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Full-Text Articles in Law
Money Talks But It Isn't Speech, Deborah Hellman
Money Talks But It Isn't Speech, Deborah Hellman
Faculty Scholarship
This Article challenges the central premise of our campaign finance law, namely that restrictions on giving and spending money constitute restrictions on speech and thus can only be justified by compelling governmental interests. This claim has become so embedded in constitutional doctrine that in the most recent Supreme Court case in this area, Citizens United v. FEC, the majority asserts it without discussion or argument. This claim is often defended on the grounds that money is important or necessary for speech. While money surely facilitates speech, money also facilitates the exercise of many other constitutional rights. By looking at these …
Crisis In The Legal Profession: Don’T Mourn, Organize!, Michael E. Tigar
Crisis In The Legal Profession: Don’T Mourn, Organize!, Michael E. Tigar
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Transforming Property Into Speech, Joseph Blocher
Transforming Property Into Speech, Joseph Blocher
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
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 …
Seana Shiffrin's Thinker-Based Freedom Of Speech: A Response, Vincent A. Blasi
Seana Shiffrin's Thinker-Based Freedom Of Speech: A Response, Vincent A. Blasi
Faculty Scholarship
As an instinctive consequentialist so far as First Amendment theory is concerned, I have to admit that I have never been so tempted by a non-consequentialist account as I am by what Professor Shiffrin has produced. My principal interest is the history of ideas regarding the freedom of speech. I have long been struck by how so many of the canonical writers on the subject have built their arguments from the starting point of the central importance of the freedom of thought. This is true of Milton and Mill in a basic, explicit, straightforward way (if Milton can ever be …
Democratic Participation And The Freedom Of Speech: A Response To Post And Weinstein Responses, Vincent A. Blasi
Democratic Participation And The Freedom Of Speech: A Response To Post And Weinstein Responses, Vincent A. Blasi
Faculty Scholarship
I think it is useful to search for a theory that has as one of its justifications its superior fit with either the case law or the fundamental commitments and shared understandings of the political community, preferably with both. So even if someone were to convince me that she has in hand a normatively superior theory of free speech, whether grounded in the commitment to democracy or otherwise, I would still be interested in what Professors Post and Weinstein are trying to do.