Free Speech

The Supreme Court Ruled Against 'Informal Censorship' 6 Decades Ago but Officials Are Still Jawboning

The Court's 1963 ruling in Bantam Books v. Sullivan is freshly relevant in light of recent efforts to restrict speech through government intimidation.

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featurejawboning1 | Illustration: Joanna Andreasson; Source images: Still from Les Liaisons dangereuses (1959), cover detail of L’Amant de Lady Chatterley (1955)
(Illustration: Joanna Andreasson; Source images: Still from Les Liaisons dangereuses (1959), cover detail of L’Amant de Lady Chatterley (1955))

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Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason. He is the author, most recently, of Beyond Control: Drug Prohibition, Gun Regulation, and the Search for Sensible Alternatives (Prometheus Books).