Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Freedom of speech

Michigan Law Review

Communications Law

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Law

Commercial Speech In Crisis: Crisis Pregnancy Center Regulations And Definitions Of Commercial Speech, Kathryn E. Gilbert Feb 2013

Commercial Speech In Crisis: Crisis Pregnancy Center Regulations And Definitions Of Commercial Speech, Kathryn E. Gilbert

Michigan Law Review

Recent attempts to regulate Crisis Pregnancy Centers, pseudoclinics that surreptitiously aim to dissuade pregnant women from choosing abortion, have confronted the thorny problem of how to define commercial speech. The Supreme Court has offered three potential answers to this definitional quandary. This Note uses the Crisis Pregnancy Center cases to demonstrate that courts should use one of these solutions, the factor-based approach of Bolger v. Youngs Drugs Products Corp., to define commercial speech in the Crisis Pregnancy Center cases and elsewhere. In principle and in application, the Bolger factor-based approach succeeds in structuring commercial speech analysis at the margins of …


On Communication, John Greenman Jan 2008

On Communication, John Greenman

Michigan Law Review

Everybody knows that communication is important, but nobody knows how to define it. The best scholars refer to it. Free-speech law protects it. But no one-no scholar or judge-has successfully captured it. Few have even tried. This is the first article to define communication under the law. In it, I explain why some activities-music, abstract painting, and parading-are considered communicative under the First Amendment, while others-sex, drugs, and subliminal advertising-are not. I argue that the existing theories of communication, which hold that communicative behaviors are expressive or convey ideas, fail to explain what is going on in free-speech cases. Instead, …


American Broadcasting And The First Amendment, René L. Todd May 1989

American Broadcasting And The First Amendment, René L. Todd

Michigan Law Review

A Review of American Broadcasting and the First Amendment by Lucas A. Powe, Jr.


Protecting The Best Men: An Interpretive History Of The Law Of Libel, Frank G. Zarb May 1987

Protecting The Best Men: An Interpretive History Of The Law Of Libel, Frank G. Zarb

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Protecting the Best Men: An Interpretive History of the Law of Libel by Norman L. Rosenberg


The Press And The Public Interest: An Essay On The Relationship Between Social Behavior And The Language Of First Amendment Theory, Lee C. Bollinger May 1984

The Press And The Public Interest: An Essay On The Relationship Between Social Behavior And The Language Of First Amendment Theory, Lee C. Bollinger

Michigan Law Review

I would like to explore in this essay one aspect of the contemporary American debate over the theory of freedom of speech and press. The subject I want to address is this: whether the principle of freedom of speech and press should be viewed as protecting some personal or individual interest in speaking and writing or whether it should be seen as fostering a collective or public interest. Sometimes this issue is stated as being whether the first amendment protects a "right to speak" or a "right to hear," though in general the problem seems to be whether we should …


The First Amendment Reconsidered: New Perspectives On The Meaning Of Freedom Of Speech And Press, Michigan Law Review Mar 1983

The First Amendment Reconsidered: New Perspectives On The Meaning Of Freedom Of Speech And Press, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The First Amendment Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Meaning of Freedom of Speech and Press edited by Bill F. Chamberlin and Charlene J. Brown


Prior Restraints On Demonstrations, Vince Blasi Aug 1970

Prior Restraints On Demonstrations, Vince Blasi

Michigan Law Review

The starting point for the analysis that follows is the belief that new constitutional doctrine--both substantive and procedural--is urgently needed. That conclusion rests on two critical assumptions--assumptions which may not be shared by others who read history differently, or who have had different personal experiences regarding prior restraints on demonstrations, or who have different behavioral impressions based on observation and conversation, or best of all, who have quantitative data on the problem.


"Uninhibited, Robust, And Wide-Open"--A Note On Free Speech And The Warren Court, Harry Kalven Jr. Dec 1968

"Uninhibited, Robust, And Wide-Open"--A Note On Free Speech And The Warren Court, Harry Kalven Jr.

Michigan Law Review

There are several ways to give at the outset, in quick summary, an over-all impression of the Warren Court in the area of the first amendment. The quotation in the title can for many reasons be taken as its trademark. The quotation comes, of course, from a statement about public debate made in the Court's preeminent decision, New York Times v. Sullivan, and it carries echoes of Alexander Meiklejohn. We have, according to Justice Brennan, "a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open .... " What catches the eye is …


The Warren Court And The Press, John P. Mackenzie Dec 1968

The Warren Court And The Press, John P. Mackenzie

Michigan Law Review

The conventional wisdom about the relationship between the ·warren Court and the news media runs something like this: With a few exceptions, the press corps is populated by persons with only a superficial understanding of the Court, its processes, and the values with which it deals. The Court has poured out pages of legal learning, but its reasoning has been largely ignored by a result-oriented news industry interested only in the superficial aspects of the Court's work. The Court can trace much of its "bad press," its "poor image," to the often sloppy and inaccurate work of news gatherers operating …


Constitutional Law - Freedom Of The Press - Restraints On Publication, Maurice S. Culp Dec 1931

Constitutional Law - Freedom Of The Press - Restraints On Publication, Maurice S. Culp

Michigan Law Review

A recent Supreme Court decision establishes a new concept of freedom of the press, and adds new meaning to the liberty safeguarded by the Fourteenth Amendment. The defendant, Near, was enjoined from publishing his newspaper because it was alleged that the paper was largely devoted to the publication of malicious, scandalous, and defamatory articles about the grand jury, public officials, and others. The injunction was granted pursuant to a statute which made the publication of a malicious, scandalous, or defamatory newspaper, magazine, or periodical a nuisance subject to abatement by injunction. The Supreme Court of the United States decided that …


Freedom Of Speech And Of The Press In War Time The Espionage Act, Thomas F. Carroll Jun 1919

Freedom Of Speech And Of The Press In War Time The Espionage Act, Thomas F. Carroll

Michigan Law Review

The Imperial German Government had never made a secret of its willingness to encourage disloyalty among the citizens and subjects of Germany's enemies. It had officially announced: "Bribery of enemies' subjects, acceptance of offers of treachery, utilization of discontented elements in the population, support of pretenders and the like are permissible; indeed, international law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the crimes of third parties."'