Law Commons^™

The Private Abridgment Of Free Speech, Erin L. Miller

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article challenges the orthodoxy that First Amendment speech rights can bind only the state. I argue that the primary justification for the freedom of speech is to protect fundamental interests like autonomy, democracy, and knowledge from the kind of extraordinary power over speech available to the state. If so, this justification applies with nearly equal force to any private agents with power over speech rivaling that of the state. Such a class of private agents, which I call quasi-state agents, turns out to be a live possibility once we recognize that state power is more limited than it seems …

Harmonizing Freedom Of Speech And Free Exercise Of Religion, John Fee

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

[...]The close relationship between the free exercise of religion and the freedom of speech points to the sensible assumption that they should receive similar interpretation when dealing with parallel types of problems, or at least that differences in interpretation should be carefully justified.

With this premise, this Article compares freedom of speech and free exercise jurisprudence in various parallel applications, with the suggestion of harmonizing them more closely. While other commentators have compared freedom of speech and free exercise case law with a narrower focus (most commonly, focusing on the incidental burdens issue presented in [Employment Division v. Smith] …