*SPLC Legal Guides should not be construed as a substitute for consulting a licensed attorney in your state able to identify the laws and facts material to your specific concerns.
Since 1974, the SPLC has answered the call when students and their advisers need reliable information about the law of the First Amendment, defamation, copyright, and access to government documents and meetings. We’ve collected our expertise and research to help you learn your rights — and how to protect them — and how to spot (and avoid) the most common legal and ethical traps when gathering and distributing the news.
In each section, you’ll find answers to the common questions students and advisers ask us, as well as tip sheets, legal guides and white papers. Our law library features a collection of court decisions, statutes, constitutional provisions and regulations that are important to student media.
- American Court System
- Press Freedom & Censorship
- FERPA
- Access To Records, Meetings & Places
- Online and Social Media Law
- Libel & Privacy Invasion
- Responding to take-down demands
- Protecting Sources & Information
- Copyright
- Broadcasting
- Yearbooks
- Advertising & Distribution
- Sports
- Financial Survival Strategies