Law Commons^™

Roundtable Panel Ii: Digital Video, Andrew Appel, Jeffrey Cunard, Martin Garbus, Edward Hernstadt

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Speech And True Threats, Jennifer E. Rothman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article proposes a new test for determining what is a true threat - speech not protected by the First Amendment. Despite the importance of the true threats exception to the First Amendment, this is an underexplored area of constitutional law.

Even though the Supreme Court has made clear that true threats are punishable, it has not clearly defined what speech constitutes a true threat. To make this determination circuit courts have adopted inconsistent and inadequate tests including a reasonable listener test. The Supreme Court has never granted certiorari to resolve the issue.

The law surrounding threats has gained recent …

Discriminatory Housing Statements And §3604(C): A New Look At The Fair Housing Act’S Most Intriguing Provision, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Today, more than three decades after the 1968 Fair Housing Act ("FHA") banned such behavior, blatant discrimination—often accompanied by racist slurs and other explicitly discriminatory statements—continues to plague America's housing markets. The FHA not only outlawed discrimination in most housing transactions on the basis of race, color, religion, and national origin, but also contained a specific prohibition, § 3604(c), banning all discriminatory housing statements. Unlike the FHA's more traditional prohibitions against discriminatory refusals to deal and discriminatory terms and conditions, § 3604(c)'s ban on discriminatory statements has not been the subject of much litigation or debate.

Part I of the …

Religion And The First Amendment: Some Causes Of The Recent Confusion, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

The United States Supreme Court is surely guilty of making the matter of religion and the First Amendment harder than it ought to be. But it is others who have kept the debate over church/state relations either poisoned with culture-war rhetoric or so shrouded in mystery that seemingly only experts can untangle the juris-prudential snarls. By surrounding this venerable Amendment with a pseudocomplexity concerning the matter of religion these disinformation specialists create confusion, and confusion begets opportunities for further distortion and manipulation. Disagreements over the free exercise of religion and the no-establishment thereof are far simpler to resolve than these …

Licensing Speech: The Case Of Vanity Plates, Marybeth Herald

Marybeth Herald

Vanity license plates qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment, and denying plate requests because of their content contradicts traditional principles of free speech. State motor vehicle departments are almost as creative as applicants when it comes to ferreting out offensive license plate requests through the use of computer programs and linguists. Offensiveness, however, remains an elusive concept to capture and often lies in the eyes of a single viewer. When the government takes on the role of arbiter of good taste, it leads to arbitrary decision making and chaotic results.

Under traditional First Amendment doctrine, vanity license plates …

Beyond Campaign Finance: The First Amendment Implications Of Nixon V. Shrink Missouri Goverment Pac, Christina E. Wells

Missouri Law Review

Part I of this Essay discusses legal background, focusing first on the Court's decision in Buckley and then on the Shrink litigation. Part II itemizes Shrink's flaws, ultimately concludng that those flaws cannot be attributed solely to Buckley. Finally, Part III examines the Court's standards of scrutiny in First Amendment cases and argues that Shrink results at least in part from flaws found in those standards.

Introduction: The Difficult First Amendment, Christina E. Wells

Missouri Law Review

The First Amendment looks easy. After all, its proscriptions are expressed in fewer than forty-five words. It further embodies a concept elegant in its simplicity: "Everyone has the right to say what they believe and to believe what they want." Yet even a superficial glance at modern Supreme Court jurisprudence reveals that, from its inception, the First Amendment was never easy. DEspite the Amendment's express mandate that Congress "make no law," the Court has never inerpreted it as an absolute. Instead, the court has embarked upon a delicate and sometimes treacherous balancing act attemping to determine when free speech or …

Introduction: The Difficult First Amendment, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances.

Beyond Campaign Finance: The First Amendment Implications Of Nixon V. Shrink Missouri Pac, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

This essay, however, is less concerned with the campaign finance aspects of Shrink than with the decision's broader implications. In the course of its decision, the Shrink Court not only obfuscated the standard of scrutiny applicable to contribution regulations, it effectively ignored the government's lack of factual support for the law, instead accepting the state's assertions at face-value. Consequently, Shrink is far more than a simple application of Buckley. Rather, it reflects fundamental problems with the Court's standards of review in First Amendment cases generally. The more global nature of Shrink's problems suggest that, despite scholarly focus on the Buckley …

Restricting Hate Speech Against Private Figures: Lessons In Power-Based Censorship From Defamation Law, Victor C. Romero

Journal Articles

This article examines the debate between those who favor greater protection for minorities vulnerable to hate speech and First Amendment absolutists who are skeptical of any burdens on pure speech. The author also provides another perspective on the debate by highlighting the "public/private figure" distinction as an area within First Amendment law that acknowledges differences in power, a construct anti-hate speech advocates should use to further their cause. Specifically, the author places the "public/private figure" division in a theoretical and historical context and then provides empirical support for the thesis that whites enjoy a more prominent societal role and greater …

The Child Pornography Prevention Act Of 1996 And The First Amendment: Virtual Antitheses, Sarah Sternberg

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mischief Of Cohen V. Cowles Media Co., Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

For a short, sloppily reasoned 5-4 decision that textbook editors have largely consigned to note status, Cohen v. Cowles Media Co. has had a remarkably insidious influence on First Amendment law. The problem is not so much the decision’s holding. The Supreme Court’s conclusion that newspapers could be liable for breaching a promise of anonymity to a source might actually further speech interests. The problem instead is in Cohen’s reasoning. It is the way in which the Supreme Court so cavalierly dismissed the argument that the First Amendment precluded punishing media defendants for the publication of truthful information. The Court …