Cristina Carmody Tilley, ‘(Re)Categorizing Defamation’, 94 Tulane Law Review 435 (2020). In the past few years, a number of prominent voices – including then-candidate Donald Trump, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Neil Gorsuch, federal appeals court judge Lawrence Silberman, top Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, and others – have called for the Supreme Court to reconsider its constitutionalization of defamation law that began with New York Times v Sullivan. At first these voices seemed quixotic. But there is a growing debate among legal analysts about whether the constitutional parameters of defamation should be altered to strike a better balance between society’s interests in protecting individual reputation, safeguarding freedom of expression, and anchoring our public discourse in truth. Christina Tilley’s new article, ‘(Re)Categorizing Defamation’, enters this debate firmly on the side of tilting the playing field back toward plaintiffs, in the expectation that doing so will also help restore media credibility and provide United States citizens with the factual information we need to engage in democratic self-governance … (more)
[Lyrissa B Lidsky, JOTWELL, 1 June]
First posted 2022-06-02 10:00:10
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