Law Commons^™

The Worst Choice For School Choice: Tuition Tax Credits Are A Bad Idea And Direct Funding Is Wiser, Michael J. Broyde, Anna G. Gabianelli

Faculty Articles

School choice is on the rise, and states use various mechanisms to implement it. One prevalent mechanism is also a uniquely problematic one: the tax credit. Tax credits are deficient at equitably distributing a benefit like school choice; they are costly, and they invite fraud. Instead of using tax credits, states opting for school choice programs should use direct funding. Direct funding will more efficiently achieve the goals of school choice because it can be regulated like any other government benefit, even if it ends up subsidizing religious private schools.

Tax credits’ prevalence is not inexplicable, of course. It is …

Beyond Social Media Analogues, Gregory M. Dickinson

Faculty Articles

The steady flow of social-media cases toward the Supreme Court shows a nation reworking its fundamental relationship with technology. The cases raise a host of questions ranging from difficult to impossible: how to nurture a vibrant public square when a few tech giants dominate the flow of information, how social media can be at the same time free from conformist groupthink and also protected against harmful disinformation campaigns, and how government and industry can cooperate on such problems without devolving toward censorship.

To such profound questions, this Essay offers a comparatively modest contribution—what not to do. Always the lawyer’s instinct …

Addiction And Liberty, Matthew B. Lawrence

Faculty Articles

This Article explores the interaction between addiction and liberty and identifies a firm legal basis for recognition of a fundamental constitutional right to freedom from addiction. Government interferes with freedom from addiction when it causes addiction or restricts addiction treatment, and government may protect freedom from addiction through legislation empowering individuals against private actors’ efforts to addict them without their consent. This Article motivates and tests the boundaries of this right through case studies of emergent threats to liberty made possible or exacerbated by new technologies and scientific understandings. These include certain state lottery programs, addiction treatment restrictions, and smartphone …

The New Fourth Era Of American Religious Freedom, John Witte Jr., Eric Wang

Faculty Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court has entered decisively into a new fourth era of American religious freedom. In the first era, from 1776 to 1940, the Court largely left governance of religious freedom to the individual states and did little to enforce the First Amendment Religion Clauses. In the second era, from 1940 to 1990, the Court “incorporated” the First Amendment into the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause and applied both a strong Free Exercise Clause and a strong Establishment Clause against federal, state, and local governments alike. In the third era, from the mid-1980s to 2010, the Court softened the …

Contract Law Should Be Faith Neutral: Reverse Entanglement Would Be Stranglement For Religious Arbitration, Michael J. Broyde, Alexa J. Windsor

Faculty Articles

The first section of this Article will outline the ways in which communities—religious and other groups, including the LGBTQ+ community—have used and continue to use private law to achieve meaningful dispute resolution. By diminishing the role of civil courts to review arbitrations, parties may tailor their resolutions to prioritize community values that may be misaligned with secular society. Outside of historical religious usage, private law offers a field ripe for jurisprudential growth. Through alternative dispute resolution, affinity-based minority groups can pave an avenue towards justice which accurately reflects the unique values of their lived experiences.

The second section will provide …

Back To The Sources? What’S Clear And Not So Clear About The Original Intent Of The First Amendment, John Witte Jr.

Faculty Articles

This Article peels through these layers of founding documents before exploring the final sixteen words of the First Amendment religion clauses. Part I explores the founding generation’s main teachings on religious freedom, identifying the major principles that they held in common. Part II sets out a few representative state constitutional provisions on religious freedom created from 1776 to 1784. Part III reviews briefly the actions by the Continental Congress on religion and religious freedom issued between 1774 and 1789. Part IV touches on the deprecated place of religious freedom in the drafting of the 1787 United States Constitution. Part V …

Constitutional Rights As Human Rights: Freedom Of Speech, Equal Protection, And The Right Of Privacy, Michael J. Perry

Faculty Articles

Much of my recent scholarly work has addressed questions concerning the political morality - the global political morality of human rights. This essay continues in that vein; I focus on a relationship I began to discuss almost forty years ago, in my first book: the relationship between (some) constitutional rights and (some) human rights. My overarching claim here: There is a significant interface between the constitutional law of the United States and the political morality of human rights. My principal aim in this Essay is to defend (and illustrate) that broad claim by defending three narrower claims:

1. The constitutional …

Antidiscrimination And Tax Exemption, Alex Zhang

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court held, in Bob Jones University v. United States, that violations of fundamental public policy— including race discrimination in education—disqualify an entity for tax exemption. The holding of the case was broad, and its results cohered with the ideals of progressive society: the government ought not to subsidize discrimination, particularly of marginalized groups. But almost four decades later, the decision has never realized its antidiscriminatory potential. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has limited implementation to the narrowest facts of the case. The scholarly literature has not formulated a systematic account of how to enforce the Bob Jones …

Using Bruen To Overturn New York Times V. Sullivan, Michael L. Smith, Alexander S. Hiland

Faculty Articles

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is a foundational, well regarded First Amendment case, Justice Clarence Thomas has repeatedly called on the Court to revisit it. Sullivan, Thomas claims, is policy masquerading as constitutional law, and it makes almost no effort to ground itself in the original meaning of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Thomas argues that at the time of the founding, libelous statements were routinely subject to criminal prosecution including libel of public figures and public officials.

This Essay connects Justice Thomas's calls to revisit Sullivan to his recent opinion for the Court in New York State Rifle …

In Contracts We Trust (And No One Can Change Their Mind)! There Should Be No Special Treatment For Religious Arbitration, Michael J. Broyde, Alexa J. Windsor

Faculty Articles

The recent article In God We Trust (Unless We Change Our Mind): How State of Mind Relates to Religious Arbitration ("In God We Trust") proposes that those who sign arbitration agreements that consent to a religious legal system as the basis of the rules of arbitration be allowed to back out of such agreements based on their constitutional right to free exercise. This article is a response and is divided into two sections. In the first section, we show that such an exemption would violate the Federal Arbitration Act's (FAA) basic rules preventing the states from heightened regulation of arbitration …

Speech Inequality After Janus V. Afscme, Charlotte Garden

Faculty Articles

This Article explores the growing divide between the Roberts Court’s treatment of the free speech rights of wealthy individuals and corporations in campaign finance cases as compared to its treatment of the rights of public-sector labor unions and their members. First, it highlights some internal contradictions in the Janus Court’s analysis. Then, it discusses the growing—yet mostly ignored—divergence in the Court’s treatment of corporate and labor speakers with respect to the use of market influence to achieve political influence.The Article has two Parts. In Part I, I explain how the Court reached its decision in Janus before critiquing the decision’s …

Avoidance Creep, Charlotte Garden

Faculty Articles

At first glance, constitutional avoidance—the principle that courts construe statutes so as to avoid conflict with the Constitution whenever possible—appears both unremarkable and benign. But when courts engage in constitutional avoidance, they frequently construe statutory language in a manner contrary to both its plain meaning and to the underlying congressional intent. Then, successive decisions often magnify the problems of avoidance—a phenomenon I call “avoidance creep.” When a court distorts a statute in service of constitutional avoidance, a later court may amplify the distortion, incrementally changing both statutory and constitutional doctrine in ways that are unsupported by any existing rationale for …

Shareholders United?, Andrew K. Jennings

Faculty Articles

Securities regulation has a way of crossing into other lanes. What public companies do is substantive regulation. How they govern themselves while doing it-or more importantly, how they disclose it-is securities regulation. So it is no surprise that the perennial concern over regulating money in politics should also become a question of federal securities regulation. The Shareholders United Act (the "Act")-passed by the House of Representatives as part of House Bill 1, an early, major piece of legislation in the 116th Congress-does just that. The Act would require that before engaging in political spending, public companies poll shareholders on how …

Meta Rights, Charlotte Garden

Faculty Articles

Are individuals entitled to notice of their constitutional rights or assistance in exercising those rights? In most contexts, the answer is no. Yet, there are some important exceptions, in which the Court has held that special circumstances call for notice and procedural protections designed to facilitate rights invocations. This article refers to these entitlements as “meta rights” — rights that protect rights. The most famous of these is the Miranda warning, which notifies suspects of their Fifth Amendment rights to silence and an attorney. There are others as well — among them, the First Amendment right of individuals represented by …

Evangelicals And Catholics Together On Law: Some Personal And Jewish Reflections, Michael J. Broyde

