One of the New Yorker’s “Best Books of 2023”
A deeply researched legal drama that documents this landmark First Amendment ruling — one that is more critical and controversial than ever.
Actual Malice tells the full story of New York Times v. Sullivan, the dramatic case that grew out of segregationists’ attempts to quash reporting on the civil rights movement. In its landmark 1964 decision, the Supreme Court held that a public official must prove “actual malice” or reckless disregard of the truth to win a libel lawsuit, providing critical protections for free speech and freedom of the press.
“Samantha Barbas, …tells the improbable story of the advertisement that gave rise to the case and the decision that Justice William J. Brennan ultimately wrote. It’s a tale that has been told before…but Barbas has a distinctive and relevant argument.” –Jeffrey Toobin, The New York Review of Books
“A new book, “Actual Malice” … by Samantha Barbas, a law professor and historian, unfurls the story of the case and reminds readers that the triumph of press freedom was an outgrowth of the civil-rights struggle. … Barbas deftly employs archival sources—notably from the Times, from the Martin Luther King, Jr., papers, and from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—to shed new light. Her book illuminates the effect of libel suits on journalists’ ability to cover the movement, the legal strategies used against those suits, and the impact of the case on the civil-rights movement itself. A heroic narrative in which the litigation helped vanquish segregationists serves to underscore what Barbas calls the “centrality of freedom of speech to democracy.” –The New Yorker
“A detailed examination of . . . the landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision that defined libel laws and increased protections for journalists.” —The New York Times Book Review
2023 Constitution Day Lecture, Law Library of Congress: “Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan” (Watch)
More News & Reviews
“One might think that another book-length history and analysis of New York Times v. Sullivan would be superfluous, given the quality of Lewis’s Make No Law and Hall and Urofsky’s New York Times v. Sullivan: Civil Rights, Libel Law, and the Free Press. Actual Malice, however, may become the go-to book for combining both perspectives in a single volume and enhancing them with some archival sources that the other two books did not use.” ― Choice Reviews
“Actual Malice is concise yet thorough, crisply written, brimming with sharp observations, amply documented, and admirably acknowledges different points of view.” ― Law and Liberty
“… essential to understanding and piecing together not only the legacy of libel law but also that of the ongoing civil rights movement” – Christian Century
“This timely and compelling history underscores the critical, enduring importance of New York Times v. Sullivan for not only freedom of expression but also racial justice and other equal rights movements.”—Nadine Strossen, author of Hate: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship
“Samantha Barbas’s terrific, riveting book shows that it also must be understood as a crucial decision about civil rights at a crucial moment of the civil rights movement.”—Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law
Finalist, Order of the Coif Book Award
Aspen Ideas Festival 2025 Reading List
Speaker, Aspen Ideas Festival
“Can the Media’s Right to Pursue the Powerful Survive Trump’s Second Term,” New York Times Magazine
“Powerful Forces Want to Dismantle Libel Protections,” Poynter
“Legal Scholar Samantha Barbas on Press Freedom Under Trump,” First Amendment Watch
“Trump Sues the Des Moines Register, Escalating Threats Against the Media,” New York Times
How the Civil Rights Movement Rewrote Freedom of the Press, Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities
The Enduring Significance of New York Times v. Sullivan, Knight First Amendment Institute
“Why NYT v. Sullivan mattered in 1964 and is under attack today,” Modern Law Library Podcast, ABA Journal
“What happens if New York Times v. Sullivan falls?” Seattle Times
“A New Look at New York Times v. Sullivan” First Amendment News
See the book on “Inside Politics with John King,” CNN