Noah Feldman, Columnist

Sorry, Hulk Hogan, the First Amendment Is on Gawker's Side

Creepy people have a right to say nasty things. Otherwise, speech wouldn't be free.

March 21, 2016 at 3:04 PM UTC

Corrected

March 21, 2016 at 6:50 PM UTC

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."

Public figure.
Photographer: John Pendygraft-Pool/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

Last week I had to defend Donald Trump’s free-speech rights. Now that a Florida jury has awarded Hulk Hogan $115 million in his suit against Gawker, I have to defend the original snark-site’s free-press right to have shown a sex tape of the retired wrestler and his erstwhile best friend’s wife. This First Amendment stuff is sometimes a serious drag.

In this area of law, unattractive speakers are par for the course. One famous precedent involved a parody of a Campari ad in Hustler in which Jerry Falwell discussed losing his virginity to his mother. (There’s even a movie about it.)