Faculty Articles

At its core this is both my religious and practi­cal problem with the Evangelicals and Catholics Together on Law statement. I sense that according to the Jewish tradition the theology and practice of secular law and justice ought to not be a religious one at all. In the eyes of the Jewish tradition, one should not seek from the secular government a law that maximizes Godliness, never mind observance of God's law. We do not look to secular law to reflect our religious morals-we look to secular law to provide us with life, liberty and the freedom to pursue our …

Citizens, United And Citizens United: The Future Of Labor Speech Rights?, Charlotte Garden

Faculty Articles

Within hours of its announcement, the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC came under attack from progressive groups. Among these groups were some of America's largest labor unions-even though the decision applies equally to unions and for-profit corporations. The reason is clear: there exist both practical and structural impediments that will prevent unions from benefitting from Citizens United to the same extent as corporations. Therefore, Citizens United stands to unleash a torrent of corporate electioneering that could drown out the countervailing voice of organized labor.

This article, however, takes a broader view of Citizens United to explore a …

The Guardians Of Knowledge In The Modern State: Post’S Republic And The First Amendment, David M. Skover, Ronald K. L. Collins

Faculty Articles

Collins and Skover’s essay examines Yale Law School Dean Robert Post’s recent book, Democracy, Expertise, and Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State (Yale, 2012). Collins and Skover describe and examine Dean Post’s dichotomy between the realm of “democratic legitimation,” where the First Amendment should offer its strongest protections, and the realm of “democratic competence,” where the First Amendment should yield to the findings of knowledgeable experts. Questioning the theoretical premises of Dean Post’s book, they argue that a “harm principle” may better explain much of the First Amendment doctrine that Post attempts to reconcile with his …

Labor Values Are First Amendment Values: Why Union Comprehensive Campaigns Are Protected Speech, Charlotte Garden

Faculty Articles

Corporate targets of union “comprehensive campaigns” increasingly have responded by filing civil Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuits alleging that unions’ speech and petitioning activities are extortionate. These lawsuits are the descendants of the Supreme Court’s unexplained treatment of much labor speech as less worthy of protection than other types of speech. Starting from the position that speech that promotes democratic discourse deserves top-tier First Amendment protection, this article argues that labor speech--which plays a unique role in civil society--should be on an equal footing with civil rights speech. Thus, even if union advocacy qualifies as legal extortion, …

Take One Step Forward: Federal Courts Continue To Find That Volunteers Are Shielded From Retaliation Based On Protected Speech Under The First Amendment, David A. Grenardo

Faculty Articles

As an issue of first impression in the Fifth Circuit's jurisdiction, a United States district court in Texas considered whether it is impossible to state a claim for speech retaliation which involves the loss of a plaintiff's volunteer ministry rights and credentials. The court, in line with decisions from other federal courts and analogous Supreme Court cases, determined that being a volunteer is the type of governmental benefit or privilege the deprivation of which triggers First Amendment scrutiny, and it held that the volunteer chaplain stated a valid claim for retaliation. This article summarizes the law concerning retaliation against volunteers …

What Is War? Reflections On Free Speech In 'Wartime, David Skover, Ronald Collins

Faculty Articles

Written as the lead article for a Symposium issue commemorating the Free Speech in Wartime Conference held in January of 2005 at Rutgers Law School - Camden, this piece analyzes the following questions: What qualifies as war in the 21st Century? Who determines when the country is at war? And what effect, if any, should the existence of a war have on judicial review of First Amendment challenges?

A Curious Concurrence: Justice Brandeis' Vote In Whitney V. California, David Skover, Ronald Collins

Faculty Articles

A piece of jurisprudential sleuthing, this article uncovers the back story for a puzzle unanswered by legal historians for some eighty years: Why would the free-speech libertarian Louis Brandeis write the most famous paean to First Amendment normative values in his opinion in Whitney v. United States, and yet join (by way of a concurring opinion) the judgment of the majority of the Court that would have sent the "patrician radical" Anita Whitney to prison for a 14-year term solely for participating in the formation of the California Communist Labor Party? Part of the puzzle is provided by the unpublished …

The Landmark Free-Speech Case That Wasn't: The Nike V. Kasky Story, David Skover, Ronald Collins

Faculty Articles

Written as the Foreword to a Symposium entitled Nike v. Kasky and the Modern Commercial Speech Doctrine, this piece tells the background stories that brought the Nike v. Kasky players to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court and beyond. Subsequently, it explores the principles and perspectives at tension in the Nike controversy, and charts the lessons of the Nike story - legal, political, and cultural.

