Samantha Barbas

Professor of Law, University of Iowa

Samantha Barbas is Professor of Law and an endowed chair at the University of Iowa College of Law, specializing in media and First Amendment law. She is the author of seven books on media law and history, including most recently, Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan, which won a Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and was listed as one of the New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023. She is a Distinguished Lecturer of the Organization of American Historians and gave the Constitution Day Lecture for the Law Library of Congress in 2023. Her commentary on free speech issues has appeared widely in the media. She holds a law degree from Stanford Law School and a Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Berkeley.