About the 2019 Law Day Theme
Free Speech, Free Press, Free Society
In the United States and around the world, freedom of speech and the press are among the most important foundations for a free society. Free speech and free press are prominent topics in public discourse and litigation. It is impossible to imagine a free society without these individual liberties, yet historical and current debates surrounding them continually challenge us to consider their boundaries and resilience. Changes in technology have reshaped how free speech and free press work in the everyday world.
Law Day 2019 offers the opportunity to explore this pair of freedoms by probing their history and considering their future. Should all speech be “free?” What is the role of government in regulating or protecting the press? Should speech or the press be constrained through laws or norms? Can a free society exist without free speech and free press?
The 2019 Law Day theme—Free Speech, Free Press, Free Society—focuses on these cornerstones of representative government and calls on us to understand and protect these rights to ensure, as the U.S. Constitution proposes, “the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.”
