First Amendment Project - Gateway Journalism Review

The nation has just crossed the doorstep into the 250th anniversary of its Founding — a founding built on America’s embrace of Enlightenment values — freedom, equality and a government of the people. No nation in history had entrusted power to “We the people” by making the people sovereign instead of a king or potentate. The task was laid out plainly: To create a “more perfect Union” and “secure the Blessings of Liberty.” The First Amendment became a part of this founding idea of liberty. It protects everyone, including the speech we hate. It protects no ideology or creed, but all ideologies and creeds. It could be a starting point for a divided nation to talk together across divides, acting as a bridge between differences while helping democracy find its way.

This Gateway Journalism Review project is funded by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and contains the work of young and veteran journalists and lawyers in Missouri, Illinois and other parts of the Midwest. It begins with an overview recounting how President Trump emphasized the importance of the First Amendment during his election campaign, criticizing “Woke, cancel culture” for infringing speech. But Trump quickly pivoted as president in issuing executive orders against big law firms, media companies and universities – plainly in violation of the First Amendment because they targeted critics. Many of those big institutions chose to surrender First Amendment rights that could have been vindicated in court and to instead make deals with the Trump administrations worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The assassination of Charlie Kirk, an advocate of free speech on campus, led to Trump administration threats against liberal nonprofits and a period of cancel culture from the right that temporarily removed Jimmy Kimmel from the air.

The bulk of this report focuses on individual First Amendment disputes, especially in the Midwest.

— William H. Freivogel, publisher

Alan Greenblatt retells the story of how he quit on the spot last summer as editor of Governing Magazine when his boss killed a story for fear of upsetting the Trump White House. Ironically the storywas about the First Amendment.

Paul Wagman, a former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter, built on years of reporting about the inaccuracies of the Gateway Pundit in his story following Pundit to the Pentagon Press room where new rules have disempowered the press.

Carly Gist, a student editor at SIU, reports from Bloomington, Indiana, about the Indiana University newspaper censorshipstory that resulted in the firing of the paper’s long-time adviser. Gist joins me in a podcast about the long-term negative impact of Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, the St. Louis Supreme Court case that denied editorial independence to student journalists. Gist also writes about the free speech issues surrounding abortion, featuring Carbondale, Illinois, where three clinics provided 11,000 abortions last year to women from surrounding states.

Molly Parker, an SIU colleague and reporter for Capitol News Illinois, joined me for a podcast on the community reaction in Breese, Illinois, to a Proud Boys billboard, a controversy that harkens back to the way counter-speech in Skokie, Illinois, in 1977 effectively shut down a Nazi march and led instead to a museum about the Holocaust.

Felicity Barringer, former New York Times correspondent, writes about the police search of the Marion Record in rural Kansas in 2023 and her 55 year-old memories of the Palo Alto police raiding the Stanford Daily, an event that led to a law barring newsroom searches.

Kallie Cox, a reporter, describes the First Amendment playing out at a wild constituent meeting called by Rep. Wesley Bell where pro-Palestinian protesters loudly criticized his acceptance of pro-Israeli money permitted by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Cox also reported how the librarianin Bourbon, Missouri, was fired after erecting a Pride display and on the free speech strictures that Texas A&M imposed on the faculty, including AI bots identifying unacceptable advocacy in professors’ syllabi.

Glennis Woosley, editor of the high school news magazine in Nixa, Mo., tells of pushing back against efforts to ban books in the library. The right of students to read remains in peril, particularly in Midwest and Southern states such as Tennessee, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Texas and Florida.

Jon Sawyer, founder of the Pulitzer Center, writes about the rewards of teaching The 1619 Project in schools that once taught egregious misrepresentations of slavery and the Civil War.

Jackie Spinner, GJR editor, reports on ICE agents targeting people of color and journalists in Chicago immigration raids.

Caroline Steidley, a University of Missouri journalism student, interviews critics who say Washington University Chancellor Andrew Martin talks a big game on free speech but doesn’t live up to it.

Mark Sableman, a top St. Louis media lawyer, offers twin columns explaining how government actions that chill free speech or retaliate against unfavored speakers can violate the First Amendment.

Marty Baron, the outstanding American journalist, says in a St. Louis talk on the First Amendment hosted by GJR that he no longer takes for granted that the “rule of law will prevail” or that “a free press will endure.” But he remains optimistic because the press has survived past attacks and “there are promising signs of some rebellion against encroachments on free expression.”

Steve Edwards, a St. Louis artist, illustrated the project.