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Full-Text Articles in Law
You Can’T Say That!: Public Forum Doctrine And Viewpoint Discrimination In The Social Media Era, Micah Telegen
You Can’T Say That!: Public Forum Doctrine And Viewpoint Discrimination In The Social Media Era, Micah Telegen
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The growing prevalence of privately-owned social media platforms is changing the way Americans and their governments communicate. This shift offers new opportunities, but also requires a reinterpretation of the First Amendment’s proscription of government limitations of speech. The public forum doctrine and its proscription of viewpoint discrimination seem particularly stretched by the digital revolution and the development of social media. In ongoing cases, litigants and courts have invoked the doctrine to limit the government’s ability to ‘block’ those who comment critically on government pages—much to the chagrin of those who note the private status of the companies hosting the pages …
Reforming State Laws On How Businesses Can Ban Guns: "No Guns" Signs, Property Rights, And The First Amendment, Christine M. Quinn
Reforming State Laws On How Businesses Can Ban Guns: "No Guns" Signs, Property Rights, And The First Amendment, Christine M. Quinn
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Every state has different regulations regarding how businesses can ban guns. Some states mandate that specific signs be posted in specific places while other states say nothing on the issue. This Note first establishes that even under Heller and McDonald, private business owners have a right to control their private property, which includes a right to prohibit their customers from carrying firearms into their buildings. It then introduces some states’ requirements for “No Guns” signs and examines their weaknesses, particularly from a First Amendment, compelled speech perspective. The Note concludes that some current state regulations are ineffective, unclear, and outright …
Fighting Foreign-Corporate Political Access: Applying Corporate Veil-Piercing Doctrine To Domestic-Subsidiary Contributions, Ryan Rott
Michigan Law Review
Campaign finance regulations limit speech. The laws preclude foreign nationals, including foreign corporations, from participating in U.S. politics via campaign contributions. The unusual characteristics of corporations, however, may allow foreign corporations to exploit a loophole in the regulatory regime. A foreign corporation may contribute to political campaigns by acquiring a domestic subsidiary and dominating it. This Note addresses how these unusual corporate behaviors enable foreign corporations to illegally corrupt the political process. This Note concludes that to close the loophole without violating the free speech rights of domestic subsidiaries, Congress should enact legislation which would apply corporate veil-piercing theory to …
A Disclosure-Focused Approach To Compelled Commercial Speech, Andrew C. Budzinski
A Disclosure-Focused Approach To Compelled Commercial Speech, Andrew C. Budzinski
Michigan Law Review
In 2010, the Food and Drug Administration passed a rule revising compelled disclaimers on tobacco products pursuant to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The rule required that tobacco warnings include something new: all tobacco products now had to bear one of nine graphic images to accompany the text. Tobacco companies filed suit contesting the constitutionality of the rule, arguing that the government violated their right to free commercial speech by compelling disclosure of the graphic content. Yet First Amendment jurisprudence lacks a doctrinally consistent standard for reviewing such compelled disclosures. Courts’ analyses typically depend on whether the …
Environmental Aesthetics And Free Speech: Toward A Consistent Content Neutrality Standard For Outdoor Sign Regulation , Brian J. Connolly
Environmental Aesthetics And Free Speech: Toward A Consistent Content Neutrality Standard For Outdoor Sign Regulation , Brian J. Connolly
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
First Amendment challenges by billboard companies and other sign owners to local sign regulations have become a frequent occurrence in the past thirty years. The stakes are high for both commercial sign owners and local governments. Sign control has emerged as an important front in the environmental protection movement, as it focuses on the visual or scenic quality of the environment. Courts have begun to recognize and accept local governments’ interest in controlling the proliferation of signage as part of their efforts to improve environmental quality, but courts have applied First Amendment doctrine in an inconsistent manner. The courts’ inconsistent …
The Journalism Ratings Board: An Incentive-Based Approach To Cable News Accountability, Andrew Selbst
The Journalism Ratings Board: An Incentive-Based Approach To Cable News Accountability, Andrew Selbst
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The American establishment media is in crisis. With newsmakers primarily driven by profit, sensationalism and partisanship shape news coverage at the expense of information necessary for effective self-government. Focused on cable news in particular this Note proposes a Journalism Ratings Board to periodically rate news programs based on principles of good journalism. The Board will publish periodic reports and display the news programs' ratings during the programs themselves, similar to parental guidelines for entertainment programs. In a political and legal climate hostile to command-and-control regulation, such an incentive-based approach will help cable news fulfill the democratic function of the press.
