Law Commons^™

Regulating Off-Campus Student Expression: Mahanoy Area School District V. B.L.: The Good News For College Student Journalists, Leslie Klein, Jonathan Peters

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This essay argues that the 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. protects off-campus college student journalism (if not published in a school-sponsored outlet) from school censorship and punishment—thanks to the majority opinion's reliance on in loco parentis principles. In short, Mahanoy made clear that K-12 students generally have diminished First Amendment rights on campus because parents have delegated to teachers and staff some of their supervisory authority. That reasoning applies with less force when students speak off campus, and it applies with no force if the speaker is a legal adult, as nearly all college …

Las Medidas De “Acomodación” De La Religión En El Derecho Estadounidense [Accommodation Of Religion In U.S. Law], Michael W. Mcconnell, Nathan Chapman

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En este trabajo se analizan las medidas de acomodación de la religión, que gozan de una gran tradición en el derecho constitucional de los Estados Unidos, así como los debates que han generado desde el punto de vista de su conformidad con las cláusulas de la Primera Enmienda de la Constitución de los Estados Unidos: la cláusula de no establecimiento de una religión oficial y la cláusula de libre ejercicio de la religión. A lo largo del trabajo se analiza la principal jurisprudencia recaída sobre las medidas de acomodación y los test que se han construido para enjuiciarlas.

[This paper …

Book Review: The Cambridge Companion To The First Amendment And Religious Liberty, Nathan Chapman

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Review of The Cambridge Companion to The First Amendment and Religious Liberty. Edited by Michael D. Breidenbach and Owen Anderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. xii + 461 pp. $39.99 paper.

The Law Of The Eruv, Michael Lewyn

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Describes case law governing municipal regulation of the eruv (an artificial enclosure designed to allow observant Jews to carry on the Jewish Sabbath). The article focuses on First Amendment case law, and concludes that a municipality may prohibit eruvin only pursuant to a regulation that is enforced against comparable secular signs.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars In Support Of Equality In Support Of Respondents, Fulton V. City Of Philadelphia, Michael J. Higdon

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No abstract provided.

Monopolizing Free Speech, Greg Day

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The First Amendment prevents the government from suppressing speech, though individuals can ban, chill, or abridge free expression without offending the Constitution. Hardly an unintended consequence, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously likened free speech to a marketplace where the responsibility of rejecting dangerous, repugnant, or worthless speech lies with the people. This is supposed to maximize social welfare since the market is believed to promote good ideas and condemn bad ones better than the state. Nevertheless, anxiety is mounting that large technology corporations exercise unreasonable power in the marketplace of ideas.

Because the ability of “big tech” to abridge speech …

'Water Is Life!' (And Speech!): Death, Dissent, And Democracy In The Borderlands, Jason A. Cade

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Decades of stringent immigration enforcement along the Southwest border have pushed migrants into perilous desert corridors. Thousands have died in border regions, out of the general public view, yet migrants continue to attempt the dangerous crossings. In response to what they see as a growing humanitarian crisis, activists from organizations such as No More Deaths seek to expand migrant access to water, to honor the human remains of those who did not survive the journey, and to influence public opinion about border enforcement policies. Government officials, however, have employed a range of tactics to repress this border-policy “dissent,” including blacklists, …

In Defense Of The American Community Survey, Michael Lewyn

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Discusses policy and constitutional arguments against the ACS, a yearly survey administered by the Census Bureau.

The Public Defender's Pin: Untangling Free Speech Regulation In The Courtroom, Michael Kagan

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Recent disputes in Ohio and Nevada about whether lawyers should be allowed to wear “Black Lives Matter” pins in open court expose a fault line in First Amendment law. Lower courts have generally been unsympathetic to lawyers who display political symbols in court. But it would go too far suggest that free speech has no relevance in courtrooms. This Essay argues for a way to strike a balance.

Employer-Mandated Vaccination Policies: Different Employers, New Vaccines, And Hidden Risks, Teri Dobbins Baxter

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Although debates about access to healthcare and healthcare financing have been in the headlines for years, attention has only sporadically been focused on new and resurgent health challenges in the form of outbreaks of contagious diseases. One obvious weapon in the fight against outbreaks is vaccination. Many vaccines have been proven safe and highly effective, but vaccine opponents have been vocal and influential, and even some who work in healthcare facilities distrust vaccines. The tension between employees who distrust vaccines and employers who want to encourage or require vaccination has led many healthcare policy and legal scholars to explore the …

Binding The Enforcers: The Administrative Law Struggle Behind Pres. Obama’S Immigration Actions, Michael Kagan

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President Obama’s ambitious use of executive discretion in immigration – especially the DACA and DAPA programs – should be understood in context of a struggle within the executive branch between the President and frontline enforcement officers in the Department of Homeland Security who have actively resisted his policy agenda. The so far successful litigation by 26 states to partially halt these programs has focused on this struggle within the executive branch, rather than on the stalemate between the President and Congress over legislative immigration reform. In preliminary rulings, the federal district court and the Court of Appeals have interpreted ambiguous …

Off-Label Drug Marketing, The First Amendment, And Federalism, David Orentlicher

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In this article, Professor Orentlicher explores free speech and federalism issues arising from FDA regulation of off-label uses and off-label marketing of drugs. In light of the FDA's desire to respect state government authority, together with other considerations discussed in this article, he argues for the rejection of the analysis of the Caronia court and to give the FDA significant leeway in its regulation of off-label marketing.

