David R. Wheeler, Ph.D.

Hello, fellow travelers, and thanks for visiting. I'm a journalism professor at The University of Tampa, as well as a freelance writer for outlets such as CNN, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Newsweek, and Columbia Journalism Review. Here's a link to my portfolio.

Some things I’m proud of: My Atlantic article “Do Students Still Have Free Speech in School?” was cited in an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. In the case, the Court ruled 8-to-1 that a Pennsylvania school violated a student’s First Amendment rights by punishing her for an off-campus Snapchat message. The citation of my article in the amicus brief on behalf of the student means my work will always be associated with this major case, and will remain available on the Supreme Court’s website from now on.

My writing on the First Amendment is widely cited in law reviews and journals. You can click these links to read specific law review articles that have cited my work: Law and Inequality, Widener Law Review, BYU Law Review, and Indiana Law Journal.

My Atlantic article  “Do Students Still Have Free Speech in School?” is also cited in the Yale University Press book Free Speech on Campus by law professors Erwin Chemerinsky and Howard Gillman. 

You can also find my work cited in The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies, published in May 2019 by Wiley Blackwell-ICA International Encyclopedias of Communication. My Atlantic article “The Plot Against Student Newspapers” is cited in the entry “College and University Student Media.”

My article “Don’t Press the Panic Button Yet: An Analysis of Federal Student Press Law Cases at the University Level” was chosen as the lead article in Volume 54 of College Media Review, the flagship journal of the College Media Association.

In 2018, I was honored to give the Hosokawa Distinguished Journalism Lecture at Whitman College in Washington State. Other Hosokawa lecturers have included author Sarah Kendzior, Pulitzer winner Hendrick Smith, and Los Angeles Times editor Terry Tang.