In 1964 the Supreme Court radically altered its interpretation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In the famed libel case, New York Times v. Sullivan, the Court ruled that public officials claiming to be victims of defamation would be held to a higher standard than ordinary citizens. They must prove not only that they were victims of defamatory falsehood, but also that their defamers acted with actual malice: knowledge that their claim was false, or at least a reckless disregard for its truth or falsity. As a result of this ruling, newspapers cannot now be easily held liable for false defamatory statements about politicians, celebrities, or other public figures.
Though many have heralded Sullivan as a landmark ruling in defense of First Amendment freedoms, in No Liberty to Libel, Carson Holloway argues that the Supreme Court erred dangerously in its interpretation of the Constitution. Holloway contends that the Court should revisit and reject the Sullivan doctrine.
Holloway demonstrates that the Sullivan doctrines two-tier system of libel lawwith one standard for ordinary persons and another for the prominenthas no roots in the original understanding of the freedom of the press, or in the tradition of American law that prevailed for most of our history. This tradition held more simply and consistently that libel was an exercise not of liberty but of license, and hence outside the scope of the freedom of the press.
A Supreme Court committed to interpreting the Constitution faithfullythat is, according to its text, original meaning, and historical understanding must reject New York Times v. Sullivan as a product of judicial policymaking untethered to the real meaning of the First Amendment.
Arvustused
No Liberty to Libel offers the most thorough originalist argument against New York Times v. Sullivan available today. Defenders of the Sullivan Courts actual malice doctrine may disagree with Holloways conclusions, but they cannot afford to ignore his arguments. Holloway reminds us of the American Founders crucial distinction between liberty and license, without which we cannot properly understand or interpret the freedom of the press or any of our other fundamental freedoms.
Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame A timely and essential book. Holloway makes a compelling case that freedom of the press never required a higher standard to prove defamation of public officials. The future of self-government may well depend on the Supreme Court correcting its error.
Ilan Wurman, Julius E. Davis Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Carson Holloway is department chair and professor of political science at the University of Nebraska, Omaha and a Washington fellow in the Claremont Institutes Center for the American Way of Life. He is the author of Hamilton versus Jefferson in the Washington Administration: Completing the Founding or Betraying the Founding? (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He is coeditor, with Bradford P. Wilson, of The Political Writings of Alexander Hamilton (Cambridge University Press, 2017) and The Political Writings of George Washington (Cambridge University Press, 2023). He has held visiting fellowships in Princeton Universitys James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and at the Heritage Foundation. His scholarly articles have appeared in The Review of Politics, Interpretation, and Perspectives on Political Science, and he has written public commentary for The New Criterion, First Things, National Affairs, Public Discourse, National Review, Law and Liberty, The Federalist, The American Spectator, and The American Conservative.
