DAN MCCALEB, Executive Editor of The Center Square v. MICHELLE LONG, in her official capacity as Director of the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts - Articles

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DAN MCCALEB, Executive Editor of The Center Square v. MICHELLE LONG, in her official capacity as Director of the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts

Posted by: Azya Thornton on Sep 16, 2025

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ON BRIEF: Jacob Huebert, Reilly Stephens, LIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER, Austin, Texas, for Appellant.

Attorneys 2: ON BRIEF: Andrew C. Coulam, Robert W. Wilson, OFFICE OF THE TENNESSEE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Attorneys 3: ON BRIEF: Jennifer Safstrom, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY, Nashville, Tennessee, for Amici Curiae.

Judge(s): COLE, GIBBONS, and BUSH, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Nashville

JOHN K. BUSH, Circuit Judge. Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote that “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” What Publicity Can Do, Harper’s Wkly., Dec. 20, 1913, at 10. The Founders, though, recognized the benefits of sometimes keeping window curtains closed. Indeed, secrecy at the Constitutional Convention helped facilitate the forming of our nation. See generally John P. Kaminski, Secrecy and the Constitutional Convention (2005). And the Supreme Court of the United States has never recognized a hard-and-fast constitutional rule requiring public access to all governmental proceedings. McBurney v. Young, 569 U.S. 221, 232 (2013). Here, the Tennessee Judicial Advisory Commission, with no objection from the Tennessee legislature, has kept its meetings closed to the public since 2018. Dan McCaleb, a journalist, claims that the Commission is violating the First Amendment, as applied to the State through the Fourteenth Amendment, by depriving him of access to the proceedings. He sued Michelle Long, the official purportedly responsible for maintaining the Commission’s closed meetings. McCaleb’s single basis for relief is that his request would satisfy the experience-and- logic test recognized in Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of California for Riverside County, 478 U.S. 1, 8–9 (1986), which we apply to requests for information tied to adjudicatory proceedings. As explained below, the Commission’s meetings are advisory, not adjudicatory, so the test does not govern here. We therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Long.

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