Freedom of Speech

This fall, Columbia News sat down with four of the University’s leading experts on journalism and free speech to discuss the challenges facing the industry and the First Amendment as well as the state of the news media and what the future might hold.

Jameel Jaffer, founding director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, has set the institute’s agenda for its first year with a newly assembled launch team. The institute, created with $60 million in funding committed by Columbia University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in 2016, will use research, education and litigation to preserve and advance First Amendment rights—expanding the freedoms of speech and the press—in the digital age.

Columbia awarded its first Global Freedom of Expression Prizes to courts in Turkey and Zimbabwe and to a U.K.-based legal services organization in recognition of their contributions to free speech and a free press.

Columbia University’s inaugural Global Freedom of Expression Prizes were awarded on March 11 to the Constitutional Court of Turkey, the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe and the Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI).

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger reflects on the inaugural Global Freedom of Expression Prizes, which recognize the best judicial decisions and legal representation around the world in advancing international legal norms and principles of freedom of expression.

As our university has made clear from the outset of this recent story, we are deeply concerned about any government activity that would chill the freedom of thought or intrude upon student privacy, both of which are so essential to our academic community.