Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Legal History
The First Queer Right, Scott Skinner-Thompson
The First Queer Right, Scott Skinner-Thompson
Publications
Current legal disputes may lead one to believe that the greatest threat to LGBTQ rights is the First Amendment’s protections for speech, association, and religion, which are currently being mustered to challenge LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections. But underappreciated today is the role of free speech and free association in advancing the well-being of LGBTQ individuals, as explained in Professor Carlos Ball’s important new book, The First Amendment and LGBT Equality: A Contentious History. In many ways the First Amendment’s protections for free expression and association operated as what I label “the first queer right.”
Decades before the Supreme Court would …
The Government's Manufacture Of Doubt, Helen Norton
The Government's Manufacture Of Doubt, Helen Norton
Publications
“The manufacture of doubt” refers to a speaker’s strategic efforts to undermine factual assertions that threaten its self-interest. This strategy was perhaps most famously employed by the tobacco industry in its longstanding campaign to contest mounting medical evidence linking cigarettes to a wide range of health risks. At its best, the government’s speech can counter such efforts and protect the public interest, as exemplified by the Surgeon General’s groundbreaking 1964 report on the dangers of tobacco, a report that challenged the industry’s preferred narrative. But the government’s speech is not always so heroic, and governments themselves sometimes seek to manufacture …
Government Speech And The War On Terror, Helen Norton
Government Speech And The War On Terror, Helen Norton
Publications
The government is unique among speakers because of its coercive power, its substantial resources, its privileged access to national security and intelligence information, and its wide variety of expressive roles as commander-in-chief, policymaker, educator, employer, property owner, and more. Precisely because of this power, variety, and ubiquity, the government's speech can both provide great value and inflict great harm to the public. In wartime, more specifically, the government can affirmatively choose to use its voice to inform, inspire, heal, and unite -- or instead to deceive, divide, bully, and silence.
In this essay, I examine the U.S. government's role as …
Voice In Government: The People, Emily Calhoun
How Useful Is Judicial Review In Free Speech Cases?, Robert F. Nagel
How Useful Is Judicial Review In Free Speech Cases?, Robert F. Nagel
Publications
No abstract provided.