Law Commons^™

Hate Speech And Government Speech, Charlotte H. Taylor

Charlotte H. Taylor

Hate Speech and Government Speech

After a spate of hate speech incidents involving nooses provoked outcry in 2007, the immediate response was regulation. A number of states passed laws proscribing the placing of a noose on private property with the intent to intimidate. This response reanimates the familiar debate between those who seek to ban hate speech—the “anti-subordination camp”—and those who oppose such prohibitions on speech—the “free speech camp.” At loggerheads since the movement to institute anti-hate speech laws first gathered momentum in the late 1980s, these two camps fundamentally disagree over how to reconcile the constitutional value of equality …

Identifying Government Speech, Andy G. Olree

Andy G Olree

The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the Speech Clause of the First Amendment to mean that when the government distributes money or other resources to private speakers, it generally may not discriminate among speakers based on viewpoint. The government is, however, allowed to express its own viewpoint, even if it enlists the aid of private parties to get the message out, as long as the communication does not violate some separate legal restriction, such as the Establishment Clause. Together, these understandings form the core of what has become known as the government speech doctrine. This doctrine signals that distinguishing between …

Constraining Public Employee Speech: Government's Control Of Its Workers' Speech To Protect Its Own Expression, Helen Norton

Publications

This Article identifies a key doctrinal shift in courts' treatment of public employees' First Amendment claims--a shift that imperils the public's interest in transparent government as well as the free speech rights of more than twenty million government workers. In the past, courts interpreted the First Amendment to permit governmental discipline of public employee speech on matters of public interest only when such speech undermined the government employer's interest in efficiently providing public services. In contrast, courts now increasingly focus on--and defer to--government's claim to control its workers' expression to protect its own speech.

More specifically, courts increasingly permit government …

The First Amendment Right Against Compelled Listening, Caroline Mala Corbin

Articles

This Article argues for a new First Amendment right: the right against compelled listening. Free speech jurisprudence - which already recognizes the right to speak, the right to listen, and the right against compelled speech - is incomplete without the right against compelled listening. The same values that underlie the other free speech rights also lead to this right. Furthermore, this claim holds true regardless of whether one conceives of the primary purpose of the Free Speech Clause as creating a marketplace of ideas, enhancing participatory democracy, or promoting individual autonomy. The Article starts by examining the protection afforded to …

(Mis)Attribution Symposium: Government Speech, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, I evaluate three issues of attribution and misattribution that arise in the so-called area of "government speech."' First, I explore when an individual might have a constitutional claim for misattribution by the state. Second, I discuss the citizen's interest in proper attribution by the government when it is speaking. Third, I consider the government's interest in avoiding expression being improperly attributed to it. This concern arises less often than is commonly assumed; what many scholars (and governments) claim to be a state interest in avoiding attribution or endorsement is in fact a state interest in not providing …