Knight First Amendment Institute

This September will mark a quarter-century since 9/11 and the inauguration of the “war on terror.” Many of us will be reflecting on the meaning of those events and on the profound impact they have had on so many lives here in the United States and around the world. At the Knight Institute, we’ll be reflecting in particular on the way those events transformed American democrac...

It’s not a news flash that college campuses go through turbulent periods, including vigorous and sometimes disruptive protests. But until the second Trump Administration arrived in January 2025, it would have been a news flash for the federal government to be the lead national disruptor. Yet the administration’s rapid-fire

On July 29, the Knight Institute filed a comment with three other free speech organizations opposing an “almost unprecedented step” by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requiring eight Disney-owned ABC stations to renew their broadcast licenses years before they were otherwise due for renewal.

The FCC’s order requiring the ABC affiliates to renew their licens...

BOSTON—The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University today filed its principal brief urging a federal appeals court to uphold a landmark ruling invalidating the Trump administration’s policy of targeting noncitizen students and faculty for arrest, detention, visa revocation, and deportation because of their pro-Palestinian advocacy. The brief asks the court to p...

SAN FRANCISCO—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today vacated a preliminary injunction that had barred Perplexity from enabling users of its AI-powered browser to perform tasks on Amazon.com. The court concluded that Amazon was unlikely to show that Perplexity “accesses” its computers in violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and its Califo...