Law Commons^™

Defining Religion And Accommodating Religious Exercise, Justin Collings, Anna Bryner

Indiana Law Journal

It is a volatile time in the jurisprudence of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses. In recent terms, the U.S. Supreme Court has revisited many key Church-State and free exercise questions, and the Justices seem poised to revisit several more. Each of these fundamental questions presupposes an antecedent question: what, for constitutional purposes, is religion itself? The Court has never answered this question consistently or systematically. But, at least in the case of constitutionally mandated religious exemptions, a clear pattern emerges over time: the broader the Court’s definition of religion, the weaker its regime of religious exemptions. The reverse has also …

Big Data, Big Gap: Working Towards A Hipaa Framework That Covers Big Data, Ryan Mueller

Indiana Law Journal

One lasting impact of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is the privacy protections it provides for our sensitive health information. In the era of Big Data, however, much of our health information exists outside the traditional doctor-patient dynamic. From wearable technology, to mobile applications, to social media and internet browsing, Big Data organizations collect swaths of data that shed light on sensitive health information. Big Data organizations largely fall outside of HIPAA’s current framework because of the stringent requirements for when the HIPAA protections apply, namely that the data must be held by a covered entity, and …

Tort Law Implications Of Compelled Physician Speech, Nadia N. Sawicki

Indiana Law Journal

Abortion-specific informed consent laws in many states compel physicians to communicate state-mandated information that is arguably inaccurate, immaterial, and inconsistent with their professional obligations. These laws face ongoing First Amendment challenges as violations of the constitutional right against compelled speech. This Article argues that laws compelling physician speech also pose significant problems that should concern scholars of tort law.

State laws that impose tort liability on physicians who refuse to communicate a state-mandated message often do so by deviating from foundational principles of tort law. Not only do they change the substantive disclosure duties of physicians under informed consent law, …

The Pledge Of Allegiance And Compelled Speech Revisited: Requiring Parental Consent, Caroline Mala Corbin

Indiana Law Journal

Since the Supreme Court decided West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943, free speech law has been clear: public schools may not force students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Nevertheless, in two states—Texas and Florida— students may decline to participate only with parental permission. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law on the grounds that the parental requirement furthered parents’ substantive due process right to control the upbringing of their children.

The Eleventh Circuit decision is flawed both in its understanding of the First Amendment right to be free of compelled speech and the …

Nifla And The Construction Of Compelled Speech Doctrine, Robert Post

Indiana Law Journal

Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. There are good and convincing explanations for the Court’s decision in Barnette, but the Court’s recent expansion of the doctrine, culminating in National Institute of Family & Life Advocates (NIFLA) v. Becerra, holds that compelled speech is in most instances “content-based” regulation requiring heightened judicial scrutiny.

Using examples ranging from professional malpractice to compulsory tax returns, this Article argues that the doctrinal rule of NIFLA is demonstrably incorrect. It suggests that the doctrinal category of “compelled speech” may itself be confused insofar as it imagines that all legal obligations to communicate are equally …

Compelled Speech And The Regulatory State, Alan K. Chen

Indiana Law Journal

Since the Supreme Court’s 1943 decision in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, it has been axiomatic that the First Amendment prohibits the government not only from censoring speech, but also from compelling it. The central holding of Barnette itself is largely uncontroversial—it seems obvious that the First Amendment’s free speech clause means that no government may require people to espouse or reproduce an ideological statement against their will. But the Court has extended the compelled speech doctrine to stop the government from forcing people to make even truthful, factual statements. These claims have resulted in some of the …

Compelled Speech And Doctrinal Fluidity, David Han

Indiana Law Journal

Even within the messy and complicated confines of First Amendment jurisprudence, compelled speech doctrine stands out in its complexity and conceptual murkiness— a state of affairs that has only been exacerbated by the Supreme Court’s decisions in NIFLA v. Becerra and Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. This Essay observes that as the Court’s compelled speech jurisprudence has grown increasingly complex, it has also manifested a troubling degree of fluidity, where the doctrinal framework has grown so incoherent, imprecise, and unstable that it can be readily shaped by courts to plausibly justify a wide range of …

