Central to the mission of the Institute for Justice is reinvigorating the founding principles of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We seek to defend the free flow of information—information that is indispensable to our democratic form of government and to our free enterprise economy.
- Since IJ’s founding, we have launched more than 60 lawsuits to defend the First Amendment and have won the vast majority of them, including one U.S. Supreme Court victory and eight major victories at the federal appellate court level.
- In 2017, we launched five new lawsuits, including cases challenging the regulation of dietary advice in Florida, the regulation of teaching in California and North Carolina, and the regulation of speech about engineering topics in Oregon.
- Our lawsuits have earned considerable media coverage by outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today and The Associated Press and in columns by George Will.
To protect free speech rights, IJ litigates to protect commercial, occupational and political speech. Because free markets depend on the free flow of information, IJ has long defended the right of business owners to communicate commercial speech to their customers. The Institute for Justice has also litigated groundbreaking cases in defense of occupational speech, protecting authors, tour guides, interior designers and others who speak for a living or offer advice from government regulations designed to stifle or silence their speech. Finally, we have been at the forefront of the fight against laws that hamstring the political speech of ordinary citizens and entrench political insiders. These laws include burdensome campaign finance laws and restrictions on grassroots lobbying.
Through IJ’s litigation, we seek to ensure that government regulation is constrained and that speakers and listeners are able to freely exchange information on the topics that matter most to them. Speakers and listeners should determine the value of speech, not the government.
First Amendment Cases
Small Business Owner Challenges Indiana’s Unconstitutional Restrictions on Discussing End-of-Life Care
To many, death is a taboo subject. But not to Lauren Richwine, founder of Death Done Differently, a consultant who specializes in helping those with a terminal diagnosis and their families plan for the final days of life and what will happen after death. But the state of Indiana wants to silence this speech, which is why Lauren today teamed up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to file a federal free-speech lawsuit to tell the state that it cannot silence these important conversations about death.
First Amendment Legislation
First Amendment
Anti-SLAPP Act
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) are a way for individuals who do business with the government to silence their critics through costly lawsuits. In many states, there are no protections from frivolous defamation suits…
First Amendment | Sign Codes
Sign Code Act
In June 2015, the United States Supreme Court decided its first sign code case in over 20 years, Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona, 135 S. Ct. 2218 (2015). The Court’s opinion in Reed made clear that when…
First Amendment Research
Commercial Speech | Economic Liberty | First Amendment | Food Freedom | Food Freedom
Censorship and Sensibility: Does the First Amendment Allow the FDA to Change the Meanings of Words?
The question of whether the Constitution allows the government to change the meanings of words is receiving renewed interest in the aftermath of the FDA’s announcement that it intends to examine whether it should begin…
Commercial Speech | First Amendment | Occupational Licensing
Putting Licensing to the Test
More Americans than ever need a license to work. But what do occupational licenses actually accomplish? This case study of one such license adds to a growing body of research that suggests this red tape…
