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Articles on Free speech

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Eugene Debs, center, imprisoned at the Atlanta Federal Prison, was notified of his nomination for the presidency on the socialist ticket by a delegation of leading socialists who came from New York to Atlanta. George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images

Trump wouldn’t be the first presidential candidate to campaign from a prison cell

Can you run for president from a prison cell? One man did in the 1920 election and got almost a million votes.
A pro-Palestine protest outside the State Library of Victoria, where the Melbourne Writers Festival is held. Joel Carrett/AAP

Australian writers festivals are engulfed in controversy over the war in Gaza. How can they uphold their duty to public debate?

Writers festivals navigate the fraught frontier between social media’s echo chambers of outrage and the civilised public debate of the public square. What’s the way forward in this heated atmosphere?
Harvard President Claudine Gay, University of Pennsylvania then-President Elizabeth Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth testify before Congress on Dec. 5, 2023. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Why university presidents find it hard to punish advocating genocide − college free speech codes are both more and less protective than the First Amendment

University codes of conduct support their mission to educate. But it’s not easy to balance those codes with the values of free speech, as the resignation of a prominent university president shows.
Students at UMass Amherst march across campus following a walkout and rally protesting the university’s “ties with war profiteers,” while also calling for “a ceasefire and end of the blockade on Gaza.” Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Defending space for free discussion, empathy and tolerance on campus is a challenge during Israel-Hamas war

A scholar of the Mideast at a large public university says that caring and a commitment to free speech have been central to his campus’s response to students upset and angry over the Israel-Hamas war.
Donald Trump continues to have − and to exercise − his free speech rights, even while under court orders. AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Jack Smith’s requested gag order, like judicial orders restricting Trump’s speech, seeks to balance constitutional rights

Trump has not been silenced. The limits on his speech protect fundamental rights − including his right to a fair trial by an unbiased jury and the public’s right to a working justice system.

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