Law Commons^™

Losing Liberty: A Biblical Defense For The Freedom Of Speech On Campus, Joseph J. Martins

Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the following scenario, two student groups face a philosophical dilemma at a major state university. The Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) has invited Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to campus to lecture on the advantages of adopting socialism as America’s central financial policy. However, for the following week, Young America’s Foundation (YAF) has invited Donald Trump, Jr. to discuss how capitalism has made America a great nation. YDSA and YAF vigorously oppose the views that will be presented by the other organization’s speaker. YDSA believes that capitalism leads to gross income inequality and consolidation of power in the top 1%,2 …

The Liberty Impact Of Gender, Kingsly Alec Mcconnell

Washington Law Review

Can the federal government unilaterally change your gender? In October of 2018, the New York Times revealed that the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services was considering a new federal definition of “gender.” The policy would redefine gender as a “biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.” This policy places transsex people at a substantial risk of deprivation of property and speech rights, as gender implicates both property and expression. It also impedes the exercise of substantive due process rights and privileges and immunities. For example, inaccurate gender designations can hinder a transsex parent’s ability to raise …

Who Tells Your Story: The Legality Of And Shift In Racial Preferences Within Casting Practices, Nicole Ligon

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Rejecting Mind-Body Dualism On U.S. Law, Matthew W. Lawrence

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

While neuroscience continues to make it clearer that mental processes, effects, disorders, and states can be described through physical observation, the metaphysical notion of mind-body dualism still pervades the U.S. legal system. In this Article, I discuss many areas where mind-body dualism holds fast, and others where mind-body dualism has already been explicitly or impliedly rejected. I argue that in most areas, the dualist distinction would have little to no impact on the values the law already describes. However, I argue that rejecting dualism would have an impact on fundamental rights analyses. First Amendment free speech rights, fundamental rights, and …

Free-Speech Formalism And Social Injustice, Stephen M. Feldman

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The Roberts Court has shifted constitutional law in a formalist direction. This Essay explains the Court’s formalism and its causes and consequences in First Amendment free-expression cases. The thesis is that the current conservative justices’ reliance on formalism intertwines with their attitudes toward public and private spheres of activity. Their attitudes toward the public-private dichotomy are, in turn, shaped by their political ideologies as well as by the contemporary practices of democratic government, which have shifted significantly over American history. Formalism contains an inherent political tilt favoring those who already wield power in the private sphere. Formalism favors the wealthy …

Stripped: Speech, Sex, Race, And Secondary Effects, Lisa Crooms-Robinson

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Dania Matos

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

First Amendment Lochnerism & The Origins Of The Incorporation Doctrine, James Y. Stern

Faculty Publications

The 20th century emergence of the incorporation doctrine is regarded as a critical development in constitutional law, but while issues related to the doctrine's justification have been studied and debated for more than fifty years, the causes and mechanics of its advent have received relatively little academic attention. This Essay, part of a symposium on Judge Jeffrey Sutton's recent book about state constitutional law, examines the doctrinal origins of incorporation, in an effort to help uncover why the incorporation doctrine emerged when it did and the way it did. It concludes that, for these purposes, incorporation is best understood as …

Free Speech Idealism, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Trouble With Jaycees, Neal Devins

Neal E. Devins

No abstract provided.

When Free Speech And Free Enterprise Collide, Cathy Lewis, Timothy Zick, Joe Howell

Timothy Zick

It's been a month since comments by Chick-fil-A President and COO Dan Cathy galvanized some while incensing others, and amplified the nationwide conversation about marriage equality. Instead of revisiting the debate, HearSay host Cathy Lewis examines the complex interplay of civil and economic liberties that first fostered the controversy.

The First Amendment And The World, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment Protects Military Funeral Protests, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

Military funeral protests are offensive, but protected free speech.

The First Amendment In Trans-Border Perspective: Toward A More Cosmopolitan Orientation, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

This Article examines the First Amendment’s critical trans-border dimension—its application to speech, association, press, and religious activities that cross or occur beyond territorial borders. Judicial and scholarly analysis of this aspect of the First Amendment has been limited, at least as compared to consideration of more domestic or purely local concerns. This Article identifies two basic orientations with respect to the First Amendment—the provincial and the cosmopolitan. The provincial orientation, which is the traditional account, generally views the First Amendment rather narrowly—i.e., as a collection of local liberties or a set of limitations on domestic governance. First Amendment provincialism does …

Space, Place, And Speech: The Expressive Topography, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

No abstract provided.

Rights Dynamism, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

No abstract provided.

