2025 Amanpour Lecture: How Unique is the First Amendment?

For over six decades, Floyd Abrams has defended the First Amendment against the widest range of efforts to limit its scope. Described by New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan as “the most significant First Amendment lawyer of our age”, he has argued before the Supreme Court in 13 cases and represented in that Court and others around the nation the widest range of clients in diverse circumstances involving their rights and those of others to First Amendment and other constitutional protection.

His clients have ranged from media corporations including The New York Times in cases including the Pentagon Papers Case, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Time Magazine, Business Week and the Nation to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in its defense against efforts of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to shut it down. He has represented individual journalists such as Nina Totenberg as well as National Public Radio in a leak investigation conducted by the US Senate arising of the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and Judith Miller with regard to her unwillingness to identify her confidential sources.

In 2006, Floyd was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2015 was honored by Yale Law School with its Award of Merit. He has received numerous awards from a wide range of entities including the Ross Essay Award of the American Bar Association, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism Lifetime Achievement Award, the Walter Cronkite Freedom of Information Award of the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government , the Learned Hand Award of the American Jewish Committee, and the Thurgood Marshall Award of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Floyd grew up in New York City, graduated from Forest Hills High School in 1952, Cornell University in 1956 and from Yale Law School in February 1960 after six months on active duty as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. After serving as a law clerk to Federal Judge Paul Leahy (D.Del) he joined the firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel in 1963, became a partner in 1969. A member of its Executive Committee in 1970 and senior counsel in 2005.

Floyd has taught at a number of law schools while he actively practiced law including Yale, Columbia and NYU as well as at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. In 2011, he founded the Floyd Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression at Yale Law School.

Floyd served on the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee of the Department of Justice in 2003-04 and as Chair of the New York State Commission on Public Access to Court Records in 2004.

He is the author of three books that focus on the First Amendment: Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment (Viking Press 2005); Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment (Yale U. Press 2013) and The Soul of the First Amendment (Yale U. Press 2017.

About the lecture:

The Christiane Amanpour Lecture is endowed by and named for the 1983 URI alumna and 1995 honorary degree recipient. She is chief international anchor for CNN and host of its award-winning, flagship global affairs program Amanpour, as well as Amanpour & Co., which airs on PBS in the United States. Launched in 2008, the speaker series brings well-respected journalists to campus each year.