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Full-Text Articles in Law
Public Accommodations And The Right To Refrain From Expressing Oneself, Mark Strasser
Public Accommodations And The Right To Refrain From Expressing Oneself, Mark Strasser
Cleveland State Law Review
The United States Supreme Court has been unable to articulate a coherent position when addressing the right of individuals to refrain from expressing themselves. The Court has applied various tests inconsistently—emphasizing principles in some cases, ignoring them in subsequent cases, and then emphasizing them again in later cases as if those principles had always been applied. The Court’s approach is incoherent, offering little guidance to lower courts except to suggest that public accommodations laws may soon be found inconsistent with First Amendment guarantees.
Corporations "Pac" A Punch: Corporate Involvement's Influence In Elections And A Proposal For Public Campaign Financing In Ohio, Taylor Hagen
Cleveland State Law Review
In 2010, the United States Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision ruled that limiting corporate spending in elections violates the First Amendment right to free speech. With this decision, the Supreme Court overturned election spending restrictions that dated back more than a century. Before Citizens United v. FEC was decided, the Court had previously held that these restrictions were permissible because there is a governmental interest in preventing election and campaign corruption. Now, corporations may expend unlimited funds for outside election spending, to super PACs, and may even establish their own PACs. Increased corporate involvement in elections has deteriorated American …
The Nfl Player, The Schoolchild, And The Entertainer: When The Term "Free Speech" Is Too Freely Spoken, Exactly "Who's On First?", Christian Ketter
The Nfl Player, The Schoolchild, And The Entertainer: When The Term "Free Speech" Is Too Freely Spoken, Exactly "Who's On First?", Christian Ketter
Cleveland State Law Review
As America’s media and politicians continue to debate the free speech rights of NFL players, schoolchildren, and entertainers, the dialogue has confused many Americans as to what exactly the First Amendment protects. Chief Justice John G. Roberts ultimately assumes the role of an umpire in many of these issues, guiding the United States Supreme Court to incrementally “call balls and strikes.” In recent years, the Court has umpired employment rights and state action cases, and Roberts’s calls will likely further distance the Court that decided Morse v. Frederick from the one that decided Tinker v. Des Moines. Amid a …
Clear As Mud: Constitutional Concerns With Clear Affirmative Consent, C. Ashley Saferight
Clear As Mud: Constitutional Concerns With Clear Affirmative Consent, C. Ashley Saferight
Cleveland State Law Review
Rape and sexual assault laws and policies have shifted significantly in recent years, including the introduction of affirmative consent. Unfortunately, both proponents and critics tend to confuse the issues and falsely equate affirmative consent as a substantive social standard versus a procedural standard for adjudication and punishment. Although affirmative consent generally does not represent a significant change in consent law in the United States, statutes and policies requiring a further requirement that affirmative consent be clear and unambiguous (“clear affirmative consent”) are problematic and raise constitutional concerns. When clear affirmative consent policies are used as an adjudicative standard, they increase …
Cyber Bullying And Free Speech: Striking An Age-Appropriate Balance, Raul R. Calvoz, Bradley W. Davis, Mark A. Gooden
Cyber Bullying And Free Speech: Striking An Age-Appropriate Balance, Raul R. Calvoz, Bradley W. Davis, Mark A. Gooden
Cleveland State Law Review
Cyber bullying has generally been dealt with by the courts using one of two legal analyses: the “true threats” doctrine, or the Tinker substantial disruption test. This law review, the Cleveland State Law Review, recently published Anti-Cyber Bullying Statutes: Threat to Student Free Speech (referred to herein as “the Threat to Speech article”), which addressed these two theories, and argued that the current evolution of cyber bullying legislation simply goes too far. For example, Hayward states Anti-cyber bullying laws are the greatest threat to student speech because they seek to censor it anytime it occurs, using “substantial disruption” of school …
Buying The Electorate: An Empirical Study Of The Current Campaign Finance Landscape And How The Supreme Court Erred In Not Revisiting Citizens United, William Alan Nelson Ii
Buying The Electorate: An Empirical Study Of The Current Campaign Finance Landscape And How The Supreme Court Erred In Not Revisiting Citizens United, William Alan Nelson Ii
Cleveland State Law Review
