In an interview with A&S Communications (Cornell University College of Arts & Sciences), Government, History and Robert S. Harrison Scholar Christina MacCorkle talks about her experience as a research assistant for the Cornell First Amendment Clinic.
Cornell First Amendment Clinic Advisory Board Member and Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law, Michael C. Dorf, authored “Support Local Journalism, Expand the Definition of Fraud, and Guard Against Boomerang Effects,” for the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University’s blog Reconstructing Free Expression.
A May 1, 2026, Investigative Post article quoted Heather Murray, Associate Director of the First Amendment Clinic and Managing Attorney of the Local Journalism Project. Read the full article here:
“Erie County Legislature flunks transparency test” Investigative Post, by Geoff Kelly
The Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic filed an amicus brief on April 30, 2026, in D.A. v. Tri County Area Schools, supporting a writ of certiorari before the United States Supreme Court in a case addressing the scope of student-speech rights.
Two middle school students, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (“FIRE”), sued their Michigan school district for forcing them to remove sweatshirts reading “Let’s Go Brandon,” a phrase widely understood as expressing a political viewpoint.
The District Court for the Western District of Michigan held that school administrators had “reasonably interpreted” the phrase as “profane” and the school’s action against the students did not violate the students’ First Amendment rights. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, relying on Bethel School District No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986), affirmed in October 2025, finding the euphemism conveyed a vulgar message that could be prohibited despite its political message.
The Clinic represents a group of First Amendment legal scholars—Clay Calvert, Erwin Chemerinsky, Roy Gutterman, Heather E. Murray, Daniel Novack, Joseph A. Tomain, Eugene Volokh, and Sonja R. West—in arguing that “the decision below impermissibly extends the authority of public-school officials to penalize students for expressing political viewpoints in the school environment that are neither sexually explicit or profane, nor disruptive to the learning process.” Specifically, the amicus brief argues that by deferring to the school’s interpretation of a popular political phrase as “profane,” the court improperly ignored the test established by the Supreme Court in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).
In Tinker, the Court held that a school may only prohibit student expression in the school environment that communicates a political message when the expression creates a “substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.” The scholars’ brief asks the Court to grant certiorari to clarify that Fraser does not give school districts broad authority to censor political speech that is neither disruptive nor facially vulgar or profane.
Under the supervision of Adjunct Professor Michael Grygiel and Stanton Fellow Daniela del Rosario Wertheimer, Clinic students Lexie Kapilian ’26, Jason Blau ’27 and Luke Wyatt ’27 worked to develop and write the amici brief over the course of the spring 2026 semester.
According to Grygiel, “It is essential in today’s polarized climate that the free speech rights of public school students are protected when their expression does not result in a disruption to the school environment. Our students’ work underscored the basic First Amendment principle that when political viewpoints – regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum – are communicated without using sexualized expression or profanity, they are protected.”