Mon, Sep 28
|University of Wisconsin-Madison Law Scho
What happens when a public university committed to "fearless sifting and winnowing" becomes the subject of criticism?
Justify Executive Director Madeline Krasno returns to her alma mater UW-Madison to share about her experiences in one of the university's primate labs, her successful free speech lawsuits, and Justify.
Time + Location
Sep 28, 2026, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
University of Wisconsin-Madison Law Scho, 975 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706, USA
About This Event
UW–Madison alum and former primate laboratory worker Madeline Krasno will join constitutional law scholar Howard Schweber for a conversation about the First Amendment, viewpoint discrimination, government social media, and the limits of institutional control over public debate.
Krasno’s involvement began when she discovered that UW–Madison was personally restricting her on social media, causing her criticism of the university’s animal research program to disappear from public view; her legal challenge later revealed a broader system of keyword filtering affecting public discussion of animal research more generally.
Krasno also became a plaintiff in a separate First Amendment lawsuit against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) over similar filtering practices.
Drawing on these cases and Krasno’s experience as a former UW lab worker, alumna, advocate, and plaintiff, the discussion will ask when government content moderation becomes viewpoint discrimination, whether public institutions can invite participation while quietly shaping the boundaries of permissible debate, and—against…