William Freivogel

Carbondale, Kirkwood, St. Louis

Contributor at St.Louis Public Radio NPR

Journalist, lawyer, academic; loves Cardinals and four children and 8 grandchildren

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Articles

In Conversation: Sixty years of civil rights activism by the iconic Percy Green

2 weeks ago | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

By William Freivogel >>Sixty-one years ago, Percy Green began a hunger strike in front of the office of then-St. Louis Treasurer John H. “Jack” Dwyer to demand the city remove tax money from Jefferson Bank, which had no Black employees. Green, who had already been branded a “habitual troublemaker” by the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and secretly targeted for dirty tricks by J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO, was arrested within three hours on trespass charges. It was the first of 100 arrests over 20 years.
100 days of chaos

1 month ago | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

In 100 days of chaos, President Donald J. Trump has violated laws, ignored time-tested norms, damaged the world’s most respected system of higher education, undermined the world’s leading network of medical and health research facilities, surrendered America’s important instruments of “soft power,” endangered the health of tens of thousands of families around the world and detonated a tariff bomb in the middle of the world’s economy, wiping out $5 trillion in wealth in two days.
Opinion: The month that shook our world

Feb 20, 2025 | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

French publication Le Monde headlined this week that it was “The week the US shook Europe’s world.”Americans could justifiably say it’s the month that shook ours. There is no precedent for President Donald Trump’s massive restructuring of the government with a flurry of executive orders, pronouncements, firings and pardons that have overturned norms, violated laws and demoralized civil servants. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Mt. Denali.
Opinion: Constitutional watchdogs shrink from checking presidential abuse of power

Feb 6, 2025 | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

While President Donald Trump unleashes a torrent of legally questionable exertions of power, Congress sits by compliantly, the U.S. Supreme Court remains unengaged and the Fourth Estate shrinks from its role as a watchdog of presidential abuse. Media executives even curry favor with the man they’re supposed to be watching. In short, the check and balances of the Constitution are hauntingly silent.
Linda Greenhouse: Justice Alito’s abortion decision was ‘religious tract’ with ‘veneer of legal analysis’

Jan 23, 2025 | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

Linda Greenhouse, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Supreme Court reporter, said in St. Louis last week that Justice Samuel Alito elaborately reinterpreted a 1990s precedent to “provide to a veneer of legal analysis on what is at its core a religious tract” overturning Roe v. Wade.
Facts, lies, elections and the press: In search of a shared national story

Dec 19, 2024 | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

“Facts can’t fix this.”That was the headline that emerged from a post-election discussion recently at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School about how the press fell short covering the presidential election. The point: The press constantly repeating facts and pointing out lies won’t stop a man like Donald Trump from building a successful campaign on a foundational lie about the last election being stolen from him.
Missouri’s broad redaction law could be blocked as unconstitutional

Dec 12, 2024 | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

Media lawyers told a state court judge this month that the Missouri law requiring redactions of the names of witnesses and victims from court records violated both the state and federal constitutions. Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office replied that the law does not require as many redactions as the media lawyers say and therefore does not violate the constitutions. Bailey’s office conceded, however, that if the law is as broad as the media says, it could be unconstitutional.
News Analysis: The threat Trump poses to the press

Nov 6, 2024 | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on the threats and actions he directed at the press during the election campaign and his first administration, an already weakened press could be further harmed over the next four years. A weaker press, in turn, weakens an important constitutional check on government, one that is especially important when one party controls all the levers of governmental power. That is the view of media lawyers in Missouri and Illinois.
Opinion: Endorsements are an important cog in the machine of democracy

Oct 27, 2024 | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

By William H. FreivogelThe purpose of a newspaper endorsement of a president or other political candidate is to pull together the information about the candidates, measure the candidates against the news organization’s and the nation’s values and then cogently explain to readers/voters why a particular candidate deserves their vote.
News analysis: Abusive cops still wander from department to department mistreating citizens

Sep 26, 2024 | gatewayjr.org | William Freivogel

By William H. FreivogelOne reform that grew out of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 was that recalcitrant states with strong police unions passed decertification laws to take away peace officer licenses from those with a track record of seriously abusing citizens. California and Massachusetts, two states with strong police unions, passed laws to decertify serious abusers.