Faculty Spotlight: Timothy Zick Covers the Laws of Public Protest and the First Amendment in Real Time
Public protest may have suddenly taken over every news feed, but Timothy Zick has been on it for several years.
In fact, Zick, the Robert & Elizabeth Scott Research Professor and John Marshall Professor of Government and Citizenship at William & Mary Law School, literally wrote the book on the law pertaining to public protest.
Published in 2023, Zick’s “Managed Dissent: The Law of Public Protest” (Cambridge University Press) addresses the many challenges facing today’s demonstrators and movements, including the invocation of emergency powers by state and federal officials. Read more about the book.
Zick has also been busy publishing articles on the responses to recent campus unrest and governments’ increasingly aggressive responses to street demonstrations.
“I’ve specifically addressed President Trump’s threats to deploy military forces to engage in domestic protest policing – which would be an extraordinary and unprecedented executive act,” Zick says.
Zick is an expert on the law of public protest and the First Amendment implications of deploying National Guard and other federal forces to police demonstrations.
“In light of his longstanding denigration of public demonstrations and protesters, President Trump’s recent federalization of California National Guard troops was predictable,” Zick says. “As I argued in my book, ‘Managed Dissent,’ federalizing protest policing poses significant threats to First Amendment and other constitutional rights.”
Zick adds that the administration’s recent actions against demonstrating public officials and international students who participated in campus protests show that the second Trump Administration is fully committed to increasing federal intervention in local protests.
Building on his First Amendment expertise, Zick's new online resource, “Trump 2.0: Executive Power and the First Amendment,” went live on April 30 at First Amendment Watch (NYU). The resource collects the First Amendment-related Executive Orders, lawsuits, and commentary since the beginning of President Donald J. Trump’s second term.
Updated weekly, the Trump 2.0 web page contains links to complaints, principal pleadings, and judicial orders in pending First Amendment cases. It is proving to be an invaluable resource for journalists, academics, and anyone else who is interested in how the Trump Administration’s exercise of executive power is affecting First Amendment rights.
In addition, Professor Zick has been providing commentary on the First Amendment implications of President Trump's Executive Orders targeting law firms, universities, and other individuals and institutions. His commentary is being posted at "First Amendment News," a newsletter published by The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), in a series called "Executive Watch." You can read his latest and earlier posts here.
Zick is the author of several books, including “The First Amendment in the Trump Era,” which analyzed and explored the dozens of First Amendment controversies that arose during Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the first half of his first presidential term.
His latest book project is tentatively titled “Teaching Trump 2.0: Executive Power and Free Expression,” to be published by Carolina Academic Press by the end of this year. It will be a classroom resource for teaching about the various First Amendment conflicts that have arisen during the second Trump Administration.
Listen to a recent podcast in which Zick discusses the law of public protests in general and the specific situation of protest activities on college campuses.
Learn more about Zick's appearances in Faculty in the News.