Constitutional Law Commons^™

Can Commercial Corporations Engage In Non-Commercial Speech?, Tom Bennigson

ExpressO

I argue that all speech by commercial corporations, regardless of content, should be classified as “commercial speech,” a category not protected as fully as speech closer to the core of First Amendment concerns. Although this position is not currently accepted, surprisingly, it is supported by various aspects of accepted legal doctrine.

After a short critical introduction to commercial speech doctrine, I argue briefly that the legal requirement that all corporate activity be directed toward profit entails that all authorized corporate speech must be commercial in a significant sense. The principal part of the paper then surveys the First Amendment interests …

"You Can't Wear That To Vote": The Constitutionality Of State Laws Prohibiting The Wearing Of Political Message Buttons, Kimberly J. Tucker

ExpressO

My research for this article began on Election Day 2004 when I was told that I could not wear a campaign button into the polling room while voting in Virginia. The article outlines the laws of all 50 states that restrict a voter’s right to speak in and around polling places. It focuses on the 10 states that explicitly prohibit a voter from wearing “buttons” to the polls.

Equal Protection In The World Of Art And Obscenity: The Art Photographer's Latent Struggle With Obscenity Standards In Contemporary America, Elaine P. Wang

ExpressO

In the realm of obscenity law in the United States, photography as an art form is not on equal footing with more traditional art forms such as painting, drawing, and sculpture. This is a latent dilemma for artistic photographers because the law itself – in the form of state obscenity laws and the Supreme Court’s three-pronged test in Miller v. California – does not explicitly set forth varied standards of obscenity based on artistic medium. However, given the marginalization of photography in art history, there exists a bias against photography as “serious art.” Furthermore, evidence of the differential treatment of …

Circular 230 Opinion Standards, Legal Ethics And First Amendment Limitations On The Regulation Of Professional Speech By Lawyers, David T. Moldenhauer

ExpressO

This article addresses the legal ethics and First Amendment implications of recent Treasury Department regulations governing legal opinions on tax-motivated transactions. As discussed in the article, the regulations are intended to address the significant policy and budgetary issue of practitioners’ involvement in the development, marketing and encouragement of abusive tax shelters. However, the article concludes that the regulations are in many respects an inappropriate response to these problems because their prohibitions prevent a lawyer from giving taxpayers a complete, informed assessment of their rights. As such, they create significant ethical conflicts and deny the public legal advice. More generally, they …

The Suffocation Of Free Speech Under The Gravity Of Danger Of Terrorism, Tim Davis

ExpressO

On July 14, 2005, Ali al-Timimi was sentenced to life in prison plus 70 years for acts of pure speech. The United States government contended that Timimi, through his lectures and direct personal appeals, induced and/or aided and abetted local Muslim men to leave the country and pursue jihad training with the intent to defend the Taliban against all potential enemies, including the United States. Buried in nearly 200 pages of jury instructions was a single paragraph that unceremoniously described the law of protected speech under Brandenburg v. Ohio. At first blush, Brandenburg seemed to unequivocally lay down the rule …

Fair Use And The First Amendment: Corporate Control Of Copyright Is Stifling Documentary Making And Thwarting The Aims Of The First Amendment, Paige Gold

ExpressO

Documentary motion pictures constitute a crucial part of contemporary public debate, because in today’s highly consolidated mass media environment, documentaries offer the kinds of independent voices that the First Amendment was designed to protect. However, current intellectual property practices are chilling speech by forcing documentary filmmakers to tailor their films to accommodate new, strict licensing practices. When filmmakers are compelled to edit their work to meet insurance requirements, it harms the interests of not just the filmmaker, but also the public. Thus, the “clearance culture,” in which anything and everything that could possibly lead to a lawsuit must be cleared, …

Between A Man And His God: Violating The First Amendment Through Compelled Behavior Modification, Charles Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Part II of this Note discusses the facts leading up to Boone v. State and the First Amendment arguments raised by Boone. Part III offers a brief historical perspective on religion in the American legal system, emphasizing specific developments relevant to Boone's case. Part IV analyzes the court's fatally flawed analysis, and Part V addresses the ramifications of the holding and offers some suggestions.

