Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. Naturally, his posts here (like the opinions of the other bloggers) are his own, and not endorsed by any institution.
Eugene Volokh
Latest from Eugene Volokh
Fifth Circuit: Public Libraries May Select or Remove Books Based on Viewpoint
Such removal doesn't violate the First Amendment, the Court holds by a 10-7 vote, because a public library is engaged in "government speech" by choosing which books to endorse
"Harvard University Loses Student and Exchange Visitor Program Certification for Pro-Terrorist Conduct"
"This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status."
Supreme Court Stays Reinstatement of Fired NLRB and MSPB Members
"Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents."
Submit Your Articles to the Journal of Free Speech Law, Before You Circulate Them to the Law Reviews
We'll give you an answer within 14 days, and we can publish them within several weeks, if you'd like.
Court Allows Lawsuit Over Character.AI Conversations That Allegedly Caused 14-Year-Old's Suicide
In this post, I'll talk about the court's analysis tentatively rejecting the First Amendment defense, an analysis that I think is mistaken (whether or not some tort claims such as these should be allowed despite the First Amendment).
Defamation Suit Over Businessman's Wife Calling Prominent Businesswoman "Prostitute" Dismissed
"No one likes being called names. But not every alleged insult gives rise to a lawsuit in federal court. Especially where Ms. Mai has alleged that she is so important as to be a public figure, yet failed to allege Ms. Elsaden made her allegedly defamatory statement with actual malice."
Alleged Unindicted Coconspirator in Kickback Scheme Can't Get Name Redacted from Court Opinion
The person had been a high-level executive in General Electric's African operations.
Opinion Granting Bail to Rumeysa Ozturk (Lead Author of Op-Ed Urging Boycott of Israel)
Ozturk is here on a student visa, and she has been detained while the Trump Administration is trying to deport her.
If Companies Set Up Ethnic Affinity Groups for Employees, Must They Also Set Them Up for Jewish Employees?
Yes, argues the Brandeis Center in a letter to Microsoft.
Seemingly Nonexistent Citation in Anthropic Expert's Declaration [UPDATE: Apparently Caused by Lawyer's Misuse of Claude to Format Citations]
UPDATE 5/15/2025 (post moved up): Anthropic's lawyers filed a declaration stating that the error was not the expert's, but stemmed from the (unwise) use of Claude AI to format citations.
Court Dismisses Palestinian Muslim Student Activist's Harassment Complaint Against Northwestern Law School, But Discrimination Claim Can Go Forward
The claims stemmed from the student's claim that classmates had harassed her, "doxed" her, and falsely accused her of assault in connection with the protests, and that as an indirect result she lost a job with a major law firm.
Trump Administration Likely Violated American Bar Association's First Amendment Rights
A federal court holds that "a series of grants with the ABA that funded services to victims of domestic and sexual violence" were terminated because the ABA had joined a lawsuit against the Administration.
Defamation Lawsuit Against Def Con Cybersecurity Conference Dismissed
"[I]t is irrelevant that Defendant Def Con did not know at the time the Transparency Reports were published whether Hadnagy had or had not engaged in sexual misconduct. Rather, if the sexual misconduct implications were in fact true at the time the Transparency Reports were published, Def Con is shielded by the truth defense."
AI Hallucination in Filings Involving 14th-Largest U.S. Law Firm Lead to $31K in Sanctions
The judge finds "a collective debacle"—possibly caused, I think, by two firms working together and the communications problems this can cause—though "conclude[s] that additional financial or disciplinary sanctions against the individual attorneys are not warranted."
