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Full-Text Articles in Law
New Problems For Subsidized Speech, Joseph Blocher
New Problems For Subsidized Speech, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
The constitutionality of conditional offers from the government is a transsubstantive issue with broad and growing practical implications, but it has always been a particular problem for free speech. Recent developments suggest at least three new approaches to the problem, but no easy solutions to it. The first approach would permit conditions that define the limits of the government spending program, while forbidding conditions that leverage funding so as to regulate speech outside the contours of the program. This is an appealing distinction, but runs into some of the same challenges as public forum analysis. The second approach would treat …
That We Are Underlings: The Real Problems In Disciplining Political Spending And The First Amendment, Jedediah Purdy
That We Are Underlings: The Real Problems In Disciplining Political Spending And The First Amendment, Jedediah Purdy
Faculty Scholarship
In the area of money in politics, change at the doctrinal level will follow only from change at the political level. The current doctrine is coherent, intelligible, and profoundly misplaced. Shifting it will take a movement.
The Uneasy And Often Unhelpful Interaction Of Tort Law And Constitutional Law In First Amendment Litigation, George C. Christie
The Uneasy And Often Unhelpful Interaction Of Tort Law And Constitutional Law In First Amendment Litigation, George C. Christie
Faculty Scholarship
There are increasing tensions between the First Amendment and the common law torts of intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, and privacy. This Article discusses the conflicting interactions among the three models that are competing for primacy as the tort law governing expressive activities evolves to accommodate the requirements of the First Amendment. At one extreme there is the model that expression containing information which has been lawfully obtained that contains neither intentional falsehoods nor incitements to immediate violence can only be sanctioned in narrowly defined exceptional circumstances, even if that expression involves matters that are universally regarded as being …
Common Sense And Key Questions, Stuart M. Benjamin
Common Sense And Key Questions, Stuart M. Benjamin
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The ‘Competition Of The Market’: “Enter The Elephant!” [A Restatement Of A Most Perplexing First Amendment Conundrum], William W. Van Alstyne
The ‘Competition Of The Market’: “Enter The Elephant!” [A Restatement Of A Most Perplexing First Amendment Conundrum], William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
This short essay revisits the enduring problem of “government propaganda” in the domestic marketplace of “competing ideas.” Drawing his argument from the suggestions and from strongly worded dicta by several famous twentieth century justices (most notably Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Louis Brandeis, Robert Jackson and Hugo Black), Van Alstyne suggests that the First Amendment invests every ordinary citizen with suitable standing (akin to that of a corporate shareholder) to call upon any judge bound by oath of office, as set forth in Article VI, and whose aid is thus appropriately invoked, to enjoin the government from acting as an ideological …
Saving The First Amendment From Itself: Relief From The Sherman Act Against The Rabbinic Cartels, Barak D. Richman
Saving The First Amendment From Itself: Relief From The Sherman Act Against The Rabbinic Cartels, Barak D. Richman
Faculty Scholarship
America’s rabbis currently structure their employment market with rules that flagrantly violate the Sherman Act. The consequences of these rules, in addition to the predictable economic outcomes of inflated wages for rabbis and restricted consumer freedoms for the congregations that employ them, meaningfully hinder Jewish communities from seeking their preferred spiritual leader. Although the First Amendment cannot combat against this privately-orchestrated (yet paradigmatic) restriction on religious expression, the Sherman Act can. Ironically, however, the rabbinic organizations implementing the restrictive policies claim that the First Amendment immunizes them from Sherman Act scrutiny, thereby claiming the First Amendment empowers them to do …
Algorithms And Speech, Stuart M. Benjamin
Algorithms And Speech, Stuart M. Benjamin
Faculty Scholarship
One of the central questions in free speech jurisprudence is what activities the First Amendment encompasses. This Article considers that question in the context of an area of increasing importance – algorithm-based decisions. I begin by looking to broadly accepted legal sources, which for the First Amendment means primarily Supreme Court jurisprudence. That jurisprudence provides for very broad First Amendment coverage, and the Court has reinforced that breadth in recent cases. Under the Court’s jurisprudence the First Amendment (and the heightened scrutiny it entails) would apply to many algorithm-based decisions, specifically those entailing substantive communications. We could of course adopt …
Nonsense And The Freedom Of Speech: What Meaning Means For The First Amendment, Joseph Blocher
Nonsense And The Freedom Of Speech: What Meaning Means For The First Amendment, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
A great deal of everyday expression is, strictly speaking, nonsense. But courts and scholars have done little to consider whether or why such meaningless speech, like nonrepresentational art, falls within “the freedom of speech.” If, as many suggest, meaning is what separates speech from sound and expression from conduct, then the constitutional case for nonsense is complicated. And because nonsense is so common, the case is also important — artists like Lewis Carroll and Jackson Pollock are not the only putative “speakers” who should be concerned about the outcome.
