Clay Calvert Co-Authors Amicus Brief on SEC Gag Orders and First Amendment Violations

Clay Calvert, director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, was one of four of the nation’s leading Constitutional Law and First Amendment scholars and professors to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of Securities and Exchange Commission v. Romeril.

In the brief, Calvert, Alan Garfield, Burt Neuborne and Rodney Smolla argue that the SEC’s inclusion of gag orders on individuals subject to its consent orders violates the First Amendment freedom of speech as an impermissible prior restraint on speech. In addition, they contend the gag orders constitute viewpoint-based discrimination against speech and violate the public’s First Amendment right to know information about matters of public concern.

The brief also sites an article written by Calvert, “Gag Clauses and the Right to Gripe: The Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016 and State Efforts to Protect Online Reviews from Contractual Censorship,” published in the Widener Law Review in 2018.

Posted: April 28, 2020
Category: College News, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project News
Tagged as: Clay Calvert, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project