Coming soon: Survey of clinics landscape

>> The Georgia Supreme Court adopted arguments made in an amicus brief authored by the UGA First Amendment Clinic and the UVA First Amendment Clinic in a matter addressing the state’s anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (“anti-SLAPP”) statute. The court rejected the claim that a failure to investigate is enough alone to get to actual malice under the statute.
 
>> The First Amendment Clinic at Case Western Reserve helped Cleveland Scene obtain hundreds of use of force reports from the Cleveland Division of Police. In a six-part series analyzing the data, the Scene found that “police regularly point guns at people who aren’t resisting.” The clinic continues to pursue the disclosure of additional reports.
 
>> Cornell’s First Amendment Clinic helped secure the unsealing of federal court records in Vermont, which were made available days after the clinic filed an amicus brief on behalf of VTDigger. The news organization reported that the records “outline the lengths to which state officials went in concealing the fraud (in development projects funded by government programs) from the public and the press.”
 
>> The Fresno Bee, Techdirt and others wrote about the contents of unsealed records in Nunes v. Lizza & Hearst Magazine Media, which were made public following a motion to unseal filed by the UCLA First Amendment Clinic.
 
>> Yale Law School’s Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic won a victory in Connecticut on behalf of two filmmaker clients “on the scope of the public’s right to inspect law enforcement records of unsolved crimes.” The superior court ruling affirms the clinic’s previous win from the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission.
 
>> The UGA First Amendment Clinic helped restore public comment at city council meetings in Greensboro, Georgia.

>> Buffalo Civil Rights & Transparency Clinic students drafted and submitted a proposed rule that would govern the sealing of civil records in federal courts. The four-semester project also included the Knight First Amendment Institute and Jonathan Manes of the Northwester Pritzker School of Law. The partners wrote about the proposed rule in Just Security.
 
>>  The Buffalo Civil Rights & Transparency Clinic is also building on its success in jail records access litigation by writing a letter to the Erie County Legislature supporting legislation that would further the transparency of local jail records.
 
>> UGA’s First Amendment Clinic filed a federal lawsuit asserting violations under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments on behalf of a photojournalist who was arrested — and his work product was seized — while he was filming protests in Atlanta in June 2020.

>> The UVA First Amendment Clinic filed an amicus brief on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case out of North Carolina involving the right-to-record. The district court in the case affirmatively held that the First Amendment does not protect the right of a passenger to livestream a traffic stop.

>> Students at the UVA First Amendment Clinic also helped draft an amicus brief on behalf of numerous organizations in the Eleventh Circuit appeal of the district court's ruling enjoining enforcement of Florida's social media "deplatforming" law, which would require certain social media platforms (but not those in the same corporate family with an amusement park) to carry content by "political candidates" and "journalistic enterprises." The amici were represented by Shullman Fugate LLC.

>> The Oklahoman, The Hill and others reported on the filing of the Georgetown Law Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection’s lawsuit, on behalf of the NAACP, that challenges Oklahoma’s new anti-protest law. The district court recently issued an injunction blocking parts of the law from going into effect.
 
>> Reuters covered the filing of a public records lawsuit by the UVA First Amendment Clinic on behalf of a UVA professor seeking “greater public access to non-prosecution agreements between the U.S. Justice Department and corporations that have faced misconduct allegations.”
 
>> The Associated Press reported on a U.S. Supreme Court cert petition filed by Yale Law School’s Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic on behalf of journalists in Puerto Rico seeking recordings of judicial proceedings. The Puerto Rico Supreme Court had denied public access to recordings of matters involving domestic violence.
 
>> The Center for Public Integrity highlighted an amicus brief it joined that was written by the First Amendment Clinic at Arizona State University. The brief, filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, argues that California’s anti-SLAPP law applies in federal court.
 
>> Earlier this year, the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic wrote a Los Angeles Daily Journal “front-page opinion piece alerting juvenile courts to fundamental flaws in the rules of court and judicial forms for a California child welfare transparency law.”

>> Gregg Leslie, director of the First Amendment Clinic at Arizona State University, was honored with the Freedom of Information Award from the Arizona Newspapers Association. The award “recognizes journalists, legislators and others who work to preserve free speech and government transparency.”
 
>> Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law’s alumni magazine highlighted a successful first year of the SMU First Amendment Clinic. Separately, Tom Leatherbury, the clinic's director, was a recipient of the Tony Mauro Media Lawyer Award from The American Lawyer and ALM. The award "honor[s] attorneys who zealously advocate for freedom of the press." 

>> This director of the Vanderbilt First Amendment Clinic will compete on Jeopardy’s first-ever Professors Tournament in December. Who is Gautam Hans?

Thanks for reading, and happy Thanksgiving!

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