"Closet Case": Boy Scouts Of America V. Dale And The Reinforcement Of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, And Transgender Invisibility, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

This Article argues that the Supreme Courts decision in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale misapplies and ignores controlling First Amendment precedent and incorrectly dermes "sexual identity" as a clinical or biological imposition that exists apart from expression or speech. This Article provides a doctrinal alternative to Dale that would protect vital interests in both equality and liberty and that would not condition, as does Dale, sexual "equality" upon the silencing of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals.

Regulation Of Religious Proselytism In The United States, Howard O. Hunter, Polly J. Price

Faculty Articles

This article will consider various aspects of the U.S. legal system that affect proselytism. Although the United States has had a longstanding constitutional guarantee of the “free exercise” of religion, there are nonetheless significant constraints upon free exercise directly relating to proselytism. Some legal commentators, including Douglas Laycock, have argued that our decentralized system of government leads to insufficient protection of religious liberty, especially for religious minorities.Most case law on the subject in the United States, as well as most attempts to regulate behavior by ordinance or statute, have developed in response to groups or individuals that are outside the …

Church-State Constitutional Issues: Making Sense Of The Establishment Clause And That Godless Court?: Supreme Court Decision On Church-State Relationships (Book Reviews), Michael Ariens

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Marketplace Of Ideas In Cyberspace, Margaret Chon

Faculty Articles

In the Panel Discussion on The Marketplace Of Ideas In Cyberspace at the 1999-2000 Oliver Wendell Holmes Symposium And Lectureship At Mercer University, Professor Margaret Chon discusses censorship and hate speech on the internet. Professor Chon questions the exporting of our First Amendment jurisprudence in this particular area, since we are the only democratic country to speak of, that protects what we've been referring to as hate speech.

Term Limits On Original Intent--An Essay On Legal Debate And Historical Understanding, Polly J. Price

Faculty Articles

This Essay is divided into five Parts. Part I sets the stage for the historical debate by evaluating the text of the Qualifications Clauses as well as the limited evidence of what the Framers and the ratifiers thought about these provisions. Part II shows that many states, immediately after the federal Constitution was ratified, behaved as though the Qualifications Clauses did not prevent them from adding qualifications for congressional office-holding. Part III compares this early evidence of state behavior with a debate in Congress after the Civil War concerning the meaning of the Qualifications Clauses. Part IV returns to the …

Afterword: New "Truths" And The Old First Amendment, David Skover, Ronald Collins

Faculty Articles

Written as an afterword to a Symposium on The Death of Discourse, this piece replies to commentaries on the relationship between "Noble Lies" and the First Amendment authored by Professors Shadia Drury (political science), Robert Hariman (rhetoric & communication studies), David Nyberg (philosophy), Loyal Rue (religion & philosophy), and Richard Stivers (sociology).

The Pornographic State, David Skover, Ronald Collins

Faculty Articles

Written as a contribution to the Harvard Symposium on Changing Images of the State, this article explores the realm of Pornotopia, a republic of images, the state that liberal America aspires to be. Imagine a nation in which there is little or no discord about pornography because there is little or no meaningful discourse about it. Imagine a nation in which people gladly trade the reality of human beings for images of that reality, a "virtual reality." Imagine a nation in which there is erotic self­expression but little or no communal expression. Imagine a nation in which sexual war and …

The Psychology Of First Amendment Scholarship: A Reply, David Skover, Ronald Collins

Faculty Articles

This essay was written as an afterword to the Colloquy entitled The First Amendment in a Commercial Culture, as a reply to commentaries on "Commerce & Communication" authored by Leo Bogart (advertising expert), Sut Jhally (professor of communications), Alex Kozinski (federal appellate judge) & Stuart Banner (attorney), and Rodney Smolla (law professor). The authors, Professors Skover and Collins, had hoped that Commerce & Communication would prompt new debate and discussion about certain First Amendment issues. However, judging from thier colleagues' reactions, there may well be more of the former than the latter. But in the scheme of things, who's to …