CLARKSDALE, Miss., Feb. 25, 2025 — After receiving widespread condemnation for obtaining a temporary restraining order that forced Mississippi’s Clarksdale Press Register to take down an editorial critical of the city, Clarksdale’s Board of Mayor and Commissioners voted Monday to drop the lawsuit.
Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression first called national attention to the plight of the Press Register after the city sued the small-town Coahoma County newspaper to force it to take down an editorial criticizing local officials. On Friday, FIRE agreed to defend the Press Register, its editor, and parent company in court to have the unconstitutional restraining order lifted.
“The implications of this case go beyond one Mississippi town censoring its paper of record,” said FIRE attorney David Rubin. “If the government can get a court order silencing mere questions about its decisions, the First Amendment rights of all Americans are in jeopardy.”
By Monday, Clarksdale’s Board had convened, voted not to continue with the lawsuit, and filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with the court. That means the city’s suit is over and with it the restraining order preventing the Press Register from publishing its editorial.
“While we are relieved the city has voted to drop its vindictive lawsuit, it doesn’t unring this bell,” Rubin said. “The Press Register is exploring its options to ensure that the city refrains from blatantly unconstitutional censorship in the future.”
The controversy began when the city of Clarksdale held an impromptu meeting on Feb. 4 to discuss sending a resolution asking the state legislature to let it levy a 2% tax on products like tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana. By state law, cities must notify the media when they hold such irregular “special-called meetings,” but the Press Register did not receive any notice.
In response, the Press Register blasted the city in an editorial titled “Secrecy, Deception Erode Public Trust,” and questioned their motive for freezing out the press. “Have commissioners or the mayor gotten kick-back from the community?” the editorial asked. “Until Tuesday we had not heard of any. Maybe they just want a few nights in Jackson to lobby for this idea – at public expense.”
“For over a hundred years, the Press Register has served the people of Clarksdale by speaking the truth and printing the facts,” said Wyatt Emmerich, president of Emmerich Newspapers. “We didn’t earn the community’s trust by backing down to politicians, and we didn’t plan on starting now.”
Rather than taking their licks, the Clarksdale Board of Commissioners made a shocking move by voting to sue the Press Register, its editor and publisher Floyd Ingram, and its parent company Emmerich Newspapers for “libel.” Last Tuesday, Judge Martin granted ex parte – that is, without hearing from the Press Register – the city’s motion for a temporary restraining order to force it to take down the editorial.
By silencing the Press Register before they could even challenge Clarksdale’s claims, Judge Martin’s ruling represented a clear example of a “prior restraint,” a serious First Amendment violation. Before the government can force the removal of any speech, the First Amendment rightly demands a determination whether it fits into one of the limited categories of unprotected speech or otherwise withstands judicial scrutiny. Otherwise, the government has carte blanche to silence speech in the days, months, or even years it takes to get a final ruling that the speech was actually protected.
Judge Martin’s decision was even more surprising given that Clarksdale’s lawsuit had several obvious and fatal flaws. Most glaringly, the government itself cannot sue citizens for libel. As the Supreme Court reaffirmed in the landmark 1964 case New York Times v. Sullivan, “no court of last resort in this country has ever held, or even suggested, that prosecutions for libel on government have any place in the American system of jurisprudence.”
But even if the Clarksdale commissioners had sued in their personal capacities, Sullivan also established that public officials have to prove not just that a newspaper made an error, but that it did so with “actual malice,” defined as “knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false.” Clarksdale’s lawsuit didn’t even attempt to prove the Press Register editorial met that standard.
Finally, libel requires a false statement of fact. But the Press Register’s broadside against city officials was an opinion piece that expressed the opinion that there could be unsavory reasons for the city’s lack of candor. The only unique statement of fact expressed in the editorial — that Clarksdale failed to meet the legal obligation to inform the media of its meeting — was confirmed by the city itself in its legal filings.
“If asking whether a politician might be corrupt was libel, virtually every American would be bankrupt,” said FIRE attorney Josh Bleisch. “For good reason, courts have long held that political speech about government officials deserves the widest latitude and the strongest protection under the First Amendment. That’s true from the White House all the way down to your local councilman.”
Like many clumsy censorship attempts, Clarksdale’s lawsuit against the Press Register backfired spectacularly by outraging the public and making the editorial go viral. After FIRE’s advocacy, the small Mississippi town’s lawsuit received coverage from the New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, and CNN, and condemnation from national organizations like Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Other Mississippi newspapers have stepped up and published the editorial in their own pages to ensure its preservation.
“If the board had grumbled and gone about their day, this whole brouhaha wouldn’t have traveled far outside our town,” said Emmerich. “But when they tried to censor us, the eyes of the nation were on Clarksdale and millions heard about our editorial. Let this be a lesson: if you try to silence one voice in America, a hundred more will take up the call.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.
CONTACT:
Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; [email protected]
