John S. Stone Chairholder of Law & Director of the Program in Constitutional Studies & Initiative for Civic Engagement
Professor Ron Krotoszynski was named the laureate of the 2026 edition of the Ratio et Spes (Reason and Hope) Scientific Award, entitled The Relationship Between Freedom of Expression and the Protection of Human Dignity, for his book, Free Speech as Civic Structure: A Comparative Analysis of How Courts and Culture Shape the Freedom of Speech (Oxford University Press 2024).
“Your publication, Free Speech as Civic Structure: A Comparative Analysis of How Courts and Culture Shape the Freedom of Speech, received the highest evaluation from our panel of experts. The Scientific Council concurred with their recommendation, noting that your work is interdisciplinary in nature and addresses contemporary issues that have, or may have, a significant impact on the lives and functioning of both individuals and societies,” said Rector Andrzej Tretyn, D.Sc., of Nicolaus Copernicus University.
The Ratio et Spes Scientific Award is granted jointly by Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, and the Vatican Foundation Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI. Professor Krotoszynski will be honored during the annual University Day celebration at Nicolaus Copernicus University in February.
Professor Krotoszynski has also recently published two pieces. His chapter, Consensus, Conflict, and Complementarity: A Global Perspective on the Freedom of Expression, was published in the second edition of Comparative Constitutional Theory (Gary Jacobsohn & Miguel Schor eds., Edward Elgar Publishing 2025), and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: A Comparative Constitutional Analysis of Whistleblowing Speech, the Government’s Managerial Domain, and the Imperatives of Democratic Self-Government, was published in Minnesota Law Review. In the article, Professor Krotoszynski analyzes the history of First Amendment protections for government employees’ speech about matters of public concern since the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Pickering and compares U.S. protections to those in other countries before offering recommendations on how the U.S. could strengthen its own protections.