Jane Bambauer and Eugene Volokh analyze the US Supreme Court’s new Chiles v. Salazar decision, which struck down (by an 8-1 vote) a law banning sexual orientation/gender identity conversion therapy, including therapy that consists entirely of speech.

The Court held that the First Amendment protects professional-client speech, including counselors’ use of conversion therapy with minor patients when that therapy consists solely of speech. In the process, the 8-justice majority rejected the state’s argument that such speech can be regulated as “speech integrally related to unlawful conduct” – and in the process, cited Volokh’s discussion of the speech integral to unlawful conduct exception in a friend-of-the-court brief that he filed.

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Is the FCC about to revive a broad reading of the Equal Time Rule—and should broadcast TV still get “special” First Amendment treatment in 2026?

Eugene Volokh and Jane Bambauer are joined by Duke Law professor Stuart Benjamin to discuss the constitutional backstory behind the federal broadcasting Equal Time Rule and why broadcast media has long been treated differently from newspapers, cable, and the internet. From Red Lion to the collapse of the Fairness Doctrine and beyond, the panel explains how we ended up with a broadcast-only regulatory regime—and why that consensus may now be unraveling.

They also dig into the latest controversy involving political candidates appearing on shows like The View and late-night television, the FCC’s renewed scrutiny, and what it all could mean for the future of media regulation. Would today’s Supreme Court uphold broadcast exceptionalism? Or is this doctrine headed the way of the eight-track tape?

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When can a public university punish a student for speech that includes violent references, and that frightens some people, but is not a clear threat? Eugene Volokh and Jane Bambauer unpack two recent court cases, one that upholds such punishment and another that says it violates the First Amendment: Damsky v. University of Florida and Christensen v. Ohio State University. Volokh and Bambauer explore how courts are applying the “substantial disruption” standard from Tinker v. Des Moines, and why speech by public university students that alludes in an ambiguous way to violence creates hard First Amendment questions.

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