Compassion Inaction: Why President Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives Violate The Establishment Clause, Martha A. Boden

Seattle University Law Review

The Administration's Faith-Based Initiatives would fail a constitutional challenge under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Applying the three-pronged test developed in Lemon v. Kurtzman and Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, this Comment concludes that the Initiatives, (1) though purportedly secular, have been enacted for a sectarian purpose and are not neutral toward religion; (2) are coercive and fail to fulfill the condition of private choice because the rural poor, such as those in Franklin County, Washington, whom the Initiatives target, realistically cannot choose between non-religious and sectarian service providers; and (3) to the extent that Initiative funded programs can …

Leave Those Kids Alone: Why The First Amendment Does Not Protect The Boy Scouts Of America In Its Discrimination Against Gay Youth Members, Sean Griffith

The Modern American

No abstract provided.

Playing Games With The First Amendment: Are Video Games Speech And May Minors' Access To Graphically Violent Video Games Be Restricted?, Gregory K. Laughlin

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review. The Supreme Court And Religion In American Life, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Out Of Thin Air: Using First Amendment Public Forum Analysis To Redeem American Broadcasting Regulation, Anthony E. Varona

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

American television and radio broadcasters are uniquely privileged among Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensees. Exalted as public trustees by the 1934 Communications Act, broadcasters pay virtually nothing for the use of their channels of public radiofrequency spectrum, unlike many other FCC licensees who have paid billions of dollars for similar digital spectrum. Congress envisioned a social contract of sorts between broadcast licensees and the communities they served. In exchange for their free licenses, broadcast stations were charged with providing a platform for a free marketplace of ideas that would cultivate a democratically engaged and enlightened citizenry through the broadcasting of …

Religion, Division, And The First Amendment, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

Nearly thirty-five years ago, in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Chief Justice Warren Burger declared that state programs or policies could excessive(ly) - and, therefore, unconstitutionally - entangle government and religion, not only by requiring or allowing intrusive public monitoring of religious institutions and activities, but also through what he called their divisive political potential. Chief Justice Burger asserted also, and more fundamentally, that political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect. And from this Hobbesian premise about the inten(t) animating the First Amendment, he proceeded on the assumption that …

Exploring The Myths About The Ninth Circuit, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Academic Freedom: Disciplinary Lessons From Hogwarts, Emily M. Calhoun

Publications

No abstract provided.

Market Triumphalism, Electoral Pathologies, And The Abiding Wisdom Of First Amendment Access Rights, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

Forty years ago, Professor Jerome Barron made the classic case that the First Amendment requires not merely protection of speech against government interference but provision of access to the means of mass communication. The Supreme Court in the ensuing decades has largely rejected Barron's approach. In this article, Professor Magarian defends Barron's case for access rights against the two theoretical critiques that have underwritten its doctrinal rejection. The libertarian critique attacks the normative underpinnings of access rights, maintaining that the First Amendment insulates market-driven distributions of expressive opportunities. Professor Magarian demonstrates that politically progressive and conservative libertarian critics of access …

Introduction: Religion, Division, And The Constitution, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

Thirty-five years ago, in his landmark Lemon v. Kurtzman opinion, Chief Justice Warren Burger declared that state actions could "excessive[ly]"—and, therefore, unconstitutionally—"entangle" government and religion, not only by requiring or allowing intrusive monitoring by officials of religious institutions and activities, but also through their "divisive political potential." He worried that government actions burdened with this "potential" pose a "threat to the normal political process and "divert attention from the myriad issues and problems that confront every level of government." And, he insisted that "political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was …

The Law Of Yards, James C. Smith

Scholarly Works

Property law regimes have a significant impact on the ability of individuals to engage in freedom of expression. Some property rules advance freedom of expression, and other rules retard freedom of expression. This Article examines the inhibiting effects on expression of public land use regulations. The focus is on two types of aesthetic regulations: (1) landscape regulations, including weed ordinances, that regulate yards; and (2) architectural regulations that regulate the exterior appearance of houses. Such regulations sometimes go too far in curtailing a homeowner's freedom of expression. Property owners' expressive conduct should be recognized as “symbolic speech” under the First …

Beyond Lawrence: Metaprivacy And Punishment, Jamal Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Lawrence v. Texas remains, after three years of precedential life, an opinion in search of a principle. It is both libertarian – Randy Barnett has called it the constitutionalization of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty – and communitarian – William Eskridge has described it as the gay rights movement's Brown v. Board of Education. It is simultaneously broad, in its evocation of our deepest spiritual commitments, and narrow, in its self-conscious attempts to avoid condemning laws against same-sex marriage, prostitution, and bestiality. This Article reconciles these competing claims on Lawrence's jurisprudential legacy. In Part I, it defends the …