Compelled Speech And Proportionality, Alexander Tsesis

Indiana Law Journal

This Article argues for a proportional First Amendment approach to compelled speech jurisprudence. It discusses the evolution of doctrine and how it led to recent opinions finding unconstitutional consumer protection, health disclosure, and collective bargaining statutes. In place of the currently formalistic approach, the Article argues for a transparent balancing of interests to avoid litigants’ opportunistic reliance on categorical First Amendment doctrines. Missing from the recent decisions that relied on the compelled speech doctrine is any systematic or contextual weighing of private and public concerns about disclosure regulations. The Roberts Court has been rather formalistic and categorical in its compelled …

Compelled Disclosure And The Workplace Rights It Enables, Catherine Fisk

Indiana Law Journal

Worker and consumer protection laws often rely on the regulated entity to notify workers or consumers of their legal rights because it is effective and efficient to provide information at the time and place where it is most likely to be useful. Until the Supreme Court ruled in NIFLA v. Becerra in 2018 that a California law regulating crisis pregnancy centers was an unconstitutional speaker-based, contentdiscriminatory regulation of speech, mandatory disclosure laws were constitutionally uncontroversial economic regulation. Yet, the day after striking down a disclosure law in NIFLA, the Court in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 expanded the right of …

Platforms: The First Amendment Misfits, Jane R. Bambauer, James Rollins, Vincent Yesue

Indiana Law Journal

This Essay explains why previous First Amendment precedents that allowed government to require a private entity to host the speech of others have limited applicability to online platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Moreover, the backdrop of an open internet makes platforms sufficiently vulnerable to competition and responsive to “listener” preferences that the dominance of some firms like Facebook and Google is not really a chokepoint: aggressive changes to content curation will lead to user dissatisfaction and defection, whether those changes are made by the government or the companies themselves. As a result, there are no close analogies in First Amendment …

God Is My Roommate? Tax Exemptions For Parsonages Yesterday, Today, And (If Constitutional) Tomorrow, Samuel D. Brunson

Indiana Law Journal

In 2019, the Seventh Circuit decided an Establishment Clause question that had been percolating through the courts for two decades. It held that the parsonage allowance, which permits “ministers of the gospel” to receive an untaxed housing allowance, does not violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. It grounded its conclusion in part on the “historical significance” test the Supreme Court established in its Town of Greece v. Galloway decision.

In coming to that conclusion, the Seventh Circuit cited a 200-year unbroken history of property tax exemptions for religious property. According to the Seventh Circuit, that history demonstrated that both …

First Amendment Freedoms Diluted: The Impact Of Disclosure Requirements On Nonprofit Charities, Bailie Mittman

Indiana Law Journal

Since the birth of the Bill of Rights in 1791, the freedoms protected by the First Amendment have been cherished by all members of this nation. The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Over time, courts have acknowledged that the freedom to speak freely means very little if the guarantee is not protected by an additional right: the freedom to associate. Thus, the freedom of expressive association stands as an essential component of an individual’s free speech rights and state infringement on associative rights has the power of potentially …

The Fourth Amendment At Home, Thomas P. Crocker

Indiana Law Journal

A refuge, a domain of personal privacy, and the seat of familial life, the home holds a special place in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Supreme Court opinions are replete with statements affirming the special status of the home. Fourth Amendment text places special emphasis on securing protections for the home in addition to persons, papers, and effects against unwarranted government intrusion. Beyond the Fourth Amendment, the home has a unique place within constitutional structure. The home receives privacy protections in addition to sheltering other constitutional values protected by the Due Process Clause and the First Amendment. For example, under the Due …

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

Indiana Law Journal

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, …

Policing The Wombs Of The World's Women: The Mexico City Policy, Samantha Lalisan

Indiana Law Journal

This Comment argues that the Policy should be repealed because it undermines

firmly held First Amendment values and would be considered unconstitutional if

applied to domestic nongovernmental organizations (DNGOs). It proceeds in four

parts. Part I describes the inception of the Policy and contextualizes it among other

antiabortion policies that resulted as a backlash to the U.S. Supreme Court’s

landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. Part II explains the Policy’s actual effect on

FNGOs, particularly focusing on organizations based in Nepal and Peru, and argues

that the Policy undermines democratic processes abroad and fails to achieve its stated

objective: reducing …

First Amendment “Harms”, Stephanie H. Barclay

Indiana Law Journal

What role should harm to third parties play in the government’s ability to protect religious rights? The intuitively appealing “harm” principle has animated new theories advanced by scholars who argue that religious exemptions are indefensible whenever they result in cognizable harm to third parties. This third-party harm theory is gaining traction in some circles, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s pending cases in Little Sisters of the Poor and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. While focusing on harm appears at first to provide an appealing, simple, and neutral principle for avoiding other difficult moral questions, the definition of harm …

