The Volokh Conspiracy

Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent

Free Speech

Penguin Refuses to Stop Publishing Justice Amy Coney Barrett's Book

|

The Wall St. J. (Jeffrey Trachtenberg) wrote on Oct. 31 (but I somehow missed it):

The book is being published by the Sentinel imprint of Bertelsmann SE's Penguin Random House. "We remain fully committed to publishing authors who, like Justice Barrett, substantively shape today's most important conversations," said Adrian Zackheim, publisher of Sentinel, a leading conservative house, in the publisher's first public comments on the situation….

Mr. Zackheim added that Sentinel "publishes books so that people can read them, and evaluate them on their own. In an intelligent free society we need to disseminate ideas in a robust form so that we can discuss them."

This was in response to an open letter from various authors, translators, agents, and Penguin Random House employees, which urged the publisher to cancel the book because of Justice Barrett's vote in Dobbs, which held that the Constitution doesn't protect abortion rights.