The Article discusses how the Supreme Court erred by summarily reversing the Montana Supreme Court’s decision in Western Tradition Partnership v. AG and not revisiting its holding in Citizens United v. FEC. The Article begins by discussing the holding in the Western Tradition Partnership case and analyzing both the majority and dissenting opinions. The Article then analyzes how the Montana Supreme Court distinguished Citizens United, with the Court specifically looking at the “unique” political history in Montana and finding that Montana’s ban on corporate independent political spending served a compelling state interest and was narrowly tailored to that interest. The …
Tweaking Tinker: Redefining An Outdated Standard For The Internet Era, Shannon M. Raley
Tweaking Tinker: Redefining An Outdated Standard For The Internet Era, Shannon M. Raley
Cleveland State Law Review
This Note argues that the Tinker standard needs to be reevaluated to encompass Internet-related cases both by eliminating the “on-campus” requirement and by further defining what constitutes a “substantial disruption.” The “on-campus” requirement should be eliminated for the following reasons: 1) lower federal courts already disregard this condition for Internet-related cases; 2) it leads students to abuse their First Amendment rights; and 3) this requirement threatens the safety of teachers, students, and other school personnel. Additionally, Tinker's “substantial disruption” prong would be better understood as a factors test. This ensures that schools utilize the same criteria in determining whether a …
Anti-Cyber Bullying Statutes: Threat To Student Free Speech, John O. Hayward
Anti-Cyber Bullying Statutes: Threat To Student Free Speech, John O. Hayward
Cleveland State Law Review
On October 17, 2006, Megan Meier, a thirteen-year-old girl in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and depression, committed suicide because of postings on MySpace, an Internet social networking site, saying she was a bad person whom everyone hated and the world would be better off without. As a result, the state revised its harassment and stalking statutes to prohibit using electronic means to knowingly "frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress to another person."' At the time of this writing, twenty-one states have passed similar legislation with others sure to follow. Many of these statutes …
The First Amendment: When The Government Must Make Content-Based Choices, Erwin Chemerinsky
The First Amendment: When The Government Must Make Content-Based Choices, Erwin Chemerinsky
Cleveland State Law Review
Thus, I focus my attention on the problem of the First Amendment when the government must make content-based choices. I want to divide my remarks into four parts. I begin by reviewing the traditional bedrock rule of the First Amendment: The government cannot regulate speech based on its content. Second, I identify a broad range of cases where this rule cannot apply because the government must make content-based choices. Third, I suggest that the usual First Amendment principles are not helpful in analyzing these cases. Finally, I offer some initial thoughts about directions for dealing with this problem.
Free Speech By The Light Of A Burning Cross, Jerome O'Callaghan
Free Speech By The Light Of A Burning Cross, Jerome O'Callaghan
Cleveland State Law Review
For scholars of the First Amendment this case is an excellent example of the dilemmas posed by many of the doctrines created by the Court. While Justice Scalia proposes an elaborate and novel understanding of the limits of free speech regulation, Justice White responds with an assertion that Scalia's reasoning is "transparently wrong," and that his opinion is a "radical revision of First Amendment law." According to Justice Stevens, the majority opinion is no more than "an adventure in a doctrinal wonderland." Part II of this paper examines the attacks made by Justices White and Stevens against the majority opinion. …
Billboard Regulations, And Aesthetics, Richard Sutton
Billboard Regulations, And Aesthetics, Richard Sutton
Cleveland State Law Review
The regulation of outdoor advertising has prompted a surprisingly prodigious amount of controversy and litigation. It has been challenged as a denial of free speech, due process, and equal protection; it has been upheld on nuisance4 and real property grounds, and sustained on the basis of public health, safety, morality, comfort and convenience, aesthetics, and the right to be let alone."
Freedom Of Expression In Secondary Schools, Ann Aldrich, Joanne V. Sommers
Freedom Of Expression In Secondary Schools, Ann Aldrich, Joanne V. Sommers
Cleveland State Law Review
Guzick v. Drebus, currently under consideration on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, raises important questions concerning the application of the First Amendment to secondary school students.