The Times argued that if a newspaper had to check the accuracy of every criticism of every public official, a free press would be severely limited. The newspaper had no reason to believe that the advertisement included false statements, so it did not check their accuracy. The newspaper argued that it had no intention of hurting L.B. The Times appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court. In the Alabama court, Sullivan won his case and the New York Times was ordered to pay $500,000 in damages. He said that the ad damaged his reputation in the community. But Sullivan claimed that the ad implied his responsibility for the actions of the police. He sued the New York Times for libel (printing something they knew was false and would cause harm). Sullivan was one of three people in charge of police in Montgomery. The ad also contained the false statement: “ When the entire student body protested to state authorities by refusing to re-register, their dining hall was padlocked in an attempt to starve them into submission.” For example, the ad said that police “ringed” a college campus where protestors were, but this charge was exaggerated. What it described was mostly accurate, but some of the charges in the ad were not true. The ad described what it called “ an unprecedented wave of terror” of police actions against peaceful demonstrators in Montgomery, Alabama. Civil rights leaders ran a full-page ad in the New York Times to raise funds to help civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. It was 1960 and the Civil Rights Movement was gaining strength. The Court held that the First Amendment protects newspapers even when they print false statements, as long as the newspapers did not act with “actual malice.” Resources This lesson focuses on the 1964 landmark freedom of the press case New York Times v.