The Trump administration is engaged in a full-scale assault on First Amendment rights and values, violating laws and using threats to create a climate of fear and self-censorship. Its attacks—often successful—have exposed significant, longstanding weaknesses in the laws, institutions, and norms that underwrite public discourse. The Institute’s “Reconstructing Free Expression” initiative is an effort to understand the precise nature of those weaknesses and to identify ways in which both public and private institutions can better protect the expressive and associational freedoms that are essential to democracy.

This initiative will encompass a series of closed convenings with scholars and advocates to generate ideas for legal, institutional, and other reforms; a collection of published essays exploring specific proposed interventions; a year-end report that provides a blueprint for reform; and a series of public events intended to build support for the blueprint. We expect some of the proposed reforms to be implemented in the short- and medium-term even in the face of judicial and political headwinds. 

In addition to Knight Institute staff, the initiative’s steering committee includes Michael Dorf (Cornell Law School), Jamal Greene (Columbia Law School), Genevieve Lakier (University of Chicago Law School), and Sabeel Rahman (Cornell Law School & Reconstructing Democracy Project).