First Amendment Stories of 2025: A Year in Review

The First Amendment isn’t just 45 words written more than 200 years ago. In the United States, the five freedoms — religion, speech, press, assembly and petition — touch our lives every day.

Here are several First Amendment themes and stories that were prominent in the news this year.

Discover the top First Amendment stories of 2025

Free speech after Charlie Kirk’s assassination

The assassination of prominent political activist Charlie Kirk in September loomed large as a news story. Perspective pieces, including from Freedom Forum’s Gene Policinski, decried violence as a response to speech.

The impacts on free speech became part of the larger story connected to Kirk’s murder. Attorney General Pam Bondi indicated hate speech, including about Kirk, could be punished. She clarified these remarks after facing criticism, with critics and First Amendment experts noting the First Amendment protects hate speech (but not violent actions, inciting others to imminent lawless action or true threats).

Some people lost their jobs or faced punishment or discipline at work for their comments about Kirk and government officials’ actions surrounding the assassination.

The fallout from Kirk’s murder highlighted the legal fact that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to private workplaces, and generally speaking, private employers can fire employees for their speech. But it also raised issues around limits on government officials encouraging private companies to punish employees’ speech.

ABC suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel following his on-air comments about the “MAGA gang[‘s]” response to Kirk’s murder — though he returned to air less than a week later after significant backlash. The incident raised questions and criticisms, particularly after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr made comments that pressured ABC to take action against the late-night host.

First Amendment experts pointed out these threats — especially when combined with previous critical statements from President Donald Trump about the host prior to Kirk’s murder — might violate the First Amendment because the government would be engaging in viewpoint discrimination, punishing only those stations that were critical of Kirk. Experts also cited these statements as possible evidence that broadcast station ownership groups Nexstar and Sinclair refused to air “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” under pressure from the FCC — an action known as “jawboning,” which, if proven, would violate the First Amendment.

Kimmel was perhaps the most prominent person who faced criticism and backlash for his speech following Kirk’s murder, but he was far from the only one. In November, Reuters reported more than 600 people in the U.S. had been fired, disciplined or investigated over what they said about Kirk, mostly on social media.

Government funding as a speech and press issue

Tensions between government funding decisions and the First Amendment became a big story in 2025, affecting both universities and media outlets.

For public and private universities, the question was one of whether the government could cancel or restrict federal funding for scientific research and other activities if schools don’t meet certain conditions on curriculum and campus culture.

Some schools, like Columbia University and the University of Virginia, reached agreements with the federal government to restore federal grants, agreeing to change policies around diversity, equity and inclusion, or combat antisemitism, among other conditions. Others, like Harvard University, pushed back and sued. In September, a federal judge ruled in favor of Harvard. The university had said the Trump administration violated the school’s free speech rights by interfering with its ability to create its curriculum and by undermining academic freedom. The judge agreed the federal government was targeting Harvard for speech it didn’t like, a First Amendment violation known as viewpoint discrimination.

Government funding for media was also prominent in the news. A major story emerged with the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the independent entity that provides some funding for public media, including NPR and PBS. In the wake of the cuts, the CPB has wound down operations, and stations have announced cutbacks in programming and staff. This led to questions around whether the move to cut funding for public media violates the First Amendment. NPR and PBS filed lawsuits claiming defunding the CPB amounted to viewpoint discrimination, targeting their funding for speech the government dislikes.

These funding cuts also affected federal agencies and nonprofit networks that report overseas, namely the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees funding for Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, among other networks. Staff at these media organizations contended the administration cut their funding and operations based on what they report, raising the claim of being targeted for their First Amendment-protected speech.

Press access to government spaces

Press access to certain government officials and spaces, including the White House and Pentagon, became a news story following restrictive new government policies.

In February 2025, the White House barred The Associated Press from certain official events. The move was in response to the news agency’s decision not to update its style in accordance with the White House’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America.” The AP sued, saying the White House was unlawfully restricting its press freedom under the First Amendment. The case has bounced between several federal courts, with the most recent appeal upholding the White House’s ability to restrict the AP’s press access to "restricted spaces” like the Oval Office, Air Force One and Mar-a-Lago but not places like the East Room or the press briefing room that do not have the similar space limitations.

Press access was also a headline at the Pentagon in October, when the Department of Defense put certain conditions in place that reporters and news outlets had to accept in order to keep their credentials. That led to questions around the legality of the change, given the First Amendment protection for the press and newsgathering. Most major news outlets, including conservative-leaning Fox News and Newsmax, declined to accept the Pentagon’s conditions. On Dec. 4, The New York Times filed a lawsuit arguing these restrictions violate the First Amendment because they establish a vague standard that reporters might threaten national security, essentially giving the government unlimited discretion to determine when that occurs. The newspaper argues this interferes with reporters’ First Amendment-protected “right to gather information” because they self-censor by not asking questions for fear of losing their credentials — a “chilling effect” on their right to freedom of the press.

Non-citizens’ First Amendment rights

That issue of non-citizens’ First Amendment rights was front and center amid immigration-related actions by the Trump administration this year. While non-citizens lawfully in the U.S. do have First Amendment rights (the Constitution grants these rights to “people” rather than “citizens”), the complicated nature of various immigration statuses, as well as the government's significant discretion in immigration decisions, means clear answers are often more complicated than a simple “yes” or “no.”

