First Amendment Commons^™

Beyond Citizens United: Democratizing The Economy In The Wake Of The Small-Dollar Revolution, Jay Hedges

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Citizens United increases the power of corporations over our political process. Under current corporate governance laws, permission for corporations to behave as political actors ignores the consent of a particularly important constituency of these business entities—labor. This neglect of workers reveals three democratic crises resulting from the corporate structure in the United States, which have only intensified following Citizens United. First, while the political speaking-power of corporations has been substantially increased, these entities lack legitimacy to speak on behalf of their labor constituency. Second, the use of corporate profits, generated by the corporation’s labor force, as the means …

A Democratic View Of Public Employee Speech Rights, R. George Wright

Catholic University Law Review

The question of the scope of public employee free speech rights is of obvious importance. Such cases are frequently litigated. The speaker's continuing employment is commonly at stake. The appropriate functioning of the government agency may be at issue as well. But government agencies are intended to operate not only with internal efficiency but with proper accountability to the public. And such accountability requires an appropriate degree of agency openness, transparency, and meaningful disclosure on publicly significant matters. Adequately assuring the democratic accountability of government agencies, it turns out, requires greater protection of public employee speech than is currently available.

The Audacity Of Protecting Racist Speech Under The National Labor Relations Act, Michael Z. Green

Michael Z. Green

This Article, written for a symposium hosted by the University of Chicago Legal Forum on the Disruptive Workplace, analyzes the most recent failures of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to determine a thoughtful and balanced approach in addressing racist speech. Imagine two employees in the private sector workplace are discussing the possibility of selecting a union to represent their interests regarding wages and working conditions. During this conversation, a black employee notes the importance of using their collective voices to improve working conditions and compares the activity of selecting a union with the Black Lives Matter protests aimed at …

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Michael J. Yelnosky's Blog: Janus V. Afscme And "Weaponizing The First Amendment 06-30-2018, Michael J. Yelnosky

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Audacity Of Protecting Racist Speech Under The National Labor Relations Act, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

This Article, written for a symposium hosted by the University of Chicago Legal Forum on the Disruptive Workplace, analyzes the most recent failures of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to determine a thoughtful and balanced approach in addressing racist speech. Imagine two employees in the private sector workplace are discussing the possibility of selecting a union to represent their interests regarding wages and working conditions. During this conversation, a black employee notes the importance of using their collective voices to improve working conditions and compares the activity of selecting a union with the Black Lives Matter protests aimed at …

Politics At Work After Citizens United, Ruben J. Garcia

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

There are seismic changes going on in the political system. The United States Supreme Court has constitutionalized the concentration of political power in the “one percent” in several recent decisions, including Citizens United v. FEC. At the same time, unions are representing a shrinking share of the workforce, and their political power is also being diminished. In order for unions to recalibrate the balance of political power at all, they must collaborate with grassroots community groups, as they have done in several recent campaigns. There are, however, various legal structures that make coordination between unions and nonunion groups difficult, …

Unions, Corporations, And The First Amendment: A Response To Professors Fisk And Chemerinsky, Todd E. Pettys

Todd E. Pettys

In this response to Professor Fisk and Chemerinsky’s critique of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Knox v. SEIU Local 1000, I make two arguments. First, I challenge the premise of shareholder-employee equivalency that undergirds key portions of Fisk and Chemerinsky’s analysis. Second, I contest the claim that Knox contributes to incoherence in the Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence. Specifically, I challenge Fisk and Chemerinsky’s argument that Knox is difficult to reconcile with the Court’s leading precedents on the speech rights of government employees, and I raise doubts about their reading of the Court’s compelled-speech cases involving complaints that one’s resources are …

N.L.R.B. Campaign Propaganda: A Call For Congressional Reform, Susan Gardner

Pepperdine Law Review

With its decision in Midland National Life Insurance Company, the National Labor Relations Board no longer probes into the truth or falsity of statements made during he course of preelection campaigns. The decision marks the third policy reversal in regulating campaign propaganda during the last five years. Of concern to employers and unions is the uncertainty of Board resolutions in this area, particularly when each policy reversal was preceded immediately by Presidential appointments to the Board. This article traces the shifting Board policy of regulating campaign misrepresentations and calls for Congressional intervention to stabilize the preelection process.

Beyond The Water Cooler: Speech And The Workplace In An Era Of Social Media, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Verbal Sexual Harassment As Equality-Depriving Conduct, Keith R. Fentonmiller

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I of this Note argues that commentators like Browne and some courts have mischaracterized the harm of verbal sexual harassment as mere "offense." Rather, the true harm of a sexually hostile environment created by words and expressive conduct extends beyond offense, emotional distress, and economic displacement; at bottom, the harm is equality-deprivation.

Part II explains how a sexually hostile environment is equality-depriving by arguing that words which create a sexually hostile environment must be understood in historical and social context. Words can be used not only to communicate ideas but also to perform acts of coercion and sexual abuse. …