Marie McMullan
Marie McMullan leads FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative in her role as SPFI’s Program Manager and Counsel. She defends student journalists, develops educational programming, and works to cultivate a free press on campuses nationwide. Marie combines her substantive media law knowledge with creative strategy to empower student journalists and protect their First Amendment rights. Through SPFI’s programming and FIRE’s Speakers Bureau, she speaks to student newsrooms across the country about combating censorship.
Marie believes that no culture of free expression on campus is complete without an independent and free student press. She saw firsthand the struggles fellow student journalists faced at the University of Missouri-Columbia (‘22), and she went on to earn her J.D. at the University of Mississippi School of Law (‘25). Marie is admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania and Kentucky.
Beyond talking about media law, Marie enjoys reading a book checked out from the Philadelphia Free Library, listening to a musical theatre cast album, playing volleyball, and entertaining her very needy pets.
Recent Writings
- Advisers under fire spark student press freedom concerns ,
- Pennsylvania shields public universities from transparency. This student wants to change that.,
- Michigan State’s ethics policy gags dissent — and the public will feel the effects,
- Hazelwood is the training-wheels version of free speech. It's past time the Court revisited it. ,
- For now, censorship stays at the University of Alabama ,
- High school administrators censored a student newspaper. They don’t think they did anything wrong.,
- The Privacy Protection Act protects watchdogs. What if it’s ignored? ,
- Victory! UNC Chapel Hill backs away from comedy probe, reaffirms commitment to free speech,
- UNC Chapel Hill’s students dabbled in satire. Now the university is investigating.,
- Six signs of student press censorship,
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