In June, Trump issued an executive order that blocked or restricted entry of people from certain countries due to potential security risks. That came on the heels of protests on and around college campuses that resulted in the administration detaining and, in some cases, taking steps to deport legal residents (though not U.S. citizens). Critics alleged these actions were in response to people exercising their protected First Amendment rights to speech and protest.

Two prominent such cases, involving individuals engaged in pro-Palestinian speech and demonstrations — Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk and former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil — touched on the First Amendment’s protections for students on visas and for green-card holders.

In September, a federal judge ruled in favor of non-citizens' free speech rights. The case was not directly about Öztürk’s and Khalil’s specific immigration cases but had implications for them and others. A group of university associations sued on behalf of non-citizen students and protesters to stop the government’s actions and attempted deportations. They said the government targeted these people for their protected protest and speech.

The ruling made clear that First Amendment protections are not limited to full citizens:

“This case — perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court — squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do.’”

The U.S. Supreme Court weighs in

2025 saw the Supreme Court weighing in on prominent cases involving the First Amendment.

TikTok ban upheld

In January, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law banning TikTok in the country, citing national security concerns. In upholding the ban in Tiktok Inc. v. Garland, the court found the law does not violate the First Amendment because it does not directly regulate speech and expression. The court also found the law to be “content-neutral,” in that its purpose is to prevent the Chinese government from collecting private information from U.S.-based users and using that information to harm U.S. national security.

Despite the law and the court decision upholding it, TikTok has continued to operate in the United States. President Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office that prevented the law from taking effect for 90 days, and as details of a possible sale to comply with the law were negotiated, he extended this temporary reprieve for TikTok for several 90-day periods during the year. On Dec. 18, TikTok announced a deal to give 80% of U.S. assets to three U.S. and other global investors, including the major tech firm Oracle.

Read more on the TikTok ban and Supreme Court ruling from Freedom Forum’s Kevin Goldberg.

Age verification and adult-themed websites

The topic of adult websites and age verification came before the Supreme Court in June. In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the court upheld a Texas state law that limits access to adult-themed websites. Central to it was a legal challenge by the Free Speech Coalition, a group that represented the adult entertainment industry in this case. The group argued the law would restrict the First Amendment rights of adults to access certain material. The state law at issue requires websites to verify users’ age and ensure they are 18 years old or older, if at least one-third of a site’s content meets the law’s definition of “sexual material harmful to minors.” The Supreme Court held that the impact on adults’ access to sexual content is “incidental” and that the First Amendment is not violated when a government seeks to limit minors’ access to the same material because protecting children from harmful content is an important interest.

Read more on the case from Freedom Forum’s Kevin Goldberg.

Opting out students from LGBTQ+-themed books in school

In June, the Supreme Court ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor that parents of public school students can opt their children out of reading certain books with LGBTQ+ themes. The court held that parents have the right to get notice when certain books in an “LGBTQ+-inclusive” collection, which might violate the family’s religious beliefs, would be used in their elementary-school-age children's classroom. It also held that parents may opt their children out of certain activities related to those books, including clubs or reading groups. The court required the notice and opt-out option to protect the parents' First Amendment religious freedom rights.

Read more on the case from Freedom Forum’s Kevin Goldberg.

The release of the Epstein files and the power of petition

It’s been nearly impossible to miss news of “the Epstein files” this year. At the center of the issue — and the release of the files — is a First Amendment freedom: petition.

In November, Congress passed and President Trump signed a law that would release files about the Epstein case that the Department of Justice has collected for years. That’s partially due to many people — Epstein’s victims, their families, podcasters and the general public — pressuring members of Congress to act. For years, these actions have collectively involved the freedom of petition. Writing a letter to a member of Congress, demanding the president declassify or release files, or holding a news conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, all are forms of petition.

‘No Kings’ protests

Across the country, “No Kings” protests took place in large cities and small towns, as people turned out and exercised their First Amendment-protected freedom of assembly. The two separate mass demonstrations — one occurring June 14, the other Oct. 18 — stemmed from efforts of a larger coalition of groups protesting the Trump administration’s policies and actions.

In June, an estimated 4 million to 5 million people protested in response to Trump’s move to hold a military parade on the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, also his birthday. In October, the “No Kings” protests took a more direct stance against the administration’s immigration policies. Estimates varied from around 5 million to 7 million people participating.

Learn more about the First Amendment in 2026

Ninety percent of people say the First Amendment is vital, but only 10% in the U.S. can name all five freedoms, according to Freedom Forum’s annual survey. That shows there’s much to appreciate — and learn — about these five freedoms and how they apply to everyone’s lives.

Freedom Forum’s resources can help. Take a few minutes to quiz yourself in our First Amendment Academy. If you’re a college student, learn more about the First Amendment on campus. Read more from our 1A in Action series on people using their First Amendment freedoms in inspiring ways. For weekly First Amendment news and resources, sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Or just take a moment to reflect on how much of what you do every day is brought to you by the First Amendment.

Scott A. Leadingham is a content writer at Freedom Forum. He can be reached at [email protected].