Regulating Robocalls: Are Automated Calls The Sound Of, Or A Threat To, Democracy, Jason C. Miller
Regulating Robocalls: Are Automated Calls The Sound Of, Or A Threat To, Democracy, Jason C. Miller
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
African-American voters receive a phone message implying that they are not registered to vote. Others hear "an almost threatening male voice," a "fake New York accent," factual distortions about legislation, false endorsements from controversial groups, calls promoting one candidate claiming to be from his opponent, and a constant barrage of annoying phone calls designed to make voters think a different candidate was sponsoring them. These messages were delivered through automated political telephone calls, also known as robocalls. Robocalls are cheap and efficient--one can deliver a pre-recorded message through 100,000 automated phone calls in one hour for only $2000. Consequently, robocalls …
Out Of Thin Air: Using First Amendment Public Forum Analysis To Redeem American Broadcasting Regulation, Anthony E. Varona
Out Of Thin Air: Using First Amendment Public Forum Analysis To Redeem American Broadcasting Regulation, Anthony E. Varona
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
American television and radio broadcasters are uniquely privileged among Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensees. Exalted as public trustees by the 1934 Communications Act, broadcasters pay virtually nothing for the use of their channels of public radiofrequency spectrum, unlike many other FCC licensees who have paid billions of dollars for similar digital spectrum. Congress envisioned a social contract of sorts between broadcast licensees and the communities they served. In exchange for their free licenses, broadcast stations were charged with providing a platform for a "free marketplace of ideas" that would cultivate a democratically engaged and enlightened citizenry through the broadcasting of …
Sailing Toward Safe Harbor Hours: The Constitutionality Of Regulating Television Violence, Eric C. Chaffee
Sailing Toward Safe Harbor Hours: The Constitutionality Of Regulating Television Violence, Eric C. Chaffee
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Because of the recent focus on television violence, it is more a question of "when," rather than "if," Congress will take action on this issue. "Safe harbor" regulation, or restricting violent programming to certain hours of the day, is one form of regulation that is recurrently suggested as a means for dealing with the potential ills created by television violence. The possibility of such regulation implicates numerous constitutional issues. This Article addresses whether "safe harbor" regulation of television violence is feasible without violating the First Amendment and other provisions of the Constitution.
Regulating Speech Across Borders: Technology Vs. Values, Matthew Fagin
Regulating Speech Across Borders: Technology Vs. Values, Matthew Fagin
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
The disfavored status within international law of unilateral state-based regulations that target extraterritorial actors arises from the inherent challenges such actions represent to state sovereignty. In the context of the Internet, the complexity of choice-of-law analysis is heightened: regulations imposed by one state have the potential to effectively block communications to citizens of all states and undermine the conflicting regulatory aims of neighboring states. Early legal commentators built upon this cascading chilling effect of state-based regulation to proclaim both the futility and illegitimacy of state-based action in the online environment. Subsequent scholars have demonstrated the commensurability of state-based online regulation …
Proactive Legislation And The First Amendment, Stuart Minor Benjamin
Proactive Legislation And The First Amendment, Stuart Minor Benjamin
Michigan Law Review
It is a commonplace that the world is changing rapidly, with whole sectors of the economy being transformed. New forms of communication, like the World Wide Web, e-mail, and satellite television, have risen from obscurity to ubiquity in less than a decade. The speed of these changes has led some to express concern about the ability of governments to respond. The fear is that governments cannot keep up with developments as they occur and thus get hopelessly behind. The solution, according to some, is for the government to act proactively - before a harm has arisen, so that the government …
Turner Broadcasting, The First Amendment , And The New Electronic Delivery Systems, Henry Geller
Turner Broadcasting, The First Amendment , And The New Electronic Delivery Systems, Henry Geller
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
After ducking the issue of the First Amendment status of cable television for years, the United States Supreme Court rendered its most important decision concerning the regulation of the new electronic media in Turner Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC. Turner involved the constitutionality of the "must-carry" provisions of the 1992 Cable Act (the "Act" or "Cable Act") which require cable systems to carry specified local broadcast television stations. While cable television began over four decades ago as a community antenna service, it changed drastically after the advent of satellite in the mid-1970's to also provide scores of satellite-delivered programs and to …
Michigan's Teacher Certification Requirement As Applied To Religiously Motivated Home Schools, Donald D. Dorman
Michigan's Teacher Certification Requirement As Applied To Religiously Motivated Home Schools, Donald D. Dorman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note defends the thesis that the teacher-certification requirement of Michigan's compulsory attendance statute is unconstitutional as applied to people who, for sincere religious reasons, believe they must teach their children at home. Michigan courts have incorrectly applied a rational-basis test in regulating religiously motivated home schools, rather than the strict scrutiny required by the U.S. Supreme Court for cases involving both the free exercise of religion and parents' interest in directing their children's education.
