Dignity, Honor, and Civility: New York Times v. Sullivan

Abstract

New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) was the greatest political libel case ever decided by the Supreme Court and certainly the most revolutionary in its impact on the First Amendment (1). It is a monument to the proposition that robust and open political discourse is the best guarantee of democratic self-governance. Justice William J. Brennan's opin ion for a unanimous Court established in federal constitutional law the doctrine of actual malice. That doctrine provided that for a person to be guilty of libeling a public official it had to be shown that he or she had knowledge that the state ments they made were false, or that they made them with utter, reckless disre gard for the truth. Traditionally, truth had been the primary defense of libelous statements made about public figures. If the statements were true, then there was no libel and certainly no damages. The Brennan opinion carved out a limited privi lege for libelous speech; the actual malice test did not protect all libelous statements aimed at public officials, only those state ments that could pass the muster of the actual malice test. Brennan brought civil libels against public officials under the protection of the First Amendment by incorporating that amendment through the due process clause ofthe Fourteenth Amendment. This tactic