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Articles 1 - 21 of 21
Full-Text Articles in Law
Long Live The Lie Bill!, Lucila I. Van Dam
Long Live The Lie Bill!, Lucila I. Van Dam
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
What successful defamation plaintiffs typically desire and doctrinally deserve is to have their reputations restored. Presently, however, a plaintiff who has established that she was defamed by the defendant is entitled only to an award of damages, which does nothing to restore reputation. This Note proposes that in addition to a damages award, courts-- if they are to take seriously their obligation to compensate the plaintiff-- should order the defendant to retract the defamatory statement. Contrary to the prevailing view, this Note argues that the proposed retraction order does not jeopardize the First Amendment guarantee of free expression.
Constitutional Secrecy: Aligning National Security Letter Nondisclosure Provisions With First Amendment Rights, Brian D. Eyink
Constitutional Secrecy: Aligning National Security Letter Nondisclosure Provisions With First Amendment Rights, Brian D. Eyink
Duke Law Journal
First created in the 1980s, national security letters and their nondisclosure provisions evaded judicial review until 2004. These secretive investigative tools allow federal agencies such as the FBI to compel disclosure of information about hundreds of thousands of people while also allowing the same agencies to unilaterally issue gag orders that can silence the people who receive these letters. This Note examines the nondisclosure provisions in the national security letter statutes. It argues that the nondisclosure provisions are unconstitutional prior restraints on speech and content-based speech restrictions. This Note then proposes a three-part solution that constitutionally balances the government's need …
The Myth And The Reality Of American Constitutional Exceptionalism, Stephen Gardbaum
The Myth And The Reality Of American Constitutional Exceptionalism, Stephen Gardbaum
Michigan Law Review
This Article critically evaluates the widely held view inside and outside the United States that American constitutional rights jurisprudence is exceptional. There are two dimensions to this perceived American exceptionalism: the content and the structure of constitutional rights. On content, the claim focuses mainly on the age, brevity, and terseness of the text and on the unusually high value attributed to free speech. On structure, the claim is primarily threefold. First, the United States has a more categorical conception of constitutional rights than other countries. Second, the United States has an exceptionally sharp public/private division in the scope of constitutional …
Confronting The Limits Of The First Amendment: A Proactive Approach For Media Defendants Facing Liability Abroad, Michelle A. Wyant
Confronting The Limits Of The First Amendment: A Proactive Approach For Media Defendants Facing Liability Abroad, Michelle A. Wyant
San Diego International Law Journal
This Article confronts the limits this issue imposes on the First Amendment in four parts. Part I described the potential for conflicting defamation laws and forum shopping to undermine the American media's speech protections in the context of the Internet and global publications and outlines the Article's overall method of analysis. Part II first orients these conflicting defamation laws with respect to their development from the common law. It then frames them in terms of the underlying structural and policy differences that have produced their substantive divergence. This frame provides the analytical perspective through which this Article examines the varying …
Free Speech And The Case For Constitutional Exceptionalism, Roger P. Alford
Free Speech And The Case For Constitutional Exceptionalism, Roger P. Alford
Michigan Law Review
Embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the evocative proposition that "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression." Beneath that abstraction there is anything but universal agreement. Modern democratic societies disagree on the text, content, theory, and practice of this liberty. They disagree on whether it is a privileged right or a subordinate value. They disagree on what constitutes speech and what speech is worthy of protection. They disagree on theoretical foundations, uncertain if the right is grounded in libertarian impulses, the promotion of a marketplace of ideas, or the advancement of participatory democracy. They …
Privacy And Funeral Protests, Christina E. Wells
Privacy And Funeral Protests, Christina E. Wells
Christina E. Wells
This article examines the free speech implications of funeral protest statutes. Enacted in response to protests by the Westboro Baptist Church, such statutes restrict a broad array of expressive activity, including peaceful protests. This article focuses on the states’ interest underlying such statutes – protecting mourners’ right to be free of unwanted intrusions while at funeral services. While few would argue against protecting funeral services from intrusive protests, these statutes go far beyond that notion. A careful examination reveals that the statutes are designed to protect mourners from offensive rather than intrusive protests. As such, they do not conceive of …
Rendering Turner Toothless: The Supreme Court’S Decision In Beard V. Banks, Jennifer N. Wimsatt
Rendering Turner Toothless: The Supreme Court’S Decision In Beard V. Banks, Jennifer N. Wimsatt
Duke Law Journal
The Supreme Court has long recognized that prisoners' constitutional rights must be balanced against the need for deference to the decisions of prison administrators when prisoners' rights are restricted incident to their incarceration. The Court, however, has never explicitly recognized a theory of proper incarceration, yet it has implicitly adopted such a theory through its decisions regarding the constitutionally permitted level of restriction on particular prisoners' rights. This Note argues that the Court's prisoners' rights jurisprudence evinces a particular definition of proper incarceration and then reads the multiple opinions in Beard v. Banks consistently with that theory.
Court-Ordered Restrictions On Trial Participant Speech, Jonathan Eric Pahl
Court-Ordered Restrictions On Trial Participant Speech, Jonathan Eric Pahl
Duke Law Journal
This Note considers court-ordered limitations on the extrajudicial speech of trial participants in high-profile cases. After providing a history of Supreme Court decisions, informative though not dispositive of the topic, it presents the divergent approaches lower courts take when faced with trial participants' extrajudicial speech. The Note highlights the extreme legal uncertainty facing trial participants who desire to speak publicly about court proceedings. Finally, it concludes that courts would better balance First Amendment and fair trial values by rejecting the reasonable likelihood of prejudice standard.