American Broadcasting And The First Amendment, René L. Todd
American Broadcasting And The First Amendment, René L. Todd
Michigan Law Review
A Review of American Broadcasting and the First Amendment by Lucas A. Powe, Jr.
The Right To Speak, The Right To Hear, And The Right Not To Hear: The Technological Resolution To The Cable/Pornography Debate, Michael I. Meyerson
The Right To Speak, The Right To Hear, And The Right Not To Hear: The Technological Resolution To The Cable/Pornography Debate, Michael I. Meyerson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article concludes that the power of government to regulate cable pornography is limited to that which is legally obscene. Part I reviews Supreme Court cases delineating the relationship between the rights of privacy in the home and of freedom of speech. Part II demonstrates that the technology of cable television provides the solution to the pornography dilemma. Cable television preserves both privacy and speech interests because individual subscribers can be given the physical means to block out programming they find personally offensive without affecting the ability of others to receive that programming. Where such accommodation of interests is permissible, …
Prurient Interest And Human Dignity: Pornography Regulation In West Germany And The United States, Mathias Reimann
Prurient Interest And Human Dignity: Pornography Regulation In West Germany And The United States, Mathias Reimann
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article examines the regulation of pornography in West Germany and compares it to regulation in the United States. Part I provides an overview of the legal framework- constitutional and statutory-of pornography regulation in West Germany. Part II then traces the evolution of the concept of human dignity as a standard for defining pornography in West Germany, and Part III illustrates the practical impact of the idea in two widely debated recent cases. Part IV argues that West Germany's human dignity approach to pornography regulation raises important questions about how to view pornography, but that cultural and constitutional differences between …
Administrative Regulation Of The High School Press, Michigan Law Review
Administrative Regulation Of The High School Press, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note examines the constitutional limits on administrative regulation of publications by and for public high school students. Part I discusses the widely divergent standards adopted by different circuits. Part II describes the hard line the Supreme Court has taken against restraints on free expression in the adult context and the different circumstances that justify limiting freedom of expression in high schools. Part III discusses the timing of administrative regulation of student speech. This Part argues that prior restraint is constitutionally acceptable and, in fact, preferable to subsequent punishment so long as its use is governed by proper criteria. Part …
Freedom Of The Press And Public Access: Toward A Theory Of Partial Regulation Of The Mass Media, Lee C. Bollinger Jr.
Freedom Of The Press And Public Access: Toward A Theory Of Partial Regulation Of The Mass Media, Lee C. Bollinger Jr.
Michigan Law Review
The purpose of this article is to examine critically these decisions and to explore whether there is any rational basis for limiting to one sector of the media the legislature's power to impose access regulation. The article takes the position that the Court has pursued the right path for the wrong reasons. There is a powerful rationality underlying the current decision to restrict regulatory authority to broadcasting, but it is not, as is commonly supposed, that broadcasting is somehow different in principle from the print media and that it therefore is not deserving of equivalent first amendment treatment. As will …
Constitutional Law-Freedom Of Speech For Labor Organizers-Registration Requirement Invalid, Francis Powers
Constitutional Law-Freedom Of Speech For Labor Organizers-Registration Requirement Invalid, Francis Powers
Michigan Law Review
Collins v. Thomas decided by the Supreme Court in January is a decision of great practical importance in that it falls at a point where three recently developed constitutional doctrines enmesh or intersect with one another. The case makes it necessary that the Court integrate these doctrines and distinguish the areas in which they are respectively applicable.