This Article is the first to explore thoroughly the relationship between …
Implementing First Amendment Institutionalism, Joseph Blocher
Implementing First Amendment Institutionalism, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Second Things First: What Free Speech Can And Can’T Say About Guns, Joseph Blocher
Second Things First: What Free Speech Can And Can’T Say About Guns, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
Professor Blocher responds to Gregory Magarian’s article on the implications of the First Amendment for the Second.
The Right Not To Keep Or Bear Arms, Joseph Blocher
The Right Not To Keep Or Bear Arms, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
Sometimes a constitutional right to do a particular thing is accompanied by a right not to do that thing. The First Amendment, for example, guarantees both the right to speak and the right not to speak. This Article asks whether the Second Amendment should likewise be read to encompass both the right to keep or bear arms for self-defense and the inverse right to protect oneself by avoiding them, and what practical implications, if any, the latter right would have. The Article concludes - albeit with some important qualifications - that a right not to keep or bear arms is …
Public Discourse, Expert Knowledge, And The Press, Joseph Blocher
Public Discourse, Expert Knowledge, And The Press, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
This Essay identifies and elaborates two complications raised by Robert Post’s Democracy, Expertise, and Academic Freedom, and in doing so attempts to show how Post’s theory can account for constitutional protection of the press. The first complication is a potential circularity arising from the relationships between the concepts of democratic legitimation, public discourse, and protected social practices. Democratic legitimation predicates First Amendment coverage on participation in public discourse, whose boundaries are defined as those social practices necessary for the formation of public opinion. But close examination of the relationships between these three concepts raises the question of whether public discourse …
Viewpoint Neutrality And Government Speech, Joseph Blocher
Viewpoint Neutrality And Government Speech, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
Government speech creates a paradox at the heart of the First Amendment. To satisfy traditional First Amendment tests, the government must show that it is not discriminating against a viewpoint. And yet if the government shows that it is condemning or supporting a viewpoint, it may be able to invoke the government speech defense and thereby avoid constitutional scrutiny altogether. Government speech doctrine therefore rewards what the rest of the First Amendment forbids: viewpoint discrimination against private speech. This is both a theoretical puzzle and an increasingly important practical problem. In cases like Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, the …
Golan V. Holder: Copyright In The Image Of The First Amendment, David L. Lange, Risa J. Weaver, Shiveh Roxana Reed
Golan V. Holder: Copyright In The Image Of The First Amendment, David L. Lange, Risa J. Weaver, Shiveh Roxana Reed
Faculty Scholarship
Does copyright violate the First Amendment? Professor Melville Nimmer asked this question forty years ago, and then answered it by concluding that copyright itself is affirmatively speech protective. Despite ample reason to doubt Nimmer’s response, the Supreme Court has avoided an independent, thoughtful, plenary review of the question. Copyright has come to enjoy an all-but-categorical immunity to First Amendment constraints. Now, however, the Court faces a new challenge to its back-of-the-hand treatment of this vital conflict. In Golan v. Holder the Tenth Circuit considered legislation (enacted pursuant to the Berne Convention and TRIPS) “restoring” copyright protection to millions of foreign …
Government Property And Government Speech, Joseph Blocher
Government Property And Government Speech, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
The relationship between property and speech is close but complicated. Speakers use places and things to deliver their messages, and rely on property rights both to protect expressive acts and to serve as an independent means of expression. And yet courts and scholars have struggled to make sense of the property-speech connection. Is property merely a means of expression, or can it be expressive in and of itself? And what kind of “property” do speakers need to have – physical things, bundles of rights, or something else entirely?
