Overview 

Samantha Barbas, Professor of Law and Aliber Family Chair, specializes in legal history, First Amendment, and media law. She holds a PhD in History from UC Berkeley and a JD from Stanford Law School. She is the author of eight books, including Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan (California, 2023), which was listed as one of the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023.

Her other books include Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History of an American Dilemma (California, 2026), The Rise and Fall of Morris Ernst: Free Speech Renegade (Chicago, 2021), Newsworthy: The Supreme Court Battle Over Privacy and Press Freedom (Stanford, 2017), and Laws of Image: Privacy and Publicity in America (Stanford, 2015). She is quoted regularly in national publications, and her books have been featured on CNN and in The New York Times, New York Review of Books, and Wall Street Journal, among others. She has spoken at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the New York Historical Society, and other national venues. She is currently working on a history of the civil rights movement and freedom of speech.

Barbas clerked for Judge Richard Clifton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Before joining Iowa Law, she was Professor of Law at the University at Buffalo School of Law, where she directed the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy.

To learn more, visit her personal website. 

View Publications Download CV 

Research areas

• American Legal History 
• First Amendment 
• Mass Media
• Defamation
• Torts

Teaching areas

• Torts
• Mass Media Law
• Legal History

Professional affiliations and memberships

• Elected Member, American Law Institute 
• Distinguished Lecturer, Organization of American Historians
• Adviser, Restatement of of the Law Third, Torts: Defamation and Privacy 

Awards and honors

• National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award, 2020
• Constitution Day Lecture, Law Library of Congress, 2023 
• Finalist, Order of the Coif Book Award, 2024
• Green Bag Exemplary Legal Writing, 2024
• Speaker, Aspen Ideas Festival, 2025