Samantha Barbas

Feb 8, 2024 | christiancentury.org | Samantha Barbas |Philip Jenkins |Debie Thomas |Daniel Schultz

“Heed Their Rising Voices,” proclaimed the full-page ad that appeared in the Tuesday, March 29, 1960, edition of the New York Times. The ad requested donations to support the legal defense of Martin Luther King Jr., who had recently been arrested in Alabama on a trumped-up tax evasion charge.

Jul 26, 2023 | lawliberty.org | Samantha Barbas |Mark Pulliam |Theodore Dalrymple |Graham McAleer

The 1964 Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan is widely regarded as one of the most important First Amendment opinions of all time. In a unanimous opinion written by the Court’s most influential liberal Justice, William J. Brennan, the Court held that a public official cannot recover for the tort of libel—defined at common law as the publication of a false statement causing a person reputational harm—absent “actual malice” on the part of the publisher.