Speech Inequality After Janus V. Afscme, Charlotte Garden

Indiana Law Journal

This Article explores the growing divide between the Roberts Court’s treatment of the free speech rights of wealthy individuals and corporations in campaign finance cases as compared to its treatment of the rights of public-sector labor unions and their members. First, it highlights some internal contradictions in the Janus Court’s analysis. Then, it discusses the growing—yet mostly ignored—divergence in the Court’s treatment of corporate and labor speakers with respect to the use of market influence to achieve political influence.

The Article has two Parts. In Part I, I explain how the Court reached its decision in Janus before critiquing the …

The Post-Truth First Amendment, Sarah Haan

Indiana Law Journal

Post-truthism is widely viewed as a political problem. This Article explores posttruthism as a constitutional law problem, and argues that, because post-truthism offers a normative framework for regulating information, we should take it seriously as a basis for law.

In its exploration of the influence of post-truth ideas on law, the Article focuses on the compelled speech doctrine. When the State mandates disclosure, it pits the interests of unwilling speakers against the interests of listeners. In the twenty-first century, speakers who are targeted by mandatory disclosure laws are often organizational actors with informational advantages, such as corporations. Listeners who stand …

Influencing Juries In Litigation "Hot Spots", Megan M. La Belle

Indiana Law Journal

This Article considers how corporations are using image advertising in litigation "hot spots" as a means of influencing litigation outcomes. It describes how Samsung and other companies advertised in the Eastern District of Texas--a patent litigation "hot spot"--to curry favor with the people who live there, including by sponsoring an ice rink located directly outside the courthouse. To be sure, image advertisements are constitutionally protected speech and might even warrant the highest level of protection under the First Amendment when they are not purely commercial in nature. Still, the Article argues, courts should be able to prohibit such advertisements altogether, …

A Dangerous Concoction: Pharmaceutical Marketing, Cognitive Biases, And First Amendment Overprotection, Cynthia M. Ho

Indiana Law Journal

Is more information always better? First Amendment commercial speech jurisprudence takes this as a given. However, when information is only available from a self-interested and marketing-savvy pharmaceutical company, more information may simply lead to more misinformation. Notably, doctors are also misled. This can result in public health harms when companies are promoting unapproved uses of prescription drugs that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved for other purposes—commonly referred to as “off-label” uses. Contrary to judicial presumptions, as well as the presumptions of some doctors and scholars, doctors are not sophisticated enough to always discern what is true versus …

The Democracy Ratchet, Derek T. Muller

Indiana Law Journal

This Article proceeds in five Parts. Part I identifies recent instances in which federal courts have invoked a version of the Democracy Ratchet. It identifies the salient traits of the Democracy Ratchet in these cases. Part II describes why the Democracy Ratchet has gained attention, primarily as a tactic of litigants and as a convenient benchmark in preliminary injunction cases. Part III examines the history of the major federal causes of action concerning election administration—Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the Burdick balancing test, and the Equal Protection Clause. In each, it traces the path of the doctrine to …

Devotion ̶T̶O̶ And The Rule Of Law: Acknowledging The Role Of Religious Values In Judicial Decision-Making, Priya Purohit

Indiana Law Journal

This Comment advocates for the acknowledgment of religious values in judicial decision-making in three parts. Part I explores the role of religion in American politics, and more specifically, the role of religion in federal judicial confirmation hearings and state-level judicial elections. Membership to an institutionalized religion often performs an essential gatekeeping function when it comes to assessing the background or personal values of a candidate for political or judicial office. The initially positive role of religion in judicial selection processes suggests that the practice of refusing to acknowledge the role that religion likely already plays in judicial decision-making is wholly …

"To Hell In A Handbasket": Teachers, Free Speech, And Matters Of Public Concern In The Social Media World, Jessica O. Laurin

Indiana Law Journal

This Note argues that courts should narrow the scope of examined speech and place little weight on the amount of media attention that the speech received. Although courts sometimes reject First Amendment protection on the Pickering balancing test instead of the public concern issue, the public concern requirement is a threshold issue that plays a critical role in successful First Amendment claims. Accordingly, courts need to revisit the public concern doctrine to ensure that its analysis is sound and yields the correct outcome.