Politics At Work After Citizens United, Ruben J. Garcia

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There are seismic changes going on in the political system. The United States Supreme Court has constitutionalized the concentration of political power in the "one percent" in several recent decisions, including Citizens United v. FEC. At the same time, unions are representing a shrinking share of the workforce, and their political power is also being diminished. In order for unions to recalibrate the balance of political power at all, they must collaborate with grassroots community groups, as they have done in several recent campaigns. There are, however, various legal structures that make coordination between unions and nonunion groups difficult, …

Press Exceptionalism, Sonja R. West

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Thanks to advances in mass communication technology, it is now easier and cheaper for all of us to share information with each other. This new ability allows us to act in ways that often seem “press-like.” We might, for example, tweet a warning to our friends about a traffic jam or blog about an upcoming election. Armed with nothing more than a smart phone or a laptop, each of us can share information about matters of public interest to a potentially broad audience in a timely manner — thus engaging in the very activities that were once considered the exclusive …

Citizenship At Work: How The Supreme Court Politically Marginalized Public Employees, Ruben J. Garcia

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Collective bargaining by public sector employees has been the subject of recent heated debates in the state legislatures of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. The right of public sector employees to freedom of association, collective bargaining, and the right to participate in politics are among the “citizenship rights” of public employees. In many states, however, the citizenship rights of public employees are under threat both in state legislatures and in the courts. Paradoxically, the ability of public sector employees to change legislation has been hampered over the years by Supreme Court decisions, making it more difficult to organize politically by …

The Prudential Third Party Standing Of Family-Owned Corporations, Matthew I. Hall, Benjamin Means

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On November 26, 2013, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether for-profit corporations or their shareholders have standing to challenge federal regulations that implement the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). At issue in the two cases consolidated for appeal, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, are regulations mandating that employers with fifty or more employees offer health insurance that includes coverage for all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The plaintiffs assert that providing certain types of contraceptive care would be contrary to their religious beliefs and allege, therefore, that the mandate violates the Religious …

A Due Process Right To Record The Police, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

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There has been considerable discussion of citizens' First Amendment right to record the police. This essay, however, argues that independent of any First Amendment right, there is also a due process right to record the actions of law enforcement, and that this right applies even when the interaction takes place in private, and not in public places. This question of a due process right to record the police has not yet produced the degree of attention and litigation that public recording has, but the growth of inexpensive recording equipment and its inclusion in smart phones ensures that such attention and …

The Political Origins Of Secular Public Education: The New York School Controversy 1840-1842, Ian C. Bartrum

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As the title suggests, this article explores the historical origins of secular public education, with a particular focus on the controversy surrounding the Catholic petitions for school funding in nineteenth-century New York City. The article first examines the development of Protestant nonsectarian common schools in the northeast, then turns to the New York controversy in detail, and finally explores that controversy's legacy in state constitutions and the Supreme Court. It is particularly concerned with two ideas generated in New York: (1) Bishop John Hughes' objection to nonsectarianism as the 'sectarianism of infidelity'; and (2) New York Secretary of State John …

If The Shoe Fits: Kasky V. Nike And Whether Corporate Statements About Business Operations Should Be Deemed Commercial Speech, Jason A. Cade

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This Note argues that the Kasky court was correct to recognize that today's commercial speech encompasses communications beyond traditional advertisements about products or services. Corporations are aware that a sizeable number of consumers rely on their statements about their business operations when making investment and purchasing decisions. In order to ensure the accuracy of these statements, and thereby protect the integrity of the market, this speech is properly considered commercial speech.

When Equal Opportunity Meets Freedom Of Expression: Student-On-Student Sexual Harassment And The First Amendment In School, Kay P. Kindred

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Sexual harassment can take a variety of forms. It can be verbal, nonverbal or physical. Often it takes the form of hateful and harassing speech. In the AAUW Survey, 76% of the girls and 56 % of the boys surveyed had been the target of sexual comments, jokes, gestures or looks. Even when the harassment includes physical contact of some nature, it is typically accompanied or preceded by verbal harassment. While school officials and parents look for solutions to these problems, courts are struggling with the questions as well. In recent years, the problem of student-on-student sexual harassment has found …

Southworth V. Grebe: The Conservative Utilization Of "Negative" First Amendment Rights To Attack Diversity Of Thought At Public Universities, Meredith R. Miller

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No abstract provided.

Hate Speech On Campus And The First Amendment: Can They Be Reconciled?, Thomas A. Schweitzer

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No abstract provided.

Government–Owned Media: The Government As Speaker And Censor, Linda L. Berger

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When government operates a communications medium, it may either promote first amendment values, by ensuring a diverse marketplace of ideas, or hinder them, by censoring the information and ideas it conveys. This Note proposes a synthesis of government speech and government forum analyses which would provide first amendment limitations on government-operated media while still allowing government to exercise editorial discretion.