When the world shut down in 2020, most of us were focused on the immediate realities of COVID-19. Professor Zoe Robinson was watching something else unfold at the same time: how leaders talked about the crisis. In press conferences, interviews, and social media posts, political actors were making choices about what to say, what to emphasize, and sometimes what to ignore. Those choices, she realized, were not just background noise—they were shaping how people understood the risks and whether they trusted the guidance they were given. That moment became the starting point for her research into the relationship between speech, public health, and political incentives.
Public choice theory begins with a simple insight: political actors are rational decision makers, often guided by incentives like reelection. Robinson applies that framework to public health and asks how those incentives influence what information reaches the public. Her work highlights a central truth: speech is not just commentary on policy. It is often the difference between whether a policy succeeds or fails.
In public health, information can save lives. Clear and accurate communication about risks and prevention helps people make informed decisions and builds trust in institutions. But speech can also work in the opposite direction. Misinformation and disinformation, especially when amplified by political actors, can erode confidence and weaken responses to crises. The pandemic offered a vivid example, as conflicting messages undermined trust in institutions like the CDC and complicated efforts to respond to a new and evolving public health threat.
Robinson’s scholarship moves beyond the familiar debate of free speech versus censorship. Instead, she and her coauthors focus on the more complicated reality of how information flows, political incentives, and public behavior interact. Their work, such as Can Speech Policy Protect Public Health? and Public Health Policy as Public Choice Failure explore ways to better align speech with public health goals by limiting harmful misinformation and encouraging more accurate and transparent communication from those in positions of authority.
History offers a useful comparison. Public messaging around polio vaccination in the twentieth century helped drive widespread public acceptance and led to dramatically improved health outcomes. The contrast with more recent confusing communications surrounding vaccinations underscores how powerful and fragile the relationship between speech and public trust can be.
At its core, Robinson’s work speaks to something larger than public health. It raises questions about democracy itself. In a world where information is constant and immediate, the quality of that information matters deeply. When it is distorted or unreliable, the result is not just confusion. It is a misinformed public and, ultimately, harm to democratic decision making. Understanding why political actors sometimes spread or tolerate false information is a critical step toward addressing these challenges.
Professor Robinson, a Professor of Law, joined Marquette University Law School in 2024. She teaches and writes in constitutional law, judicial politics, and empirical legal studies. Her scholarship has appeared in leading law reviews, including the Georgetown Law Journal, Minnesota Law Review, and Cornell Law Review, and has been discussed in outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Prior to Marquette, she served on the faculty at the Australian National University and DePaul University College of Law, and she clerked for both a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and a justice on the Federal Court of Australia.
Her work offers a timely reminder: In moments of crisis and in everyday governance, what is said, how it is said, and why it is said can shape not only policy outcomes, but also public trust and the strength of our democracy.