Law Commons^™

Academic Duty And Academic Freedom, Amy Gadja

Indiana Law Journal

On December 31, 1915, the newly formed American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and its Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure accepted a set of guidelines designed to shape the organization and its work to protect academics against the termination power of their employer-universities. The “General Declaration of Principles,” drafted by approximately a dozen educators who were called from universities across the country, begins with a decided focus on the rights of individuals within the academy: “The term ‘academic freedom’ has traditionally had two applications,” the language reads at the start, “to the freedom of the teacher and to …

Content-Based Copyright Denial, Ned Snow

Indiana Law Journal

No principle of First Amendment law is more firmly established than the principle that government may not restrict speech based on its content. It would seem to follow, then, that Congress may not withhold copyright protection for disfavored categories of content, such as violent video games or pornography. This Article argues otherwise. This Article is the first to recognize a distinction in the scope of coverage between the First Amendment and the Copyright Clause. It claims that speech protection from government censorship does not imply speech protection from private copying. Crucially, I argue that this distinction in the scope of …

The Limits Of Child Pornography, Carissa Byrne Hessick

Indiana Law Journal

Although the First Amendment ordinarily protects the creation, distribution, and possession of visual images, the Supreme Court has declared that those protections do not apply to child pornography. But the Court has failed to clearly define child pornography as a category of speech. Providing a precise definition of the child pornography exception to the First Amendment has become increasingly important because recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the penalties associated with the creation, distribution, and possession of child pornography.

This Article proposes a clear definition of the child pornography exception. It argues that an image ought to fall …

The Sins Of Hosanna-Tabor, Leslie Griffin

Indiana Law Journal

The Supreme Court has lost sight of individual religious freedom. In Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, the Court for the first time recognized the ministerial exception, a court-created doctrine that holds that the First Amendment requires the dismissal of many employment discrimination cases against religious employers. The Court ruled unanimously that Cheryl Perich, an elementary school teacher who was fired after she tried to return to school from disability leave, could not pursue an antidiscrimination lawsuit against her employer.

This Article criticizes Hosanna-Tabor as a profound misinterpretation of the First Amendment. The Court mistakenly protected religious institutions’ …

James Madison And The Burger Court: Converging Views Of Church-State Separation, Patricia E. Curry

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.