Samantha Barbas is a law professor at the University of Iowa. She specializes in legal history, First Amendment law and media law, and has written books on freedom of speech, privacy and the history of the press. She holds Iowa's Aliber Family Chair in Law and earned a history doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, and a law degree at Stanford.
DI has documented statements by Samantha Barbas on Free Speech, Media, and Press Freedom. Read the quotations, original sources and related cases below.
Thomas and Gorsuch question the constitutional basis and present-day effects of actual malice. Defenders stress protection for criticism and reporting. The Court's June 2026 refusal to hear Dershowitz's challenge left the rule in place.
