First Amendment Commons^™

Regulating Off-Campus Student Expression: Mahanoy Area School District V. B.L.: The Good News For College Student Journalists, Leslie Klein, Jonathan Peters

Scholarly Works

This essay argues that the 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. protects off-campus college student journalism (if not published in a school-sponsored outlet) from school censorship and punishment—thanks to the majority opinion's reliance on in loco parentis principles. In short, Mahanoy made clear that K-12 students generally have diminished First Amendment rights on campus because parents have delegated to teachers and staff some of their supervisory authority. That reasoning applies with less force when students speak off campus, and it applies with no force if the speaker is a legal adult, as nearly all college …

Las Medidas De “Acomodación” De La Religión En El Derecho Estadounidense [Accommodation Of Religion In U.S. Law], Michael W. Mcconnell, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

En este trabajo se analizan las medidas de acomodación de la religión, que gozan de una gran tradición en el derecho constitucional de los Estados Unidos, así como los debates que han generado desde el punto de vista de su conformidad con las cláusulas de la Primera Enmienda de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos: la cláusula de no establecimiento de una religión oficial y la cláusula de libre ejercicio de la religión. A lo largo del trabajo se analiza la principal jurisprudencia recaída sobre las medidas de acomodación y los test que se han construido para enjuiciarlas.

[This paper …

A First Amendment Law For Migrant Emancipation, Daniel Morales

Georgia Law Review

The First Amendment promises to change our world, but like any legal doctrine, its radical potential is stymied by the status quo bias of the legal system that administers it. For migrants, I urge here, this guarantor of free speech and expression does even less than it does for other subordinated groups. The formal and informal disabilities that migrants face in the public square—like the omnipresent threat of deportation—make existing First Amendment doctrine a weak and unreliable ally in the fight for migrants’ rights. It is possible to imagine another, emancipatory First Amendment law that might better facilitate the alteration …

Book Review: The Cambridge Companion To The First Amendment And Religious Liberty, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

Review of The Cambridge Companion to The First Amendment and Religious Liberty. Edited by Michael D. Breidenbach and Owen Anderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. xii + 461 pp. $39.99 paper.

Monopolizing Free Speech, Greg Day

Scholarly Works

The First Amendment prevents the government from suppressing speech, though individuals can ban, chill, or abridge free expression without offending the Constitution. Hardly an unintended consequence, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously likened free speech to a marketplace where the responsibility of rejecting dangerous, repugnant, or worthless speech lies with the people. This is supposed to maximize social welfare since the market is believed to promote good ideas and condemn bad ones better than the state. Nevertheless, anxiety is mounting that large technology corporations exercise unreasonable power in the marketplace of ideas.

Because the ability of “big tech” to abridge speech …

'Water Is Life!' (And Speech!): Death, Dissent, And Democracy In The Borderlands, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

Decades of stringent immigration enforcement along the Southwest border have pushed migrants into perilous desert corridors. Thousands have died in border regions, out of the general public view, yet migrants continue to attempt the dangerous crossings. In response to what they see as a growing humanitarian crisis, activists from organizations such as No More Deaths seek to expand migrant access to water, to honor the human remains of those who did not survive the journey, and to influence public opinion about border enforcement policies. Government officials, however, have employed a range of tactics to repress this border-policy “dissent,” including blacklists, …

Press Exceptionalism, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

Thanks to advances in mass communication technology, it is now easier and cheaper for all of us to share information with each other. This new ability allows us to act in ways that often seem “press-like.” We might, for example, tweet a warning to our friends about a traffic jam or blog about an upcoming election. Armed with nothing more than a smart phone or a laptop, each of us can share information about matters of public interest to a potentially broad audience in a timely manner — thus engaging in the very activities that were once considered the exclusive …

If The Shoe Fits: Kasky V. Nike And Whether Corporate Statements About Business Operations Should Be Deemed Commercial Speech, Jason A. Cade

Scholarly Works

This Note argues that the Kasky court was correct to recognize that today's commercial speech encompasses communications beyond traditional advertisements about products or services. Corporations are aware that a sizeable number of consumers rely on their statements about their business operations when making investment and purchasing decisions. In order to ensure the accuracy of these statements, and thereby protect the integrity of the market, this speech is properly considered commercial speech.

Cable Traffic And The First Amendment Must-Carry Under A Diversity Approach And Antitrust As Possible Alternative, Bruno Vandermeulen

LLM Theses and Essays

Recent technological progress in the field of telecommunications has greatly changed the competitive structure between broadcasters, cable operators, and telephone companies. The legal and economic environment for these media participants has shifted, and new problems have arisen. One major problem is the enhanced threat of concentration of media corporations, as corporate bigness becomes desirable and the number of diversified owners of media outlets continues to decrease. This paper analyzes broadcasting regulations and subsequent case law to show the concern by the legislature and regulatory agencies to preserve diversity in opinion and media-ownership through emphasis on “localism” and a “marketplace of …