Professional Rights Speech, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

Some regulations of professional-client communications raise important, but sofar largely overlooked, constitutional concerns. Three recent examples of professional speech regulation-restrictions on physician inquiries regarding firearms, "reparative" therapy bans, and compelled abortion disclosures-highlight an important intersection between professional speech and constitutional rights. In each of the three examples, state regulations implicate a non-expressive constitutional right--the right to bear arms, equality, and abortion. States are actively, sometimes even aggressively, using their licensing authority to limit and structure conversations between professionals and their clients regarding constitutional rights. The author contends that government regulation of "professional rights speech" should be subjected to heightened First …

Practical Equality: Discussion With Author Robert L. Tsai, Timothy Zick, Robert L. Tsai

Timothy Zick

Professor Timothy Zick discusses a new book titled "Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation," with its author, Professor Robert L. Tsai of American University Washington College of Law. Timothy Zick is the John Marshall Professor of Government and Citizenship at William & Mary Law School. His scholarship has explored a wide variety of constitutional issues, with a special focus on the First Amendment. Robert L. Tsai is Professor of Law at American University and a prize-winning essayist in constitutional law and history. Recorded before a live audience at William & Mary Law School on March 14, 2019. The …

Objecting In The Open: Why Occupy Wall Street Chose Public Spaces, Timothy Zick

Timothy Zick

No abstract provided.

Limitations On Corporate Speech: Protection For Shareholders Or Abridgement Of Expression?, Alan J. Meese

Alan J. Meese

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Defamation In Illinois After Colson V. Steig And Chapski V. Copley Press, Inc., Linda A. Malone, Rodney A. Smolla

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

The Public's Domain In Trademark Law: A First Amendment Theory Of The Consumer, Laura A. Heymann

Laura A. Heymann

No abstract provided.

Peaches, Speech, And Clarence Thomas: Yes, California, There Is A Justice Who Understands The Ramifications Of Controlling Commercial Speech, Jennifer R. Franklin

Jennifer R. Franklin

No abstract provided.

Counterfeit Campaign Speech, Rebecca Green

Faculty Publications

We are entering an era in which computers can manufacture highly-sophisticated images, audio, and video of people doing and saying things they have, in fact, not done or said. In the context of political campaigns, the danger of “counterfeit campaign speech” is existential. Do current laws adequately regulate faked candidate speech? Can counter speech effectively neutralize it? Because it takes place in the vaulted realm of core political speech, would the First Amendment stymie any attempt to outlaw it? Many smart people who have looked at the general problem of deceit in campaigns have concluded that the state has no …

Trust And Retaliation: The First Amendment And Trump’S Taxes, Timothy Zick

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The President’S Utterly Un-American Response To Dissent, Timothy Zick

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Broken Platforms, Broken Communities? Free Speech On Campus, Stephen M. Feldman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Free speech disputes have broken out on numerous college and university campuses. In several incidents, protesters have attempted to block the presentations of well-known and controversial speakers who threaten the communal status of societal outsiders. These events have sparked not only widespread media coverage but also the publication of multiple scholarly books and articles. None of this scholarship, however, has recognized that the interrelated histories of free expression and democracy can shed considerable light on these matters. This Article takes on that challenge. Specifically, this Article explores the ramifications of the historical interrelationship between free expression and democracy for campus …

Prior Restraint In The Digital Age, Ariel L. Bendor, Michal Tamir

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In this Article we argue that the digital revolution requires a reshaping of the Doctrine of Prior Restraint, which prohibits the implementation of any regulations that prevent the publication of speech prior to its distribution. We describe the prohibition on prior restraint of speech, its rationales and its exceptions; present the characteristics of the media in the digital age; suggest that the traditional design of the Doctrine does not fit these characteristics; and describe the reshaping that we propose in order to adapt the Doctrine to the age of the Internet and social networking.

Antitrust As Speech Control, Hillary Greene, Dennis A. Yao

William & Mary Law Review

Antitrust law, at times, dictates who, when, and about what people can and cannot speak. It would seem then that the First Amendment might have something to say about those constraints. And it does, though perhaps less directly and to a lesser degree than one might expect. This Article examines the interface between those regimes while recasting antitrust thinking in terms of speech control.

Our review of the antitrust-First Amendment legal landscape focuses on the role of speech control. It reveals that while First Amendment issues are explicitly addressed relatively infrequently within antitrust decisions that is, in part, because certain …

Merging Offensive-Speech Cases With Viewpoint-Discrimination Principles: The Immediate Impact Of Matal V. Tam On Two Strands Of First Amendment Jurisprudence, Clay Calvert

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article examines flaws with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Matal v. Tam that equated giving offense with viewpoint discrimination. Already, the Court’s language in Tam that “giving offense is a viewpoint” is being cited by multiple lower courts. This Article argues, however, that giving offense is not synonymous with viewpoint discrimination. This Article contends that the Court in Tam conflated two distinct strands of First Amendment jurisprudence—namely, its offensive-speech cases with principles against viewpoint discrimination. The Article proposes two possible paths forward to help courts better clarify when a case such as Tam should be analyzed as …