The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will celebrate its Fifteenth First Amendment Day on Wednesday, September 25, 2024.
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. Students and other members of the university community will read from banned books and discuss the public university’s special role as a marketplace of ideas and the need to be tolerant when others exercise their rights. As always, First Amendment Day is observed during National Banned Books Week.
First Amendment Day is organized by the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy and is truly one of the highlights of the year for the UNC community.
2024 First Amendment Day Events
Breakfast with Bubba on First Amendment Day
Freedom Forum Conference Center
8:00 am - 9:30 am
Join UNC Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham for a talk about the evolving landscape of college athletics, ACC expansion and media contracts, the impact of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) policies, as well as the role and responsibilities of student-athletes in the campus marketplace of ideas.
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from one of the leading voices in college athletics about these pivotal developments and what they mean for the future of college sports!
- Moderator: Riley Shaak, Aspiring Sports Broadcaster | Graduate Student at UNC-Chapel Hill Hussman School of Journalism and Media | Former Student-Athlete
This event is free and open to the public. Students can earn Campus Life Experience (CLE) credit.
Video of the event:
This is just one of many events we are hosting on First Amendment Day!
Intercollegiate Ethics Debate: Speaking Out Against Not Speaking Out
Freedom Forum Conference Center on the Third Floor of Carroll Hall
10:30 am - 11:30 am
The Parr Center for Ethics sponsors the UNC-Chapel Hill Ethics Bowl team that competes in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Ethics Bowl each November. The Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl Competition (IEB) is part of a larger ethics bowl initiative by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics.
Join undergraduates active in UNC’s National Champion IEB team as they debate and discuss Ethics Bowl cases that focus on First Amendment issues. Ethics Bowl cases are real-world ethical scenarios, and students work to debate approaches to addressing them. This year’s topic is “Speaking Out Against Not Speaking Out,” focusing on whether a romantic partner must comply with the terms of a non-disclosure agreement signed at the onset of the relationship. This debate topic raises both legal and moral questions. The legal challenge to such an NDA arises from a piece of federal legislation, the Speak Out Act, which went into effect in December 2022. The Act rendered unenforceable NDAs agreements regarding sexual assault and abuse that were entered into before the allegation was made. In short, this means that a person cannot be compelled in advance to remain silent about any sexual assault or misconduct that might occur while involved with the party with whom they have entered into the agreement. This topic also raises moral questions about NDAs in general and NDAs that apply to sexual assault and misconduct specifically.
The UNC-Chapel Hill Ethics Bowl team provides students with an opportunity to practice applying moral theories and principles of argument that they learn in their ethics classes in the interactive format of the Ethics Bowl. Competition preparation involves significant research, writing, understanding ethical theories, and oral presentation. The provided case studies involve ethical issues in practical contexts, including engineering, law, medicine, personal relationships, education, and domestic and international politics. Specific questions may concern a wide range of ethically salient topics, including but not limited to plagiarism, dating and friendship, gun control, environmental policy, civilian casualties, and globalization.
This event will showcase the current UNC IEB team, as they present an abridged and interactive version of a regular competition round. The round will include information about a selected case study, a presentation by one team, comments from the opposing team, a response from the presenting team, and a Q&A period with the audience.
This event is open to the public and does not require registration. Students can earn Campus Life Experience (CLE) credit.
Video of the event:
This is just one of many events we are hosting on First Amendment Day!
Banned Books Reading
Front steps of Manning Hall
11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Hosting a “Freedom to Read” event in honor of Banned Books Week.
This event is open to the public and does not require registration. Students can earn Campus Life Experience (CLE) credit.
This is just one of many events we are hosting on First Amendment Day!
UNC Voter Registration Drive
The Pit
11:00 am - 2:00 pm
UNC Office of Student Life & Leadership is hosting a voter registration drive at The Pit.
Come register to vote for the upcoming 2024 general election or learn more about how to request an absentee ballot and make your voting plan. This event is strictly nonpartisan and does not promote ballot initiatives, candidates, or political parties.
Your vote matters — rain or shine!
Rain location: Carolina Union West Lounge.
Book Bans and the Marketplace of Ideas
Room 5048, UNC School of Law
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Book bans have a long history in the United States. Many books that are now staples in high school English classes and college literature courses were once banned from schools and libraries. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Awakening, and The Scarlet Letter are just a few examples. However, book bans are not a thing of the past. Multiple lawsuits have been brought against school districts who have recently banned books. By limiting what books are consumed by students and the public, the marketplace of ideas becomes less diverse, more isolating, and the First Amendment is weakened.
In honor of First Amendment Day and Banned Books Week, the UNC Media Law Society and OutLaw are hosting a panel to discuss the history and current state of book bans in the United States. Topics will include what types of books are traditionally banned, First Amendment implications of book banning, the modern-day issue of books on gender and identity being banned, and how publishers, activists, and librarians are challenging and responding to book bans.
The panel will include:
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Dan Novack, Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Penguin Random House
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Elliott Kuecker, Teaching Assistant Professor, UNC School of Information and Library Science
- Adrienne Kirschner, Chief Engagement Officer, Red, Wine, and Blue
The conversation will be led by Mary-Rose Papandrea, Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the UNC School of Law.
Video of the event:
The event is free and open to the public, and lunch will be provided.
