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First Amendment

First amendment

Boston University School of Law

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Brief Of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars In Support Of Equality In Support Of Respondents, Fulton V. City Of Philadelpha, Kyle Velte, David Cruz, Michael Higdon, Anthony Michael Kreis, Shirley Lin, Linda C. Mcclain Jan 2020

Brief Of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars In Support Of Equality In Support Of Respondents, Fulton V. City Of Philadelpha, Kyle Velte, David Cruz, Michael Higdon, Anthony Michael Kreis, Shirley Lin, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This Brief of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars in Support of Equality in Support of Respondents filed in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia addresses the propriety of an analogy to race discrimination in public accommodation cases involving sexual orientation discrimination. The race analogy in sexual orientation cases proceeds as follows: Advocates and judges widely agree that courts should, and would, reject a religious exemption claim by a public accommodation—such a foster care agency—seeking to turn away an African-American or interracial couple based on the public accommodation’s religious beliefs that Blacks are inferior to whites or that the races should not mix. …


The Upside Of Deep Fakes, Jessica Silbey, Woodrow Hartzog Jan 2019

The Upside Of Deep Fakes, Jessica Silbey, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

It’s bad. We know. The dawn of “deep fakes” — convincing videos and images of people doing things they never did or said — puts us all in jeopardy in several different ways. Professors Bobby Chesney and Danielle Citron have noted that now “false claims — even preposterous ones — can be peddled with unprecedented success today thanks to a combination of social media ubiquity and virality, cognitive biases, filter bubbles, and group polarization.” The scholars identify a host of harms from deep fakes, ranging from people being exploited, extorted, and sabotaged, to societal harms like the erosion of democratic …


Informed Consent And The First Amendment, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas Apr 2015

Informed Consent And The First Amendment, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

For more than two decades, states have been adding to the things that physicians must say and do to obtain “informed consent” — and thereby testing the constitutional limits of states' power to regulate medical practice. In 1992, the Supreme Court upheld states' authority to require physicians to provide truthful information that might encourage a woman to reconsider her decision to have an abortion, finding that such a requirement did not place an “undue burden” on the woman.


The Semiotics Of Film In Us Supreme Court Cases, Jessica Silbey, Meghan Hayes Slack Jan 2014

The Semiotics Of Film In Us Supreme Court Cases, Jessica Silbey, Meghan Hayes Slack

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter explores the treatment of film as a cultural object among varied legal subject matter in US Supreme Court jurisprudence. Film is significant as an object or industry well beyond its incarnation as popular media. Its role in law – even the highest level of US appellate law – is similarly varied and goes well beyond the subject of a copyright case (as a moving picture) or as an evidentiary proffer (as a video of a criminal confession). This chapter traces the discussion of film in US Supreme Court cases in order to map the wide-ranging and diverse ­relations …


Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert L. Tsai Jan 2008

Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

In June of 1940, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Minersville School District v. Gobitis that the First Amendment posed no barrier to the punishment of two school age Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to pay homage to the American flag. Three years later, the Justices reversed themselves in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. This sudden change has prompted a host of explanations. Some observers have stressed changes in judicial personnel in the intervening years; others have pointed to the wax and wane of general anxieties over the war; still others have emphasized the sympathy-inspiring acts of …


Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert L. Tsai Jan 2004

Fire, Metaphor, And Constitutional Myth-Making, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

From the standpoint of traditional legal thought, metaphor is at best a dash of poetry adorning lawyerly analysis, and at worst an unjustifiable distraction from what is actually at stake in a legal contest. By contrast, in the eyes of those who view law as a close relative of ordinary language, metaphor is a basic building block of human understanding. This article accepts that metaphor helps us to comprehend a court's decision. At the same time, it argues that metaphor plays a special role in the realm of constitutional discourse. Metaphor in constitutional law not only reinforces doctrinal categories, but …


Conceptualizing Constitutional Litigation As Anti-Government Expression: A Speech-Centered Theory Of Court Access, Robert L. Tsai Jan 2002

Conceptualizing Constitutional Litigation As Anti-Government Expression: A Speech-Centered Theory Of Court Access, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

This Article proposes a speech-based right of court access. First, it finds the traditional due process approach to be analytically incoherent and of limited practical value. Second, it contends that history, constitutional structure, and theory all support conceiving of the right of access as the modern analogue to the right to petition government for redress. Third, the Article explores the ways in which the civil rights plaintiff's lawsuit tracks the behavior of the traditional dissident. Fourth, by way of a case study, the essay argues that recent restrictions - notably, a congressional limitation on the amount of fees counsel for …


Classroom Lecture For Copyright Law, Wendy J. Gordon Jan 2000

Classroom Lecture For Copyright Law, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

The differences between direct, vicarious and contributory liability, Section 512 in related matters. Alright, now let's move on to the next question, which is criminal liability. You read some material on that. And the basic lessons that I want you to take from the material are the following. First, notice that federal copyright law does not impose criminal liability easily as ordinary laws of tangible property do. And I think that that's a good thing. Remember that guy in Les Miserables who's pursued for stealing a loaf of bread. Stealing in the sense of copying one song would not make …


Draft Of From Privacy To Publicity - 1991, Wendy J. Gordon Jun 1991

Draft Of From Privacy To Publicity - 1991, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

In defense of a "right 'to be let alone'", Warren and Brandeis published their landmark article, The Right to Privacy, approximately one hundred years ago. Over seventy years later, the American Law Institute endorsed a tort right in defense of privacy, and also included in its section on privacy rights a cause of action to redress "appropriation" of one's "name or likeness". Since then courts have used various bases to grant celebrities rights to protect their commercial identities from commercial exploitation by others. Although most states now recognize a right of publicity either by judicial decision or statute, the cause …


Trustees Of Self-Interest?, Pnina Lahav Oct 1981

Trustees Of Self-Interest?, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

Unconventional approaches to frequently addressed issues can be particularly illuminating, and John Lofton's discussion of the press and the first amendment takes a decidedly unconventional tack. Rather than focusing on the theme of governmental suppression of speech, Lofton attempts to highlight another angle: the reaction of the press to both political dissent and the official suppression of that dissent from the colonial period to the present day. His purpose, he notes, is "to examine how the American press has performed when confronted with the application of the amendment to practical events."