Law Commons^™

Shining A Light On Democracy's Dark Lagoon, Helen Norton

Publications

Written for a symposium examining the Fourth Circuit’s jurisprudential tradition, this short essay explores the Fourth Circuit’s approach to the emerging government speech doctrine, under which the government’s own speech is exempt from free speech clause scrutiny. In developing this doctrine, the Supreme Court has been too quick to defer to public entities’ assertion that contested speech is their own; indeed, it has yet to deny the government’s claim to expression in the face of a competing private claim – at significant cost to the public’s ability to hold government politically accountable for its expressive choices. The Fourth Circuit, in …

The Measure Of Government Speech: Identifying Expression's Source, Helen Norton

Publications

States and other governmental bodies increasingly invoke the government speech defense to First Amendment challenges by private parties who seek to alter or join what the government contends is its own expression. These disputes involve competing claims to the same speech: a private party maintains that a certain means of expression reflects (or should be allowed to reflect) her own views, while a public entity claims that same speech as its own, along with the ability to control its content.

In suggesting a framework for approaching these problems, this Article starts by examining the theoretical and practical justifications for insulating …