AI & 1A: How the Press is Harnessing New Technology
Webinar: https://go.unc.edu/AIJournalism
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
AI is changing the ways newsrooms are doing ‘reporting’. And it is also changing the ways we think and feel about news. This panel will discuss examples of AI-driven reporting, editing, and content distribution, as well as the challenges of bias, accountability, and transparency in AI-generated journalism. Panelists will also discuss how AI influences audience trust, how newsrooms can incorporate AI in a way that maintains trust and credibility, and how AI might challenge our perceptions of who and what the press is.
Panelists:
- Marisa Porto, Knight Chair of Local News and Sustainability, UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media
- Benjamin Toff, Associate Professor and Director of the Minnesota Journalism Center, University of Minnesota Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication
- Joel Luther, Associate in Research, DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy
- Mollie Muchna, Project Manager, Trusting News Project
Moderator:
- Jessica Mahone, Research Director, UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media
This event is open to the public, and the webinar registration is available here: https://go.unc.edu/AIJournalism Webinar ID: 980 2687 7515
Video of the event:
Contextualizing Student Speech & Assembly at UNC
Freedom Forum Conference Center on the Third Floor of Carroll Hall
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Join a student-led panel centered around contemporary and historical student protests and the issues around free speech and assembly.
Panelists:
- Sara Smith is a feminist political geographer and professor of Geography and Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work is animated by a desire to understand how our ordinary lives put the work of territorialization in motion, to change how we operate as scholars and teachers in academic spaces, and to think our discipline’s core ideas more capaciously to engage with Black, Indigenous, anticolonial, and queer of color theorization.
- Hashem Amireh is a graduate student in the department of economics. He is the former president of the Graduate Workers Union and has been involved with Students for Justice in Palestine and Graduate Students for the Liberation of Palestine.
Moderator:
- Christina Huang is an undergraduate student in American Studies. She currently serves as the President of Affirmative Action Coalition and involved with TransparUNCy.
Video of the event:
CITAP Panel: Election 2024
Freedom Forum Conference Center on the Third Floor of Carroll Hall
3:00 pm - 4:15 pm
In this session, researchers from the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) present on media and democracy in advance of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Over the past decade, there has been growing concern over the effects of disinformation and social media-driven polarization on democracies around the world. This talk reviews what we know about media, surveillance, disinformation, and polarization, and the relationship of these things with healthy democratic functioning. Researchers discuss the numerous attempts to regulate social media to prevent censorship or election and health-related misinformation, as well as the complicated relationship between political struggles, democratic processes, and technological oversight.
Panelists:
- Daniel Kreiss, Edgar Thomas Cato Distinguished Professor, UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media; Founding Principal Investigator, Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life
- Shannon McGregor, Associate Professor, UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media; Principal Investigator, Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life
- Meredith Clark, Associate Professor of Race and Political Communication, UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media; Principal Investigator, Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life
Moderator:
- Francesca Tripodi, Associate Professor, UNC School of Information and Library Science; Principal Investigator, Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life
This event is open to the public and does not require registration. Students can earn Campus Life Experience (CLE) credit.
Video of the event:
This is just one of many events we are hosting on First Amendment Day!
First Amendment Trivia Contest
Freedom Forum Conference Center on the Third Floor of Carroll Hall
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm
What rights are explicitly protected by the First Amendment? Which U.S. Supreme Court Justice said obscenity was difficult to define, but “I know it when I see it?” When is “speech” unprotected by the First Amendment? When can conduct or clothing be protected by the First Amendment?
Enter our trivia contest and test your knowledge of the First Amendment. Prizes include gift cards from local books stores Epilogue and Flyleaf Books!
This event is being hosted by MA/JD student, Julianna Surkin.
Pre-registration is not required. Only current UNC students are eligible to win trivia prizes. In addition to prizes, students can earn Campus Life Experience (CLE) credit.
This is just one of many events we are hosting on First Amendment Day!
Keynote: Clashes on Campus - Student Protest & the First Amendment
Freedom Forum Conference Center on the Third Floor of Carroll Hall
5:15 pm - 6:30 pm
Protests have long been a vital part of American society and politics, from the “Germantown Protest” of 1688 to the Civil Rights Era and beyond. In recent years, they’ve become even more widespread and prominent. As campuses become battlegrounds for debates on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the presidential election, and other cultural issues, the First Amendment plays a crucial role in both protecting political expression and protecting those who challenge it. But this polarized moment has strained our ability to engage in discourse across differences. It has highlighted the need for stronger civic education to equip young people as effective activists and advocates.
Universities are essential to students’ civic education, but according to the 2025 College Free Speech Rankings Report there has been an increase in attempts to block controversial campus speakers. Tensions surrounding protest and the free expression on campus have resulted in student arrests, sanctions, and the resignations of university presidents, as well as students saying that certain topics are difficult to “have an open and honest conversation about on campus.” This keynote will explore the role of universities, students, and others in navigating complex cultural issues in an increasingly divided world.
Keynote speaker: Lindsie Rank, M.A., J.D., Director of Campus Rights Advocacy at The FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)
Moderator: Evan Ringel, J.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Media Law, Department of Communication, Appalachian State University.
A Q&A session will follow prepared remarks, so come with your questions!
This event is open to the public and does not require registration. Students can earn Campus Life Experience (CLE) credit.
Video of the event:
This is just one of many events we are hosting on First Amendment Day!