Law Commons^™

Holocaust Denial And The First Amendment: The Quest For Truth In A Free Society, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

From the ashes of the Holocaust we have come once again to learn the terrible truth, that the power of Evil cannot be underestimated. Nor can the effect of the spoken and written word. It has been but a half-century since the liberation of Nazi death camps, a little more than a decade since the First International Conference on the Holocaust and Human Rights, and a few short years since the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum first put on display its documentation of horror. Yet today that form of historical revisionism popularly called "Holocaust denial" abounds worldwide in all its …

The Role Of Religion In Public Life And Official Pressure To Participate In Alcoholics Anonymous, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

If religion is an innate aspect of the human experience, it should not be surprising that Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), a widely known and arguably religious support group for problem drinkers, has become a common and effective means of combating alcoholism. Also, it should not be surprising that probation officers, parole officers, judges, bar overseers, wardens, and myriad others exercising state authority routinely push individuals toward A.A. Arguably, however, official referral of problem drinkers to A.A. violates current interpretations of the Establishment Clause because of the quasi-religious nature of the program.

Although separationism helps both church and state, our Constitution does, …

Generally Applicable Laws And The First Amendment, David S. Bogen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Civilizing Religion, Kurt T. Lash

Law Faculty Publications

Is it appropriate to restrict abortion at any stage in pregnancy on the ground that human life is sacred? Should the public square be open to biblical arguments against homosexuality? Or, to frame the issue in a more scholarly fashion: What role may religious arguments play, if any, either in public debate about what political choices to make or as the private basis of a political choice? In his recent book, Religion in Politics: Constitutional and Moral Perspectives, Michael Perry addresses these questions as a matter of constitutional law and political morality. Perry has been down this road before, most …

Two Wrongs Mock A Right: Overcoming The Cohen Maledicta That Bar First Amendment Protection For Newsgathering, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

In Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., Justice Byron R. White wrote that the First Amendment offers no protection from the enforcement of "generally applicable laws" against newsgatherers and that First Amendment protection applies only to information that has been "lawfully acquired." This Article shows that these doctrines are not only false, but have already done serious damage to First Amendment interests. It surveys lower court decisions from around the country to demonstrate the doctrines' pernicious influence, then it evaluates alternative solutions to the problem. The article concludes that the most effective, if least likely, solution would be a rule that …

Spending Limits And The Squandering Of Candidates' Time, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

Today I begin with a narrow agenda, a single idea, but an extravagant ambition. My narrow agenda is that I wish to address only the topic of campaign spending limits, and only the issue of their constitutionality in the face of First Amendment objections. The policy questions regarding whether spending limits are equitable, efficacious, and/or enforceable are deeply difficult and interesting but beyond my ken on this occasion.

My single idea is that spending limits are best justified on the ground that they protect candidates for office from having to devote an inordinate amount of their time to the task …

Reading Holmes Through The Lens Of Schauer: The Abrams Dissent, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

Even the best scholars rarely persuade. Mostly, they illuminate. They make us more discerning readers and interlocutors.

Here I want to illustrate how Frederick Schauer's work on the law of free speech can help us to read what may be the single most influential judicial opinion ever written on that subject, Justice Holmes's famous dissent in Abrams v. United States. So far as I am aware, Schauer has not produced anything like a line-by-line parsing of the Holmes opinion. I claim nevertheless that a reader familiar with Schauer's ideas is far better prepared on that account to understand what Holmes …

An Analysis Of The Personal Use Principle Under Copyright Law, Hsin-Chih Cheng

LLM Theses and Essays

Personal use is when an individual uses a copyrighted work for private purposes, such as learning or entertainment. Personal use is a right given in the Copyright Clause of the U.S. Constitution, however, an issue arises when the individual wants to make a copy of the copyrighted work. New technologies like photocopying and videotaping make this issue more prominent today. Some copyright owners think that the individual’s copying for private use is harmful to their potential market and they argue for compensation. Does the individual have the right under the personal use principle to reproduce the copyrighted work for private …