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Full-Text Articles in Law
Language Control, 'Hyper-Sensitivity' And The Death Of True Liberalism, David R. Barnhizer
Language Control, 'Hyper-Sensitivity' And The Death Of True Liberalism, David R. Barnhizer
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
The Rule of Law in America is buttressed by the idea of free speech. Universities are supposed to be centers of free speech, dialogue and learning, in the process educating and preparing students to protect and preserve the unique ideal of the Western version of the Rule of Law. This includes the importance of competing factions attempting to achieve compromise through political discourse. There is a rather significant problem, therefore, when the dynamic and often contentious interactions that produce the ability to recognize the potential legitimacy of others’ arguments and the flaws in one’s own are short circuited by political …
Bad News, Good News For The First Amendment, In Supreme Court Review Of The 1993-94 Term,, David F. Forte
Bad News, Good News For The First Amendment, In Supreme Court Review Of The 1993-94 Term,, David F. Forte
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
With the passage of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (F.A.C.E.), and the Supreme Court’s decision in NOW v. Scheidler, pro-life activists who engage in civil disobedience will suffer far greater legal disabilities than have been placed upon other protest movements in American history. But following Madsen, pro-life demonstrators can now take advantage of protections not previously articulated by the Court. So long as they do not engage in repetitive illegalities, pro-life demonstrators can count on strong First Amendment guarantees.
New Rules For Zoning Adult Uses: The Supreme Court's Renton Decision, Alan Weinstein
New Rules For Zoning Adult Uses: The Supreme Court's Renton Decision, Alan Weinstein
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
This term, for the third time in 10 years, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the validity of zoning that restricts the location or operation of businesses that trade in sexually oriented books, magazines, movies, or entertainment. Restrictions on such "adult businesses" raise serious constitutional issues because the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech extends to sexually oriented media so long as the material is not considered obscene. In the latest case, City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, 106 S.Ct. 925 (1986), 38 ZD 258, the Court upheld a zoning ordinance that limited the location of theaters exhibiting adult movies …
Billboards, Aesthetics, And The First Amendment: Municipal Sign Regulation After Metromedia, Alan Weinstein
Billboards, Aesthetics, And The First Amendment: Municipal Sign Regulation After Metromedia, Alan Weinstein
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
In Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490 (1981), 33 ZD 238, the U.S. Supreme Court, although sharply divided, held that states and municipalities could regulate signs and billboards to reduce traffic hazards and improve a community's appearance, but cautioned that regulations which imposed too many restrictions on protected First Amendment rights to freedom of speech would be struck down. The nine Supreme Court justices wrote five separate opinions in Metromedia, struggling to find a workable accommodation between free speech guarantees and the deference normally granted to a municipality's exercise of the police power.' This article, after …
The Flag Salute Cases And The First Amendment, Stephen W. Gard
The Flag Salute Cases And The First Amendment, Stephen W. Gard
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
The flag salute cases have been a source of endless fascination for legal and historical scholars. Most of this large body of scholarship has focused on the apparent oddity of Justice Frankfurter's view that there was no constitutional infirmity in the "petty tyranny" of a governmental requirement that school children engage in a hypocritical affirmation of belief. Unfortunately, the doctrinal importance of the opinions of Justices Jackson and Frankfurter in the flag salute cases as contrasting statements on the interpretation of the freedom of speech guarantee of the first amendment and the function of the judiciary in preserving our most …
Regulating Pornography: Recent Legal Trends, Alan C. Weinstein
Regulating Pornography: Recent Legal Trends, Alan C. Weinstein
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
Since the Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Young v. American Mini Theaters, Inc., 427 U.S. 50 (1976) local governments have been permitted to single out adult bookstores and theaters for special regulatory treatment.' In the wake of Young, many municipalities enacted "pornography zoning" ordinances based on the Detroit dispersion model. Observing this trend in 1978, the Harvard Law Review noted that these municipalities were interpreting Young as approving pornography zoning as constitutionally acceptable "in nearly all circumstances." 2 This interpretation seemed incorrect, however, to the Review's editors: "Detroit's pornography zoning was found to satisfy three established First Amendment criteria; future …
Fighting Words As Free Speech, Stephen W. Gard
Fighting Words As Free Speech, Stephen W. Gard
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
It is now settled that "above all else, the first amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content." Despite the universal acceptance of this general principle, the United States Supreme Court has created several exceptions. In appropriate cases libel, obscenity, commercial speech, and offensive language may be censored without contravention of the first amendment guarantee of freedom of expression. The source of each of these exceptions to the general principle of governmental neutrality regarding the content of expression is Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire.