The edition of The New York Times that appeared on March 29, 1960, reported on a strike by bus workers in Tampa, Fla., a former Chicago nightclub owner being found dead in a sewer, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower getting a new hair-do and former Minnesota Gov. Harold Stassen suggesting that then-Vice President Richard Nixon might not have enough strength among “important parts of the people” to get the GOP presidential nomination that year.

But more significant than any of these stories was an advertisement in that day’s newspaper.

The ad was placed by civil rights activists and headlined “Heed Their Rising Voices.” It called for support for Martin Luther King Jr., and students protesting segregation in the South. Among its signatories were Marlon Brando, Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, Sidney Poitier and Eleanor Roosevelt. The ad did not sit well with supporters of Southern white supremacy, chief among them L.B. Sullivan, a city commissioner in Montgomery, Ala. He used inaccuracies in the ad to claim that he was defamed and sued The New York Times.

While courts in Alabama ruled in Sullivan’s favor, the U.S. Supreme Court adamantly disagreed. In the landmark 1964 case New York Times vs. Sullivan, the court’s nine justices unanimously ruled that public officials could not sue for libel or defamation unless they could prove a news outlet acted with actual malice – in other words, if the reporters and editors knew what they were reporting was false, but decided to run with the story anyway. The ruling has effectively allowed news organizations to report on public officials and other important figures without fear of bullying and harassment.

Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have both suggested that New York Times vs. Sullivan should be revisited, as have Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. But it was a source of relief that the Supreme Court declined to hear a case in recent days that could have put New York Times vs. Sullivan in peril. The case was brought by Don Blankenship, the disgraced West Virginia coal baron who was found guilty of violating federal safety standards in the 2010 disaster at Upper Big Branch Mine near Charleston, W.Va. A coal dust explosion left 29 miners dead. Blankenship was convicted on a misdemeanor charge, but he sued a number of outlets for calling him a felon. Blankenship had no success in lower courts, and the Supreme Court was his last stand.

William J. Brennan, one of the nine justices who voted on New York Times vs. Sullivan made this observation: “Cases which impose liability for erroneous reports of the political conduct of officials reflect the obsolete doctrine that the governed must not criticize their governors. … The protection of the public requires not merely discussion, but information. … Errors in fact, particularly to a man’s mental states and processes, are inevitable. … Whatever is added to the field of libel is to take from the fields of free debate.”

Because the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Blankenship’s case, journalists – and the broader public – can all rest a little easier.