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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Search For An Egalitarian First Amendment, Jeremy K. Kessler, David E. Pozen
The Search For An Egalitarian First Amendment, Jeremy K. Kessler, David E. Pozen
Faculty Scholarship
Over the past decade, the Roberts Court has handed down a series of rulings that demonstrate the degree to which the First Amendment can be used to thwart economic and social welfare regulation – generating widespread accusations that the Court has created a "new Lochner." This introduction to the Columbia Law Review's Symposium on Free Expression in an Age of Inequality takes up three questions raised by these developments: Why has First Amendment law become such a prominent site for struggles over socioeconomic inequality? Does the First Amendment tradition contain egalitarian elements that could be recovered? And what might a …
Rights Skepticism And Majority Rule At The Birth Of The Modern First Amendment, Vincent A. Blasi
Rights Skepticism And Majority Rule At The Birth Of The Modern First Amendment, Vincent A. Blasi
Faculty Scholarship
Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Louis Brandeis all had the same problem. They were troubled — Holmes less than the others and later, but eventually — by the widespread and mean-spirited persecution of dissenters they observed as the United States entered World War I and then reacted to the Bolshevik Revolution. Today, most persons so troubled would think that constitutional rights, and particularly the freedom of speech, exist for the very purpose of countermanding zealous political majorities that deny or neglect the claims of dissenters. But Hand, Holmes, and Brandeis, each by his own distinctive path, came to the …
Four Principles For Digital Expression (You Won't Believe #3!), Danielle K. Citron, Neil Richards
Four Principles For Digital Expression (You Won't Believe #3!), Danielle K. Citron, Neil Richards
Faculty Scholarship
At the dawn of the Internet’s emergence, the Supreme Court rhapsodized about its potential as a tool for free expression and political liberation. In ACLU v. Reno (1997), the Supreme Court adopted a bold vision of Internet expression to strike down a federal law - the Communications Decency Act - that restricted digital expression to forms that were merely “decent.” Far more than the printing press, the Court explained, the mid-90s Internet enabled anyone to become a town crier. Communication no longer required the permission of powerful entities. With a network connection, the powerless had as much luck reaching a …