Law Commons^™

(E)Racing Speech In School, Francesca I. Procaccini

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Speech on race and racism in our nation’s public schools is under attack for partisan gain. The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment teaches a lot about the wisdom and legality of laws that chill such speech in the classroom. But more importantly, a First Amendment analysis of these laws reveals profound insights about the health and meaning of our free speech doctrine.

Through a First Amendment analysis of “anti-critical race theory” laws, this essay illuminates the first principles of free speech law. Specifically, it shows that the First Amendment offers little refuge to teachers or parents looking to …

High Value Lies, Ugly Truths, And The First Amendment, Alan K. Chen, Justin Marceau

Vanderbilt Law Review

Lying has a complicated relationship with the First Amendment. It is beyond question that some lies-such as perjury and fraud-are simply not covered by the Constitution's free speech clause.' But it is equally clear that some lies, even intentionally lying about military honors, are entitled to First Amendment protection. Until very recently, however, it has been taken for granted in Supreme Court doctrine and academic writing that any constitutional protection for lies is purely prophylactic-it provides protection to the truth-speaker by also incidentally protecting the liar. What remains unresolved is whether other rationales might also justify First Amendment protection for …

Qualifying Qualified Immunity, John C. Williams

Vanderbilt Law Review

I imagine Leslie Weise and Alex Young had similar feelings when, in 2005, they attended a government-funded speech by President George W. Bush in Denver. But those feelings appear to have been mixed with ones of discontent and dissent toward the President-for the pair arrived in a car with a bumper sticker reading "No More Blood for Oil," an obvious jab at Bush's Iraq War policies. On instructions from the White House Advance Office, a volunteer named Michael Casper approached Weise and Young at their seats and ejected them from the event. The Secret Service later told Weise and Young …

"The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm The Reader Became The Book", Burt Neuborne

Vanderbilt Law Review

Professor Neuborne argues that we err in reading the Bill of Rights "in splendid isolation" as a randomly ordered set of clause-bound norms. Instead, he argues that the disciplined order and placement of the thirty-three ideas in the Bill of Rights, especially the six textual ideas united in the First Amendment, reveals a deep contextual structure imposed by the Founders that sheds important light on the meaning of the constitutional text. He argues that the "vertical" order of the first ten amendments, as well as the "horizontal" order of ideas within each amendment, provides important clues to a judge seeking …

A Precarious Path: The Bill Of Rights After 200 Years, Tony A. Freyer

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Bill of Rights occupies an ambiguous place in American society. Americans favor the Bill of Rights in principle, but when asked whether they support particular rights guarantees for real-life practices such as gun ownership, capital punishment, abortion, and flag burning, Americans fervently and profoundly disagree. The essays David J. Bodenhamer and James W. Ely, Jr. have compiled in The Bill of Rights in Modern America After 200 Years, richly suggest why Americans have reconciled principle and practice with such difficulty. Written for a popular audience by specialists who possess a profound knowledge of and differing views concerning the technical …