Archive | First Amendment

2025 Cleary Writing Competition Winners Announced

By on May 4, 2026 in Center for Media Law and Policy, First Amendment

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy is pleased to announce the winners of the annual James R. Cleary Prize for the best student-published scholarly articles on media law and policy.

Anne Sutton OrndorffThis year’s first-place winner is Anne (Sutton) Orndorff for her article titled “A Woman’s Right to Know, But Not to Choose: Revisiting HB854 in the Wake of Dobbs and NIFLA.” The award comes with a $1,000 cash prize.

Sutton’s Note examines abortion informed-consent laws, focusing on North Carolina’s HB854 and the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Stuart v. Camnitz. She argues that abortion “informed consent” has increasingly been used as a tool of ideological pressure rather than genuine patient education. The piece traces the doctrinal history from City of Akron, Thornburgh, and Casey through Rounds and Lakey, then contrasts those cases with Stuart, which treated the law as compelled speech and applied intermediate scrutiny. The Note’s central claim is that NIFLA and Dobbs undermine the Fifth and Eighth Circuits’ reliance on Casey and make a fresh First Amendment analysis necessary. It concludes that many abortion “informed consent” laws are not true informed-consent regulations at all and should be vulnerable under the First Amendment.

Sutton is a graduating third-year student from the University of North Carolina School of Law. Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, she attended the University of Richmond where she majored in History and minored in Latin American, Latino & Iberian studies. During her time at Richmond, she also served as a captain of the Division I field hockey team. At Carolina Law, she served as president of the Carolina Law Ambassadors and a Note Editor for the First Amendment Law Review. After graduation, she will join a commercial real estate firm in Raleigh.

 

Owen Breen Headshot

This year’s second-place winner is Owen Breen for his article titled “Lights, Camera, Arrest! Sharpe v. Winterville Police Department Represents a Novel Collision of Law Enforcement Priorities and the First Amendment.” The award comes with a $500 cash prize.

Owen’s Note analyzes Sharpe v. Winterville Police Department, a Fourth Circuit case involving a passenger who attempted to livestream a traffic stop. He frames the case as a conflict between the public’s First Amendment interest in recording police and law enforcement’s interest in officer safety during traffic stops. The piece surveys the broader right-to-record jurisprudence, including Glik, Gericke, Fields, Project Veritas, and Irizarry, and discusses how time, place, and manner limits and obstruction statutes shape the doctrine. It also explores the Fourth Amendment implications of traffic stops and argues that livestreaming during an active stop may create unique safety risks that justify some limits. The Note ultimately takes a more skeptical view of expansive recording rights in this context, especially where livestreaming may interfere with police duties.

Owen is a 2026 graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law. Born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he now lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. Previously, he graduated from Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in 2023 with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree and a double major in Political Science. While at Carolina Law, he was a staff writer on the First Amendment Law Review. Owen is passionate about First Amendment issues, politics, and current affairs. He will join Phelps Dunbar as an Associate Attorney in its Raleigh office in the fall.

Sealed Justice: Federal Courts’ Inconsistent Record-Sealing Rules and Their Impact on Judicial Transparency

By on January 12, 2026 in First Amendment, Transparency

My article titled “Sealed Justice: Federal Courts’ Inconsistent Record-Sealing Rules and Their Impact on Judicial Transparency” recently came out in the Journal of Free Speech Law. In the article I argue that federal district courts are doing a poor job of  protecting the public’s right of access to court records. Despite the longstanding presumption that court records are open for public inspection, parties frequently attempt to “seal” documents in order to hide them from public view. Empirical research reveals that the sealing of court records is extensive and increasing. This project is the first to comprehensively examine whether federal district courts provide clear and consistent local rules for sealing court records in civil and criminal cases. It also evaluates whether these local rules align with established Supreme Court and circuit court precedent concerning the public’s right of access to judicial records.

Here is the full abstract:

Public access to court records is a cornerstone of democratic governance, enabling public oversight of the judiciary and fostering confidence in the rule of law. Despite a strong presumption in favor of openness under both the First Amendment and common law, the sealing of federal court records has become widespread, often with minimal judicial scrutiny. Recent investigations have revealed that excessive court secrecy shields government and corporate misconduct, conceals vital public-safety information, and erodes public confidence in the courts.

This Article presents the first comprehensive analysis of the local rules governing sealing in all 94 federal districts, reviewing more than 700 provisions in both civil and criminal rules. The findings are concerning: Nearly half of all districts lack general sealing rules, many fail to reference the controlling legal standard, and basic procedural safeguards—such as public notice, consideration of alternatives to sealing, and case-specific identification of harms—are frequently absent. These deficiencies have created a patchwork of inconsistent, often toothless rules that enable secrecy to spread largely unchecked.

Without changes to federal rules, court-ordered secrecy will continue to erode public trust and obscure the work of the federal courts. This Article proposes three core principles to guide this reform. First, substantive clarity: Every rule governing sealing should expressly affirm the presumption of public access and incorporate, at a minimum, the common law’s requirements for sealing. Second, procedural rigor: Rules should require public notice of sealing requests, an opportunity for objections, identification of specific harms, consideration of less-restrictive alternatives, and mechanisms for periodic review and unsealing. Third, administrative efficiency: Rules should require parties to limit the frequency and narrow the scope of their sealing re-quests, explore redaction as an alternative, and certify their efforts to minimize the need for sealing.

