Amy Gajda

Assistant Professor of Journalism and Law

Phone: 217-333-5461 Email: agajda@illinois.edu B.A. University of Michigan J.D. Wayne State University Courses Law and Journalism Privacy and Defamation First Amendment Torts

Professor Gajda’s primary research interests relate to privacy, freedom of expression, and the First Amendment.  Among other matters, her work explores the tensions between social regulation and protected expression in contexts ranging from academic speech to news reporting. Her book, The Trials of Academe, published by Harvard University Press in Fall 2009, explores the growing resort to litigation in academic controversies and its implications for academic freedom and university autonomy.  Her latest article, Judging Journalism: The Turn Toward Privacy and Judicial Regulation of the Press, charts the growing assertiveness of courts in scrutinizing journalists' news judgment and is forthcoming in the California Law Review.    Professor Gajda, an assistant professor in both the College of Law and the College of Media, has presented lectures and papers at law schools, journalism schools, and conferences in Europe, China, and throughout the United States. Her writings and broadcast work on law for non-academic audiences have won multiple awards.  Before attending law school, Professor Gajda worked for many years as a broadcast journalist, anchoring and producing newscasts and reporting for television stations affiliated with every major network. She continued to anchor on a part-time basis in Detroit while a law student at Wayne State University, before finishing her studies at Georgetown University Law Center.  Before joining the Illinois faculty, she practiced law in Washington, D.C. Gajda serves as the Secretary of the Association of American Law Schools' Mass Communication Section and the executive commission of the AALS section on Defamation and Privacy.  She is also an officer of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Law & Policy Division and is slated to become Head of that division in 2010-2011.  In Spring 2008, Professor Gajda was a visiting assistant professor at Brooklyn Law School where she taught Media Law and the First Amendment and The Law of Higher Education. She is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia, Virginia, and Michigan.