menu_open Columnists
Stephanie A. Martin

Stephanie A. Martin

The Conversation

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

How Homeland Security’s subpoenas and databases of protesters threaten the ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-open’ free speech protected by Supreme Court precedent

It’s difficult to measure what is lost when an opinion is never voiced and impossible to catalogue the arguments that never form because a speaker...

23.02.2026 6

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

Repeated government lying, warned Hannah Arendt, makes it impossible for citizens to think and to judge

When officials lie time and again, people don’t know what to trust. And when this happens, citizens cannot deliberate, approve or dissent...

27.01.2026 50

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

A government can choose to investigate the killing of a protester − or choose to blame the victim and pin it all on ‘domestic terrorism’

Renee Good’s death was the consequence, writes a First Amendment scholar, of a kind of politics in which the state survives by making dissenters...

22.01.2026 10

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

As DOJ begins to release Epstein files, his many victims deserve more attention than the powerful men in his ‘client list’

Powerful men connected to Jeffrey Epstein are named, dissected and speculated about. The survivors, unless they work hard to step forward, remain a...

20.12.2025 6

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

Epstein’s victims deserve more attention than his ‘client list’

Media coverage of the Epstein files has its priorities entirely backwards

17.12.2025 10

Salon

Stephanie A. Martin

Epstein’s victims deserve more attention than his ‘client list’

Powerful men connected to Jeffrey Epstein are named, dissected and speculated about. The survivors, unless they work hard to step forward, remain a...

16.12.2025 10

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

When government websites become campaign tools: Blaming the shutdown on Democrats has legal and political risks

When websites and email systems become partisan platforms, the line blurs between state and party, diluting public trust in the idea of impartial...

15.10.2025 7

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

Harvard, like all Americans, can’t be punished by the government for speaking freely – and a federal court decision upholds decades of precedents saying so

The First Amendment is not just about the right to speak without fear of jail. It’s also about ensuring that government cannot punish speech...

17.09.2025 3

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

Who was Charlie Kirk? The activist who turned campus politics into national influence

Charlie Kirk and his organization connected students and the GOP in new and effective ways. But the slain conservative spread misinformation and...

11.09.2025 5

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

The case that saved the press – and why Trump wants it gone

A landmark 1964 Supreme Court ruling protects the press in lawsuits by public officials angry about how they’ve been covered. It’s being targeted...

04.08.2025 6

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin

PBS and NPR are generally unbiased, independent of government propaganda and provide key benefits to US democracy

Studies link public broadcasting to higher voter turnout, better factual knowledge and lower susceptibility to extremist rhetoric. Those contributions...

21.07.2025 9

The Conversation

Stephanie A. Martin