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 2023, we launched nine new lawsuits, including cases challenging the regulation of legal advice in New York, the regulation of discussions about end-of-life care in Indiana, and federal regulations that prohibit businesses from truthfully labeling food products.
- 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
Smalltown Newspaper Punished for its Reporting Fights for the First Amendment
Four residents of a small Alabama county were targeted for retaliation by a district attorney and sheriff. Now, they are suing with IJ to protect their constitutional rights.
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…
Economic Liberty | First Amendment | Occupational Licensing | Occupational Speech | Vending
Bottleneckers: The Origins of Occupational Licensing and What Can Be Done About Its Excesses
At this moment, a campaign is being waged in America’s state capitals. Its purpose? To protect the public from the menace of unregulated music therapists. A music therapist “directs and participates in instrumental and vocal…