Law Commons^™

Changing Counterspeech, G.S. Hans

Cleveland State Law Review

A cornerstone of First Amendment doctrine is that counterspeech — speech that responds to speech, including disfavored, unpopular, or offensive speech — is preferable to government censorship or speech regulation. The counterspeech doctrine is often invoked to justify overturning or limiting legislation, regulation, or other government action. Counterspeech forms part of the rationale for the "marketplace of ideas" that the First Amendment is arguably designed to promote. Yet critics assert that counterspeech is hardly an effective remedy for the harms caused by "hate speech" and other offensive words that are expressed in American society, given the realities of how speech …

Free Speech, Public Safety, & Controversial Speakers: Balancing Universities' Dual Roles After Charlottesville, Elisabeth E. Constantino

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note seeks to develop an approach to hateful and controversial speech that protects First Amendment values and students alike. Part I discusses the legal backdrop and First Amendment tradition that underlies a permissive view of hateful speech on university campuses. Part I also discusses the roots of time, place, and manner regulations and the public forum doctrine, both of which recent legislation invokes. Part II provides a timeline of events that have highlighted the tension between free speech and public safety on campuses. Part II also discusses the eruption of legislation that these events inspired. Finally, Part III …

The Government Brand, Mary-Rose Papandrea

Northwestern University Law Review

In Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court held that Texas could deny the Sons of Confederate Veterans a specialty license plate because the public found the group’s Confederate flag logo offensive. The Court did not reach this conclusion because it deemed the Confederate flag to fall within a category of unprotected speech, such as true threats, incitement, or fighting words; because it revisited its determination in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul that restrictions on hate speech are unconstitutional; because travelers who see the license plates are a “captive audience”; or because …

Dissent, Free Speech, And The Continuing Search For The "Central Meaning" Of The First Amendment, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Since the Warren Court's expansive construction of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, there has been no shortage of legal scholarship aimed at justifying the remarkably broad protections afforded the freedom of speech under landmark cases such as Brandenburg v. Ohio, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, and Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc. At the same time, in recent years, a growing chorus of free speech skeptics have made their voices heard.5 These legal scholars have questioned why a commitment to freedom of expression should displace other (constitutional) values such as equality, …

Privacy And Celebrity: An Essay On The Nationalization Of Intimacy, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment Comes Of Age: The Emergence Of Free Speech In Twentieth-Century America, G. Edward White

Michigan Law Review

As the number of issues perceived as having First Amendment implications continues to grow, and the coterie of potential beneficiaries of First Amendment protection continues to widen - including not only the traditional oppressed mavericks and despised dissenters but some rich and powerful members from the circles of political and economic orthodoxy - alarms have been sounded. Another period of stocktaking for free speech theory appears to be dawning, and some recent commentators have proposed a retrenchment from the long twentieth- century progression of increasingly speech-protective interpretations of the First Amendment. At the heart of the retrenchment literature lies the …