The Onion is a satirical newspaper organization and digital media company covering international, national, and local news. 

Today, The Onion has grown to be one of the most noteworthy organizations with a readership of 4.3 trillion. 

Writers contributing pieces to The Onion have been recognized for their parodic writing tones, one head writer in particular, Mike Gillis, embodies the comedic writer ships through an amicus brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

In the case of  Novak v. City of Parma, the plaintiff Anthony Novak created “The City of Parma Police Department” Facebook account and mocked the department by creating posts that advertised abortions and pedophile reform events. 

Hours after the department investigated the account and discovered Novak to be the author, they arrested him, searched his apartment, and seized his electronic devices. The police department argued that Novak used his devices to disrupt police functions. 

This case sparked debates around the protection of freedom of speech, thus Gillis created a comedic Supreme Court brief with the intent to present the issues of invading Novak’s freedom to post parodic content  on social media. 

Novaks case was evaluated by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it was found that the department did not violate Novak’s First Amendment rights. 

Judge Amul, who rides the Sixth Circuit of the United States Appeals Court, found that in relation to Novak’s posts on Facebook, his right to “protected speech is a difficult question,” according to The Sun. Even so, Judge Amul found that the department acted with probable cause, protecting them against Novak’s plea for constitutional relief.

Novak was later sued by the police department and the city, and his creation of the Facebook account was acquitted of wrongdoing by the jury. 

Before the Supreme Court, Gillis’s brief is filled with allusions to previous cases, dense arguments, and it is all supported through the irony of comedy. 

Gillis’s argument mainly tackled freedom of speech, and whether American citizens can be put in jail for mocking the government. 

The head author noted how The Onion has published articles that ridicule authoritarian regimes, take the Islamic Republic of Iran for example, they have been seen satirizing the left in North Korea, and so on. 

Gillis challenges the U.S. Supreme Court by comparing articles from The Onion to Novak’s fake police department account on Facebook. 

Professionals from The Onion are confronted with legal rulings, and produce noteworthy articles with a humorist  tone. Unlike Novak, The Onion writers are not held accountable for jail time. 

Another point Gillis makes is how the point of parody is to make fun of the original, thus Novaks posts can be found innocent in the sense that he was harmlessly making a joke. 

Later in the brief, Gillis alluded to Hustler Mag., Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 53–55 (1988), a case in which a parody ad in the Hustler Magazine was published, a disclaimer was posted along with the ad and a “fiction” label in the table on contents. For context, the ad was a fake interview with Jerry Falwell, a fundamentalist Protestant. 

It was concluded that the wrongdoing of defamation claims cannot be completely attributed to parody, unless the joke is both false and spiteful. 

Thus, Gillis makes a point that the reasonable-reader should not need a disclaimer to understand that a joke is a joke, simply because the audience could gauge, even by the headline, that the content is humorist. 

As previously stated, the jury acquitted Novak, however he later sued for the violation of his constitutionally protected civil rights.