarantees that specifically protect religious exercise. But both historically and today, they often also invoke secular rights-like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or equal protection of the laws. And when they succeed on such claims, they set precedents not just for fellow religious believers, but everyone. As a result, many rights we now take for granted arose from religious minorities fighting for their right to preach, proselytize, and publish their religious views.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2024 symposium, featuring Joshua C. McDaniel, Stephanie Barclay, and Christopher Newman, with JoAnn Koob moderating.
PAPER: “Myra Bradwell and the Chicago Legal News: speech as a prerequisite to equal rights”
PUBLISHED: SSRN (April 2025)
AUTHOR: Anastasia P. Boden, Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
ABSTRACT: To the extent that people know the name Myra Bradwell, they likely know her only for her defeat. In Bradwell v. Illinois, the Supreme Court famously denied that Myra had a constitutional right to earn a living as an attorney. 2 According to eight justices, the “paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother,” not to enter a profession. 3 Myra may have lost in court, but she was wildly triumphant in the long run and became a successful advocate even without government permission. Though the Court denied her the right to pursue a livelihood, she retained her right to free speech-and she used it to start and manage the most successful legal periodical of her time, to draft and help pass various reforms that advanced equality before the law, and even to free Mary Todd Lincoln from unjust imprisonment in a sanitarium in Illinois.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2024 symposium, featuring Anastasia Boden, Ellen Dubois, and Nadine Strossen, with Christopher Newman moderating.
PAPER: “The Black-Controlled Town of Mound Bayou As A Bridgehead for Free Speech in Jim Crow Mississippi”
PUBLISHED: SSRN (Feb 2025) The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy, Vol 30
AUTHOR: David T. Beito, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama
ABSTRACT: Throughout the early twentieth century Mound Bayou, Mississippi, was a national beacon of hope for African Americans. It was founded in 1887 by the cousins of Isaiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green, who had been enslaved by Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and his brother Joseph E. Davis. The town became a haven for black self-government, voting, and equal rights. African Americans held every office and the community was an early hub for black entrepreneurship as well as culture and entertainment. Despite the entrenchment of Jim Crow, Mound Bayou persisted as an outpost for free expression and the citizens came to regard themselves as a kind of “saving remnant” of black liberty.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2024 symposium, featuring David Beito, Mark Tushnet, and Steven Reich, with JoAnn Koob moderating.
PAPER: “Free Speech, Fighting Faiths, and ‘Nones’: How Robust Free Speech Protections Helped Atheists, Humanists, and Freethinkers to Become Visible Participants in American Culture”
PUBLISHED: SSRN (April 2025)
AUTHOR: Katie McKerall, Senior Staff Attorney, American Humanist Association
ABSTRACT: This paper explores how the evolution of free speech jurisprudence throughout American history helped reshape American society to create space for minority religious voices in the public square. The paper begins with nineteenth century blasphemy cases, where the courts focused on protecting the Christian majority from offense, in the name of keeping the peace, at the expense of open discourse and the free speech rights of dissenters. By the turn of the twentieth century, the Supreme Court began to grapple with suppression of “dangerous” speech in wartime under the Espionage and Sedition Acts and the importance of allowing unpopular speech in the marketplace of ideas.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2024 symposium, featuring Katie McKerall, Emerson Sykes, and Onkar Ghate, with Tim Hoefer moderating.
PAPER: “The Jewish Dilemma in Supporting Free Speech and Countering Antisemitism on American College Campuses”
PUBLISHED: SSRN (June 2025) Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
AUTHOR: David L. Bernstein, Founder, Jewish Institute for Liberal Values
ABSTRACT: This article addresses what university leaders should do about the surge of antisemitism on American college campuses following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 atrocities from the perspective of committed free speech liberals—who both happen to be named David Bernstein—who also wish to protect the civil rights of Jewish students.
The authors first note that many antisemitic incidents on campus have involved vandalism, assault, and disruptive and illegal protests (e.g., building occupations and illicit encampments) and other acts that violate content-neutral regulations. While the perpetrators of these acts have often defended themselves as engaging in freedom of expression, these acts can and should be punished without infringing free speech.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2024 symposium, featuring David L. Bernstein, David E. Bernstein, Kenneth Marcus, and Samuel Goldman, with Debi Ghate moderating.
PAPER: “Does Free Speech Promote Racial Tolerance Across Countries?”
PUBLISHED: SSRN (Feb 2025)
AUTHOR: Claudia Williamson Kramer, Probasco Chair of Free Enterprise, UTC Gary W. Rollins College of Business
ABSTRACT: This paper provides conceptual arguments and empirical analysis regarding the association between freedom of speech, racial tolerance, and protection of minority rights across countries. Individual level survey results from Afrobarometer and World Values Surveys suggest that a preference for free speech fosters socially tolerant attitudes toward those of another race or ethnic group. At the country-level, aggregated survey data are combined with V-dem’s measures of freedom of expression, protection of rights, access to power, and government exclusion.
*Watch the panel discussion about this paper from our 2024 symposium, featuring Claudia Williamson Kramer, Eugene Volokh, and Garett Jones, with David E. Bernstein moderating.