Second Annual Aspiring Free Speech Scholars Workshop 2026, Phoenix (Transportation and Lodging Funded)

The Aspiring Free Speech Scholars Workshop is jointly sponsored by the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, and the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, with support from the Stanton Foundation. It is now in its second edition.

The organisers invite draft journal articles on free speech law from people at the start of their scholarly writing. They select the submissions they consider particularly promising and invite those authors to a workshop where they present their papers and receive feedback from leading free speech scholars. The workshop is held on Saturday, 24 October 2026 at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law in Phoenix, with a dinner the evening before.

The workshop is convened by James Weinstein, Dan Cracchiolo Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, and Eugene Volokh, Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA School of Law.

Eligibility is limited to people who have so far published three or fewer law-related journal articles. The call is addressed to law students, judicial law clerks, lawyers and beginning academics who hope to publish a journal article on free speech law and would like advice on their draft.

The organisers' FAQ explains what counts towards the three-article limit and who else may submit:

• Law review articles, articles in related fields, book chapters and the like are counted towards the limit.
• Op-eds, blog posts and other short pieces are not counted.
• Applicants who are not law students, law clerks or lawyers, for example philosophy, political science or history graduate students, undergraduates, or people working in a completely different field, will be considered in principle. Their work is evaluated the same way as lawyers' and law students' work, and is expected to reflect substantial knowledge of free speech law and an understanding of how legal arguments are normally crafted.
• On non-native English speakers, the FAQ notes that legal argument is more effective when words are used accurately, effectively and grammatically, and advises applicants to have a friend read and suggest edits where extra polish is needed, while the substantive work must remain the author's own.

The call sets no restriction by nationality, citizenship, bar enrolment or country of study.

The organisers stress in the FAQ that this is an Aspiring Free Speech Scholars Workshop and not an Aspiring First Amendment Scholars Workshop. They are open to research on all sorts of matters related to free speech, and not necessarily to the First Amendment as such. Work on statutes protecting speech rights, common-law communicative tort rules and private university policies is expressly within scope.

Comparative scholarship comparing American free speech rules with foreign free speech rules is expressly welcomed, with the caveat that good comparative work requires real understanding of at least two legal systems and is hard to do well.

The organisers also state that they are open to articles arguing for greater restrictions on speech rather than greater protection. They say they want articles that are thoughtful, fair-minded, original and carefully reasoned, with attention to detail and to counterarguments, regardless of the bottom-line proposals they offer.

• The submission must be a draft article, not an article already published or expected to be published within six months.
• The draft need not be fully polished, and some portions may be incomplete; the organisers state that they are reviewing drafts, not finished products.
• Single-space the article and format it nicely so the reviewers can read it more easily.
• Review is anonymous. Do not include your name or law school affiliation in the document or in the document filename, and do not include an author's note thanking advisors and others.
• The filename must be the title of your article, or some recognisable subset of the article title.
• Submission is through a Google Forms portal and a Google logon is required. The FAQ states that an applicant without a Google logon may have a friend submit on their behalf, provided the friend enters the author's name and email address in the form so the organisers can send the decision.

The organisers state that because of a technical problem, any submissions made before 4 June 2026 were lost. Anyone who submitted before that date is asked to resubmit at the current portal linked below, alongside those submitting for the first time.

The call does not state any submission fee or registration fee.

The organisers state that they have funds to pay for transportation and lodging for the selected authors' trips.

The organisers plan to officially recognise zero to three of the top articles among those they review.

Separately, authors who wish to do so can have their articles reviewed for publication in the Journal of Free Speech Law, presumably after they revise the articles in light of the workshop feedback. This is an option offered to authors, not an assured acceptance, and the journal's own review applies.

Eligibility here is framed by publication count rather than by nationality, citizenship, bar membership or institution, and the organisers' FAQ expressly contemplates non-native English speakers and comparative work on foreign free speech rules. On its own terms the call is therefore open to applicants writing from India and elsewhere.

Two things the call does not address should be confirmed with the organisers before anyone makes arrangements: it does not say whether the transportation funding extends to international travel, and it says nothing about visa or travel documentation. Queries go to the email in the contact section below.