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Justice Scalia's Truthiness And The Virtues Of Judicial Candor, Allen K. Rostron
Justice Scalia's Truthiness And The Virtues Of Judicial Candor, Allen K. Rostron
Faculty Works
Antonin Scalia is by far the Supreme Court’s greatest wit and most colorful personality. His judicial opinions are also remarkably passionate and frank. He has received intense criticism for supposedly being “too political” in some of his opinions, such as his scorching dissent in last year’s case about Arizona laws aimed at illegal immigrants or his bitter denunciation of the Court’s last major ruling on the detention of suspected terrorists. But what purpose is really served by judges hiding their motivations behind a false veneer of detachment and stilted formalism? Scalia can be so refreshingly candid in his judicial work …
Pragmatism, Paternalism, And The Constitutional Protection Of Commercial Speech, Allen K. Rostron
Pragmatism, Paternalism, And The Constitutional Protection Of Commercial Speech, Allen K. Rostron
Faculty Works
Two key perspectives have emerged in the Supreme Court’s decisions about First Amendment protection of commercial speech. The anti-paternalism view, originally embraced by the Court’s most liberal members but now advanced by Clarence Thomas, holds that the government has only a narrow interest in preventing false advertising. To the extent that commercial speech is not fraudulent or misleading, the government must simply let people hear it and decide for themselves whether they find it persuasive. Other judges argue that courts need to be more pragmatic about the effects of advertising and more deferential to government attempts to promote public health …
Affirmative Action, Justice Kennedy, And The Virtues Of The Middle Ground, Allen K. Rostron
Affirmative Action, Justice Kennedy, And The Virtues Of The Middle Ground, Allen K. Rostron
Faculty Works
When the Supreme Court hears arguments this fall about the constitutionality of affirmative action policies at the University of Texas, attention will be focused once again on Justice Anthony Kennedy. With the rest of the Court split between a bloc of four reliably liberal jurists and an equally solid cadre of four conservatives, the spotlight regularly falls on Kennedy, the swing voter that each side in every closely divided and ideologically charged case desperately hopes to attract. Critics condemn Kennedy for having an unprincipled, capricious, and self-aggrandizing style of decision-making. Though he is often decisive in the sense of casting …