Where's The Harm?: Free Speech And The Regulation Of Lies, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky
Where's The Harm?: Free Speech And The Regulation Of Lies, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky
Washington and Lee Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Lactating Angel Or Activist? Public Breatsfeeding As Symbolic Speech, Elizabeth Hildebrand Matherne
The Lactating Angel Or Activist? Public Breatsfeeding As Symbolic Speech, Elizabeth Hildebrand Matherne
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
The only way to combat this stigma against public breastfeeding is through the act of breastfeeding in public. The author proposes that breastfeeding is a powerful act of symbolic speech vital for discarding one of the lingering shackles of women's inequality that triggers first amendment protection. Breastfeeding in public addresses this stigma by treating two ills at once: 1) greater public exposure to the practice decreases the severity of society's reactions, and 2) the less stares and confrontation that publicly nursing mothers receive, the more likely they will be to breastfeed, whenever or wherever their baby is hungry. This will …
Taking Safety Seriously: Using Liberalism To Fight Pornography, John M. Kang
Taking Safety Seriously: Using Liberalism To Fight Pornography, John M. Kang
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Liberalism, as a jurisprudential principle, need not be pornography's indifferent observer or spineless sycophant; liberalism can be used to fight pornography. In this Article, the author proposes to illuminate what appears to be the most essential aspect of liberalism in its inviolable dedication to peace and safety. By drawing upon the work of the early liberals, the author argues that liberalism's most basic ethos is conceptually incompatible with pornography, as the latter celebrates an unjustified form of violence as its own end.
Privacy And Funeral Protests, Christina E. Wells
Privacy And Funeral Protests, Christina E. Wells
Christina E. Wells
This article examines the free speech implications of funeral protest statutes. Enacted in response to protests by the Westboro Baptist Church, such statutes restrict a broad array of expressive activity, including peaceful protests. This article focuses on the states’ interest underlying such statutes – protecting mourners’ right to be free of unwanted intrusions while at funeral services. While few would argue against protecting funeral services from intrusive protests, these statutes go far beyond that notion. A careful examination reveals that the statutes are designed to protect mourners from offensive rather than intrusive protests. As such, they do not conceive of …
Corporate Political Speech And The Balance Of Powers: A New Framework For Campaign Finance Jurisprudence In Wisconsin Right To Life, Frances R. Hill
Corporate Political Speech And The Balance Of Powers: A New Framework For Campaign Finance Jurisprudence In Wisconsin Right To Life, Frances R. Hill
Articles
No abstract provided.
From T-Shirts To Teaching: May Public Schools Constitutionally Regulate Antihomosexual Speech?, Amanda L. Houle
From T-Shirts To Teaching: May Public Schools Constitutionally Regulate Antihomosexual Speech?, Amanda L. Houle
Fordham Law Review
In applying the First Amendment in the public school context, courts are faced with the challenge of balancing the constitutional rights of students against the discretion of schools to control speech and conduct on school grounds. This Note focuses on the specific issue of public schools regulating antihomosexual speech. Evaluating the First Amendment rights of students expressing antihomosexual sentiment through private and school-sponsored mediums, this Note ultimately argues for a comprehensive standard permitting schools to regulate both private and school-sponsored student speech.
The Public Policy Exception, "The Freedom Of Speech, Or Of The Press", And The Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act, Charles W. Mondora
The Public Policy Exception, "The Freedom Of Speech, Or Of The Press", And The Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act, Charles W. Mondora
Hofstra Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Four Eras Of Fcc Public Interest Regulation, Lili Levi
The Four Eras Of Fcc Public Interest Regulation, Lili Levi
Articles
No abstract provided.
Net Neutrality, Free Speech, And Democracy In The Internet Age, Dawn C. Nunziato
Net Neutrality, Free Speech, And Democracy In The Internet Age, Dawn C. Nunziato
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Professor Nunziato's book explains why the growth of the Internet as the most open forum for free expression in history is now threatened by the privatization of the Internet, the gatekeeper control over expression exercised by a handful of corporate owners, and their power to censor what we say and read online. She sets forth how we got to this place and what must be done about it to guarantee meaningful free speech rights in the Internet age.
Book Review, Jennifer L. Behrens
Do Churches Matter - Towards An Institutional Understanding Of The Religion Clauses, Richard W. Garnett
Do Churches Matter - Towards An Institutional Understanding Of The Religion Clauses, Richard W. Garnett
Villanova Law Review
No abstract provided.
On Communication, John Greenman
On Communication, John Greenman
Michigan Law Review
Everybody knows that communication is important, but nobody knows how to define it. The best scholars refer to it. Free-speech law protects it. But no one-no scholar or judge-has successfully captured it. Few have even tried. This is the first article to define communication under the law. In it, I explain why some activities-music, abstract painting, and parading-are considered communicative under the First Amendment, while others-sex, drugs, and subliminal advertising-are not. I argue that the existing theories of communication, which hold that communicative behaviors are expressive or convey ideas, fail to explain what is going on in free-speech cases. Instead, …
Limiting A Constitutional Tort Without Probably Cause: First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest After Hartman, Colin P. Watson
Limiting A Constitutional Tort Without Probably Cause: First Amendment Retaliatory Arrest After Hartman, Colin P. Watson
Michigan Law Review
Federal law provides a cause of action for individuals who are the target of adverse state action taken in retaliation for their exercise of First Amendment rights. Because these constitutional torts are "easy to allege and hard to disprove," they raise difficult questions concerning the proper balance between allowing meaningful access to the courts and protecting government agents from frivolous and vexatious litigation. In its recent decision in Hartman v. Moore, the U.S. Supreme Court tipped the scales in favor of the state in one subset of First Amendment retaliation actions by holding that plaintiffs in actions for retaliatory …