★ Law Day ★

In 2005, Palestinian civic groups called for a movement to boycott, divest from and sanction companies that do business with Israel. The controversial campaign took on a shorthand name, BDS.

Illinois paid out nearly $30 million in legal fees during the last fiscal year, according to state financial records, with employment law firm Laner Muchin LLP getting the largest haul of any single firm at about $1.7 million.

Ten years ago this May, lawmakers overhauled the Illinois Freedom of Information Act to, as then-Attorney General Lisa M. Madigan put it, “drag Illinois out of the Stone Age” in terms of openness and transparency.

Under the precedent from the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court case Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, the case gave school officials the power to censor school-sponsored content if they had a “reasonable educational justification.”

This year’s Law Day celebrates the First Amendment with its theme: “Free speech, Free press, Free society.” The Daily Law Bulletin took a closer look at landmark cases — several with Illinois roots — that have shaped our constitutional rights.