Actual Malice: Ongoing Threats to New York Times v. Sullivan and Its Progeny

Join The New York Times’ lead newsroom lawyer David McCraw, Susman Godfrey’s Justin Nelson, Professor Lyrissa Lidsky (University of Florida Levin College of Law), and Professor Amy K. Sanders (UT-Austin School of Journalism and Media) for a discussion on the recent criticism of Sullivan’s actual malice standard.

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David McCraw serves as the lead newsroom lawyer for The New York Times. He has been at The Times for 21 years and currently holds the position of senior vice president and deputy general counsel. He is the author of the book “Truth in Our Times: Inside the Fight for Press Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts” (St. Martin’s 2019), a first-person account of the legal battles that helped shape The Times’s coverage of Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, national security and the rise of political partisanship in America.

Justin Nelson is a former law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor at the United States Supreme Court and for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  Justin has represented various parties as amici in the Supreme Court of the United States, in cases ranging from intellectual property to antitrust to election law. He has practiced First Amendment law on behalf of various media companies.

Justin also has taught Advanced Constitutional Law on the Law of the Political Process and has served as the Chair of the Economics of the Profession Committee in the American Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Division. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Association and the Texas Bar Association. Justin also currently teaches Legislation & Statutory Interpretation as an adjunct professor at The University of Texas School of Law, a class that covers a wide range of issues from public policy to statutes to criminal law to Constitutional law and the First Amendment.

Lyrissa Lidsky is the Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in U.S. Constitutional Law at Florida Law. She previously served as Dean of the University of Missouri School of Law from 2017-2022. The focus of her research and teaching is the intersection of Tort Law and the First Amendment, with an emphasis on defamation and free speech issues in social media. Missouri Lawyers Media named Lidsky its 2020 Woman of the Year based on her scholarship, passion for law, mentorship of students, and engagement of constituencies supporting the school of law. Before becoming a law professor, Lidsky served as a clerk for the Honorable Joseph T. Sneed of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, Calif. Lidsky received her law degree from the University of Texas School of Law with high honors.

Dr. Amy Kristin Sanders is an award-winning journalist, licensed attorney and tenured associate professor in the School of Journalism and Media. Also an associate professor (by courtesy) at UT’s Law School, she serves as the first female editor of Communication Law and Policy. Sanders previously taught at Northwestern University’s campus in Doha, Qatar. She began her academic career at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities’ Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Sanders studies the legal regulation and ethical use of emerging technologies, with an emphasis on freedom of expression and democratic values. Specifically, her work focuses on media law and ethics issues globally, including media freedom, access to information and government transparency, freedom of speech and the regulation of social media and emerging technologies.