First Amendment Day headlined by statewide broadcast around current issues of free speech

The keynote event of the 11th annual celebration of First Amendment Day, the UNC Center of Media Law and Policy — a collaboration of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and the UNC School of Law — is a partnership with WUNC to produce a special live-to-tape broadcast of The State of Things on September 24 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.

WUNC’s Frank Stasio of The State of Things will host a First Amendment Day panel — Hate, Harassment and the Right to Report — addressing hate speech online and in public spaces, protest and free speech, the impact of online harassment on women and minority journalists, and content moderation.

“After a decade of meaningful First Amendment Day discussions and programming in Chapel Hill, we are working this year with WUNC to extend our reach beyond campus and engage all of North Carolina’s citizens in this critically important dialogue,” said Susan King, dean of UNC Hussman. “The First Amendment was created to serve the public interest, and it has never been more important that we underscore the values and the freedoms and the responsibility we all have to uphold in our democracy.”

The panel features Rachel Glickhouse, journalist and the partner manager for the Documenting Hate Project at ProPublica; Mary-Rose Papandrea, the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UNC School of Law; Elisa Lees Muñoz, executive director of the International Women’s Media Foundation; Wendy Scott, professor of law at Elon University; and Allen Johnson, Greensboro News & Record editorial page editor.

First Amendment Day is a campus-wide, daylong event designed to both celebrate the First Amendment and explore its role in the lives of Carolina students.

“Our students are able to dig into the First Amendment issues with our panels and discussions throughout the day,” said Tori Ekstrand, associate professor of media law at UNC Hussman and co-director of the Center for Media Law and Policy. “This WUNC partnership is a big step forward for our First Amendment celebration. It allows our students to examine the critical issues and experience how a strong news outlet like WUNC covers these issues.”

Learn more about the day’s events at medialaw.unc.edu/first-amendment-day.