In the context of government property and government speech, the ill-defined relationship …
Amicus Brief Of Antitrust Professors And Scholars, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church And School V. Eeoc, Barak D. Richman, Harry First
Amicus Brief Of Antitrust Professors And Scholars, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church And School V. Eeoc, Barak D. Richman, Harry First
Faculty Scholarship
Professional associations of clergy have invoked the ministerial exception to claim immunity from the antitrust laws. In claiming immunity, these clergy feel entitled to construct cartel-like arrangements that, absent such immunity, would violate section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 (2006). The question presented in this case characterizes the ministerial exception as a bar to most “employment-related lawsuits brought against religious organizations by employees performing religious functions.” Such a characterization leaves open the possibility that “religious organizations” could include professional associations of clergy, in addition to churches, religious schools, or other employers of clergy, and “employment-related lawsuits” …
Guns, Inc.: Citizens United, Mcdonald, And The Future Of Corporate Constitutional Rights, Darrell A. H. Miller
Guns, Inc.: Citizens United, Mcdonald, And The Future Of Corporate Constitutional Rights, Darrell A. H. Miller
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court began its 2009 Term by addressing the constitutional rights of corporations. It ended the Term by addressing the incorporated rights of the Constitution. In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a five-member majority of the Court held that corporations have a First Amendment right to spend their own money on political advocacy. A corporation generally is no different than a natural person when it comes to the First Amendment - at least as it relates to political speech. In McDonald v. City of Chicago, a plurality of the Court held that the Second Amendment to the United …
Transforming Property Into Speech, Joseph Blocher
Transforming Property Into Speech, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Unsettling ‘Well-Settled’ Law Of Freedom Of Association, John D. Inazu
The Unsettling ‘Well-Settled’ Law Of Freedom Of Association, John D. Inazu
Faculty Scholarship
This article brings historical, theoretical, and doctrinal critiques to bear upon the current framework for the constitutional right of association. It argues that the Supreme Court’s categories of expressive and intimate association first announced in the 1984 decision, Roberts v. United States Jaycees, are neither well-settled nor defensible. Intimate association and expressive association are indefensible categories, but they matter deeply. They matter to the Jaycees. They matter to the Chi Iota Colony of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, a now defunct Jewish social group at the College of Staten Island that had sought to limit its membership to men. They …
The Forgotten Freedom Of Assembly, John D. Inazu
The Forgotten Freedom Of Assembly, John D. Inazu
Faculty Scholarship
The freedom of assembly has been at the heart of some of the most important social movements in American history: antebellum abolitionism, women's suffrage in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the labor movement in the Progressive Era and after the New Deal, and the civil rights movement. Claims of assembly stood against the ideological tyranny that exploded during the first Red Scare in the years surrounding the First World War and the second Red Scare of 1950s McCarthyism. Abraham Lincoln once called 'the right of the people peaceably to assemble' part of 'the Constitutional substitute for revolution'. In 1939, the …
Schrödinger’S Cross: The Quantum Mechanics Of The Establishment Clause, Joseph Blocher
Schrödinger’S Cross: The Quantum Mechanics Of The Establishment Clause, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
Perhaps the most famous character in modern physics is Schrödinger’s Cat, an unfortunate feline trapped in a box alongside a flask containing deadly poison that may or may not have been released. Thanks to the wonders of quantum mechanics, the cat is both alive and dead — “mixed or smeared out in equal parts” — until the box is opened, at which point the act of observation causes its state to collapse into either life or death.
Far away in the Mojave Desert, the “life” of a six-foot-tall cross is disputed: it is either a religious symbol or it is …
The Strange Origins Of The Constitutional Right Of Association, John D. Inazu
The Strange Origins Of The Constitutional Right Of Association, John D. Inazu
Faculty Scholarship
Although much has been written about the freedom of association and its ongoing importance to American constitutionalism, much recent scholarship mistakenly relies on a truncated history that begins with Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609 (1984), the case that divided constitutional association into intimate and expressive components. Roberts’s doctrinal framework has been rightly criticized. However, neither the right of association nor all of its doctrinal problems start there. The Supreme Court’s foray into the constitutional right of association began a generation earlier with NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449 (1958). This article offers a new …
Guns As Smut: Defending The Home-Bound Second Amendment, Darrell A. H. Miller
Guns As Smut: Defending The Home-Bound Second Amendment, Darrell A. H. Miller
Faculty Scholarship
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment guarantees a personal, individual right to keep and bear arms. But the Court left lower courts and legislatures adrift on the fundamental question of scope. While the Court stated in dicta that some regulation may survive constitutional scrutiny, it left the precise contours of the right, and even the method by which to determine those contours, for 'future evaluation."
