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Listener Interests In Compelled Speech Cases, Laurent Sacharoff

Laurent Sacharoff

The First Amendment prohibits the government from compelling speech. But numerous scholars have recently identified a fundamental problem with the compelled speech doctrine: it is unclear exactly why the First Amendment should protect against compelled speech at all. This article argues, first, that traditional explanations of the compelled speech doctrine fail because they focus on the speaker's "freedom of mind," even though much compelled speech neither affects what the speaker believes nor misleads listeners about that speaker's actual beliefs. Second, this article proposes a solution: that we should abandon any consideration of the speaker's freedom of mind. Instead the Court …

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Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In June of 1940, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Minersville School District v. Gobitis that the First Amendment posed no barrier to the punishment of two school age Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to pay homage to the American flag. Three years later, the Justices reversed themselves in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. This sudden change has prompted a host of explanations. Some observers have stressed changes in judicial personnel in the intervening years; others have pointed to the wax and wane of general anxieties over the war; still others have emphasized the sympathy-inspiring acts of …

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Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

In June of 1940, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Minersville School District v. Gobitis that the First Amendment posed no barrier to the punishment of two school age Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to pay homage to the American flag. Three years later, the Justices reversed themselves in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. This sudden change has prompted a host of explanations. Some observers have stressed changes in judicial personnel in the intervening years; others have pointed to the wax and wane of general anxieties over the war; still others have emphasized the sympathy-inspiring acts of …

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Listener Interests In Compelled Speech Cases, Laurent Sacharoff

Laurent Sacharoff

Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert Tsai

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship