Law Commons^™

Fcc V. Fox: Has The Supreme Court Sanctioned Political Influence In Agency Decision-Making?, Catherine E. Bell

Mercer Law Review

I. INTRODUCTION

Can agencies radically change policy simply because of a change in the White House? The United States Supreme Court's latest decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. suggests that agencies can do exactly that. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent United States agency, regulates the content of U.S. broadcasting stations. In 2002 and 2003, the FCC and Fox clashed when Fox aired two separate Billboard Music Awards (BMA) shows during which BMA guests uttered isolated expletives. Prior to these incidents, the FCC had never issued an indecency violation to a broadcaster for airing only isolated …

Souring On Lemon: The Supreme Court's Establishment Clause Doctrine In Transition, Roald Y. Mykkeltvedt

Mercer Law Review

In his opinion for the Court in the landmark case of Everson v. Board of Education, Justice Black held that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment erected a high and impregnable "wall of separation" between church and state. Relying primarily on the writings of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson to discern the intentions of the framers, Justice Black maintained that, at the very least, the establishment proscription meant that

rn]either a state nor the Federal Government .. .can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another .... No tax in any …

Democracy In The Age Of Television, Theodore Y. Blumoff

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cardozo: A Study In Reputation. By Richard A. Posner, Joseph E. Claxton

Mercer Law Review

Biography, wrote the great American historian Barbara Tuchman, is "a prism of history," useful as a genre of literature because of two factors. First, "biography attracts and holds the reader's interest in the larger subject." Second, in its best form it provides a structure within which intellectual analysis may find parameters that, far from being restrictive, actually provide a necessary channel for bringing the larger subject matter (a subject matter that transcends the life and work of one individual) into perspective. In Tuchman's words:

[Bliography is useful because it encompasses the universal in the particular. It is a focus that …

Remembering 1965: Abe Fortas And The Supreme Court, Larry M. Roth

Mercer Law Review

With 1965 an era both ended and began. That year the American consciousness over the Vietnam War was truly awakened to the sound of far off howitzers. Also that year, Abe Fortas was nominated and confirmed by the Senate for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Arthur Goldberg. The reverberations of both phenomena still exist although the former permeates our social order much more than the latter. Quite recently, however, we witnessed a positive by-product of the Fortas appointment: the appointment of John Paul Stevens to the Supreme Court. With Stevens' nomination the appointive process witnessed a selection procedure that …