Law Commons^™

Compelled Speech And Proportionality, Alexander Tsesis

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article argues for a proportional First Amendment approach to compelled speech jurisprudence. It discusses the evolution of doctrine and how it led to recent opinions finding unconstitutional consumer protection, health disclosure, and collective bargaining statutes. In place of the currently formalistic approach, the Article argues for a transparent balancing of interests to avoid litigants’ opportunistic reliance on categorical First Amendment doctrines. Missing from the recent decisions that relied on the compelled speech doctrine is any systematic or contextual weighing of private and public concerns about disclosure regulations. The Roberts Court has been rather formalistic and categorical in its compelled …