This Article offers a provocative proposal for tackling the issue of Second Amendment scope, one tucked in many dresser drawers across the nation: Treat the Second Amendment …
Categoricalism And Balancing In First And Second Amendment Analysis, Joseph Blocher
Categoricalism And Balancing In First And Second Amendment Analysis, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
The least discussed element of District of Columbia v. Heller might ultimately be the most important: the battle between the majority and dissent over the use of categoricalism and balancing in the construction of constitutional doctrine. In Heller, Justice Scalia’s categoricalism essentially prevailed over Justice Breyer’s balancing approach. But as the opinion itself demonstrates, Second Amendment categoricalism raises extremely difficult and still-unanswered questions about how to draw and justify the lines between protected and unprotected “Arms,” people, and arms-bearing purposes. At least until balancing tests appear in Second Amendment doctrine—as they almost inevitably will—the future of the Amendment will depend …
Making Sense Of Schaumburg: Seeking Coherence In First Amendment Charitable Solicitation Law, John D. Inazu
Making Sense Of Schaumburg: Seeking Coherence In First Amendment Charitable Solicitation Law, John D. Inazu
Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court shaped its approach to charitable solicitation in a trilogy of cases in the 1980s: Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment (1980), Secretary of State of Maryland v. Joseph H. Munson Co. (1984), and Riley v. National Federation of the Blind of North Carolina (1988). Owing largely to ambiguity surrounding the concepts of content analysis, tiered scrutiny, and commercial speech emerging during that era, the Court failed to articulate a coherent framework for evaluating regulations of charitable solicitation. The result has left the Court without a clear understanding of the value of charitable solicitation. It has also …
Ten Commandments, Nine Judges, And Five Versions Of One Amendment - The First. (“Now What?”), William W. Van Alstyne
Ten Commandments, Nine Judges, And Five Versions Of One Amendment - The First. (“Now What?”), William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
This article explores the variety of opinions expressed by the Justices in the two “Ten Commandments” cases, specifically Justice O’Connor’s dissent and Justice Breyer’s concurrence in Van Orden v. Perry.
Racial Identity, Electoral Structures, And The First Amendment Right Of Association, Guy-Uriel Charles
Racial Identity, Electoral Structures, And The First Amendment Right Of Association, Guy-Uriel Charles
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Civil Rights And Civil Liberties: Whose “Rule Of Law”?, William W. Van Alstyne
Civil Rights And Civil Liberties: Whose “Rule Of Law”?, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
To What Extent Does The Power Of Government To Determine The Boundaries And Conditions Of Lawful Commerce Permit Government To Declare Who May Advertise And Who May Not?, William W. Van Alstyne
To What Extent Does The Power Of Government To Determine The Boundaries And Conditions Of Lawful Commerce Permit Government To Declare Who May Advertise And Who May Not?, William W. Van Alstyne
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Rights, Rules And The Structure Of Constitutional Adjudication: A Response To Professor Fallon, Matthew D. Adler
Rights, Rules And The Structure Of Constitutional Adjudication: A Response To Professor Fallon, Matthew D. Adler
Faculty Scholarship
Constitutional doctrine is typically rule-dependent. A viable constitutional challenge typically hinges upon the existence of a discriminatory, overbroad, improperly motivated, or otherwise invalid rule, to which the claimant has some nexus. In a prior article, Prof. Adler proposed one model of constitutional adjudication that tries to make sense of rule-dependence. He argued that reviewing courts are not vindicating the personal rights of claimants, but rather are repealing or amending invalid rules. IN a Commentary in this issue, Professor Fallon now puts forward a different model of constitutional adjudication, equally consistent with rule-dependence. Fallon proposes that a reviewing court should overturn …