You can download the article from SSRN or from the Journal of Free Speech Law.

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Second Annual Aspiring Free Speech Scholars Workshop

By on November 26, 2025 in First Amendment

Second Annual Aspiring Free Speech Scholars Workshop
jointly sponsored by the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law (ASU)
and the Hoover Institution (Stanford University)

Posted on behalf of Eugene Volokh and James Weinstein:

Are you a law student, judicial law clerk, lawyer, or beginning academic hoping to publish a journal article on free speech law? Would you like the opportunity to get advice about your draft from leading free speech scholars?

If so, send us your draft by Sunday, August 16, 2026. (This should still be a draft article, not an article that’s already published or expected to be published within six months.) We plan to select the submissions that we think are particularly promising, and invite their authors to a workshop where they can present their papers and get helpful feedback on them. The workshop will be Saturday, October 24, 2026 (with dinner the night before) at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law in Phoenix, and we will inform the selected authors by Tuesday, September 8, 2026.

We have funds to pay for transportation and lodging for the selected authors’ trips. Eligibility is limited to people who have so far published three or fewer law-related journal articles.

We also plan to officially recognize zero to three of the top articles among those we review. If the authors wish, they can also have their articles reviewed for publication in the Journal of Free Speech Law (http://JournalOfFreeSpeechLaw.org), presumably after they revise the articles in light of the workshop feedback.

If you’re interested, please submit your draft at http://tinyurl.com/aspiring-free-speech (Google logon required). Please single-space, and format the article nicely, so we can more easily read it.

Please do not include your name or law school affiliation in the document or document filename, and please do not include an author’s note thanking your advisors and others. Please make your filename be the title of your article (or some recognizable subset of the article title). We want to review the article drafts without knowing the authors’ identities.

If you have questions, please check http://tinyurl.com/aspiring-free-speech-faq; if your question isn’t answered there, please e-mail volokh@stanford.edu.

Many thanks to the Stanton Foundation for its generous support.

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James Weinstein, Dan Cracchiolo Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University

Eugene Volokh, Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution (Stanford University), and Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law

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2025 First Amendment Day

By on October 2, 2025 in Center for Media Law and Policy, First Amendment

The UNC Center for Media Law and Policy will celebrate its sixteenth annual First Amendment Day on Wednesday, October 8, 2025.  This campus-wide, daylong series of events is designed to both celebrate the First Amendment and explore its role in the lives of Carolina students. As always, First Amendment Day is observed during National Banned Books Week.

Join us for CLE credits (Campus Life Experience), food, and thought-provoking discussions.

Here are some highlights:

Bring your students and your questions. You won’t find a smarter group of folks talking about these critical issues!

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New Article on Popular Sovereignty and a Right to Know About the Government

By on September 12, 2025 in First Amendment, Transparency

My recent article on Popular Sovereignty and a Right to Know About the Government just came out in the Arizona Law Review. In the article I argue that a right to know is not only implied by the First Amendment but is fundamental to the Constitution’s system of checks and balances and is rooted in the principle of popular sovereignty. The Framers’ commitment to self-government requires that citizens have access to information about their government if they are to exercise their sovereign authority over the government. Recognizing a right to know as a constitutional imperative, rooted in the people’s sovereign authority, establishes a durable foundation for limited government.  Here is the full abstract:

Imagine that a future U.S. President, upset about negative press coverage and plummeting approval ratings, issues an executive order instructing all federal agencies to henceforth provide no public access to executive branch records and meetings. Imagine further that the President’s party controls both chambers of Congress, which rescinds all statutory disclosure obligations imposed on the executive branch, including the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Government in the Sunshine Act, and Presidential Records Act. Is the public’s ability to understand the actions of government solely a matter for their elected representatives to decide? Disturbingly, many courts and scholars seem to think so.

If the government attempts to keep its citizens in the dark, or even actively misleads them, how can this not strike at the very heart of the Constitution? I argue in this Article that a right to know about the government is fundamental to the Constitution’s system of checks and balances. While past scholarship has largely grounded the right to know in the First Amendment, this Article advances a more foundational claim: the Framers’ unwavering commitment to popular sovereignty demands that the people have a right to know about their government. Recognizing a right to know as a constitutional imperative, rooted in the people’s sovereign authority, establishes a durable foundation for limited government—one that ensures that citizens can hold their leaders accountable and fully exercise their role in self-government.

Implementing a right to know about the government will present many challenges. Fortunately, we can draw guidance from the Supreme Court’s cases applying a public right of access to the courts, and we have decades of experience with open government statutes such as FOIA and the Sunshine Act. Building on this foundation, I lay out three core principles that should guide the development of a right to know about the government. First, a right to know should be limited in scope and extend only so far as is necessary to fulfill the needs of democratic self-government. Second, even when a right to know applies, it should yield when countervailing interests are sufficiently weighty. Third, the government must have leeway in designing access policies and procedures that account for the practical realities of providing public access.

You can download the article from SSRN.

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