Noah Feldman, Columnist

Gorsuch Critique of Landmark Libel Case Should Be Taken Seriously

A conservative Supreme Court justice invokes a liberal colleague to argue that New York Times v. Sullivan is wrong for the social-media age.

July 7, 2021 at 1:00 PM UTC

By Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

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Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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In a sign of hard times for traditional free-speech values, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has added his voice to that of Justice Clarence Thomas in calling for a re-examination of the landmark 1964 precedent of New York Times v. Sullivan — the case that makes it extremely difficult for public figures to win libel suits.

Thomas’s view, first expressed in 2019, was that the press protections established by Sullivan violated the original intent of the First Amendment. It was inconsistent with his own free-speech jurisprudence, and was therefore unlikely to garner support from other justices.