Part I provides background concerning retaliation claims, criticism of the public concern requirement, and special issues that …

Silencing Grand Jury Witnesses, R. Michael Cassidy

Indiana Law Journal

This Article addresses one crucial aspect of the ongoing debate about grand jury transparency. Assuming that well over half the states and the federal government continue to employ the grand jury to investigate felony offenses, and assuming that these proceedings continue to be shielded from public view, should witnesses themselves be allowed to discuss their testimony with the press or with each other? This larger question raises two narrow but very important subsidiary issues. First, does a prosecutor who conditions a written proffer or cooperation agreement with a grand jury witness on the witness’s promise not to inform other targets, …

The Social Value Of Academic Freedom Defended, J. Peter Byrne

Indiana Law Journal

In his recent book, Versions of Academic Freedom: From Professionalism to Revolution, Stanley Fish renewed his arguments for an “it’s just a job” account of academic freedom, begun in his 2008 book, Save the World on Your Own Time. He claims that academic freedom consists of nothing more than the conditions necessary to follow the established criteria for scholarship and teaching within each discipline. He complains chiefly against the invocation of academic freedom to protect or glorify political advocacy by academics. There is a lot in Fish’s account to admire and agree with. The appropriate sphere of academic freedom needs …

Academic Duty And Academic Freedom, Amy Gadja

Indiana Law Journal

On December 31, 1915, the newly formed American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and its Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure accepted a set of guidelines designed to shape the organization and its work to protect academics against the termination power of their employer-universities. The “General Declaration of Principles,” drafted by approximately a dozen educators who were called from universities across the country, begins with a decided focus on the rights of individuals within the academy: “The term ‘academic freedom’ has traditionally had two applications,” the language reads at the start, “to the freedom of the teacher and to …

The Regrettable Underenforcement Of Incompetence As Cause To Dismiss Tenured Faculty, David M. Rabban

Indiana Law Journal

Universities are extremely reluctant to dismiss tenured professors for incompetence. This reluctance compromises the convincing and broadly accepted justification for the protection of academic freedom through tenure set forth in the 1915 Declaration of Principles of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). After asserting that society benefits from the academic freedom of professors to express their professional views without fear of dismissal, the 1915 Declaration maintained that the grant of permanent tenure following a probationary period of employment protects academic freedom. Yet the 1915 Declaration also stressed that academic freedom does not extend to expression that fails to meet …

The Government’S Lies And The Constitution, Helen L. Norton

Indiana Law Journal

The government’s lies can be devastating. This is the case, for example, of its lies told to resist legal and political accountability for its misconduct; to inflict economic and reputational harm; or to enable the exercise of its powers to imprison, to deploy lethal force, and to commit precious national resources. On the other hand, the government’s lies can sometimes be helpful: consider lies told to thwart a military adversary or to identify wrongdoing through undercover police work. The substantial harms threatened by some government lies invite a search for ways to punish and prevent them. At the same time, …

Content-Based Copyright Denial, Ned Snow

Indiana Law Journal

No principle of First Amendment law is more firmly established than the principle that government may not restrict speech based on its content. It would seem to follow, then, that Congress may not withhold copyright protection for disfavored categories of content, such as violent video games or pornography. This Article argues otherwise. This Article is the first to recognize a distinction in the scope of coverage between the First Amendment and the Copyright Clause. It claims that speech protection from government censorship does not imply speech protection from private copying. Crucially, I argue that this distinction in the scope of …

Citizens Disunited: Mccutcheon V. Federal Election Commission, Adam Lamparello

Indiana Law Journal

The wealthy are democracy’s darlings, the middle class are its stepchildren, and the poor are its orphans. Corporate giants line the pockets of senatorial candidates—and purchase influence—while average citizens walk into a polling station and cast a largely symbolic vote. Stated simply, money creates a soft inequality by dominating the political process. Like the “soft bigotry of low expectations,”69 the soft inequality embedded in our political system has created a liberty gap between the prosperous and the poor. McCutcheon was an opportunity to bridge this gap. Instead, the Court enshrined the status quo by holding that Congress could only regulate …