As the U.S. Supreme Court stated in the 1964 landmark case of New York Times vs. Sullivan, the “central meaning” of the First Amendment is found in Americans’ right to criticize the public officials they choose to govern them.
The Supreme Court’s categorical repudiation of seditious libel as inconsistent with the free speech rights of Americans illustrates “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”
Thus, a public official, the Sullivan Court held, cannot recover damages for a defamatory falsehood unless he proves that the statement was made with “‘actual malice’–that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
To the advocates of Sullivan it was “a great liberating force of American law and life,” according to former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, who wrote “Make No Law,” the definitive study of the case.
To its detractors, however, Sullivan’s “actual malice” rule is counterproductive to news reporting and public service in the United States. They assert that the libel rule results in shoddy journalism while encouraging unreasonable attacks on the “best men” in public life. In a nutshell, freer journalism is not necessarily better journalism.
Amid the continuing debate about Sullivan’s actual or perceived impact on freedom of expression in the United States and abroad, the School of Journalism and Communication and the School of Law at the University of Oregon are sponsoring a major First Amendment conference on the seminal case. The conference, titled “New York Times Co. v. Sullivan: Forty Years After,” will be held at the University Knight Law Center on Friday.
At the Sullivan conference, U.S. Circuit Judge Gilbert S. Merritt will deliver the keynote address on the government’s efforts to control free speech in the post-Sept. 11 America. He’ll be joined by a dozen other speakers in the day-long conference. Among the invited panelists are Justice Rives Kistler of the Oregon Supreme Court, Judge Robert Sharpe of the Canadian Court of Appeals, First Amendment lawyer Bruce Johnson, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius and professor Frederick Schauer of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
The speakers at the Sullivan conference will assess the social, cultural and political influence of the foundational case in connection with the extraordinarily volatile situations confronting us these days.
“In this time of war and terrorism and certain risks to civil liberties, we should take those rights and responsibilities to heart,” said David Bodney, a leading media law attorney who’ll speak at the Sullivan conference. “And we should use New York Times v. Sullivan as a battle cry to view ourselves in the media as part of this experiment in self-government responsibility.”
No doubt the Sullivan conference at the University of Oregon on Friday will be a valuable opportunity for all of us to more critically (re)appreciate what defines the United States as a functioning democracy. To the engaged, discerning members of the University community the opportunity is too good to be missed.

Kyu Ho Youm, who holds the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair at the University School of Journalism and Communication and is a courtesy professor at the School of Law, is co-organizing the Sullivan conference on Friday.