Circular 230 Opinion Standards, Legal Ethics And First Amendment Limitations On The Regulation Of Professional Speech By Lawyers, David T. Moldenhauer

Seattle University Law Review

Part II of this Article discusses the background, scope, and requirements of the Circular 230 rules. Part III discusses the ethical rules applicable to tax opinions, compares these rules to the Circular 230 opinion standards, and concludes that the Circular 230 standards impose substantially greater requirements on practitioners than, and in certain respects conflict with, the ethical rules. Part IV discusses First Amendment case law and commentary regarding professional speech, and proposes that professional speech regulations be analyzed by a model that defines permissible regulation of professional speech by reference to the role of the profession in society and accepted …

Intelligent Design And The First Amendment: A Response, Jay D. Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

In September 2005, a federal district judge in Pennsylvania began presiding over the nation's first trial regarding the constitutionality of introducing the concept of "intelligent design" (ID), a purportedly scientific alternative to the theory of evolution, into the public schools. My previous work has argued that teaching ID in the public schools would raise serious constitutional problems. In a series of writings, including a full length book and several articles, Baylor University professor Francis Beckwith has argued that public schools may constitutionally teach ID. In doing so, Beckwith has critiqued a number of arguments I have previously advanced in my …

Winning Wirzburger And Defeating The Blaine Amendments: Arguing Present Efficacy Instead Of Past Intent, Brendan Michael Groves

ExpressO

The case of Wirzburger v. Galvin, currently on a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court, may set the tone for all religious discrimination cases in the future. Massachusetts’ constitutional amendments that proscribe any citizen initiatives from either dealing with religion in general or attempting to repeal the states Blaine Amendment are at issue in the case. Petitioner’s counsel, the Becket Fund, rightly views this case as paramount in the long-march to victory over the anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments still codified in 37 state constitutions. However, they have lost almost every stage of the case.

This article argues that Wirzburger and …

Constitutional Law—First Amendment And Freedom Of Thought—Banishing Sex Offenders: Seventh Circuit Upholds Sex Offender's Ban From Public Parks After Thinking Obscene Thoughts About Children. Doe V. City Of Lafayette, 377 F.3d 757 (7th Cir. 2004)., Elizabeth Cloud

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

How It Works: Sobriety Sentencing, The Constitution And Alcoholics Anonymous. A Perspective From Aa's Founding Community, Max E. Dehn

ExpressO

This paper analyzes the public health as well as constitutional issues that arise when persons are required by courts to participate in 12-step recovery programs.

U.S. Supreme Court Tort Reform: Limiting State Power To Articulate And Develop Its Own Tort Law–Defamation, Preemption, And Punitive Damages, Thomas C. Galligan

ExpressO

U.S. Supreme Court Tort Reform: Limiting State Power to Articulate and Develop Its Own Tort Law–Defamation, Preemption, and Punitive Damages analyzes and critiques the three primary areas in which the U.S. Supreme Court has found federal constitutional limits on a state’s power to articulate, develop, and apply its common law of torts. It is the first piece to consider all three areas together as an emerging body of jurisprudence which Professor Galligan calls U.S. Supreme Court tort reform. After setting forth a modest model of adjudication, the article applies that model to each of the three areas: defamation and related …

Counter-Majoritarian Power And Judges' Political Speech, Michael R. Dimino

ExpressO

Canons of ethics restrict judicial campaigning and prohibit sitting judges from engaging in political activity. Only recently, in Republican Party v. White, 536 U.S. 765 (2002), has the Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of these restrictions, concluding that judicial candidates must be allowed some opportunity to discuss legal and political issues in their campaigns. But White left many questions unanswered about the permissible scope of restrictions on judges’ political activity.

This Article suggests that those questions will be answered not by applying principles of free speech, but by analyzing the opportunities the restrictions provide for independent judicial policy-making. Restrictions on …

Roger Williams On Liberty Of Conscience, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Richard Sheppard Arnold: A Distinguished Jurist, A Loyal Colleague And A Good Friend, Gerald W. Heaney

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substantive Due Process As A Source Of Constitutional Protection For Nonpolitical Speech, Gregory P. Magarian

ExpressO

Present First Amendment doctrine presumptively protects anything within the descriptive category “expression” from government regulation, subject to balancing against countervailing government interests. As government actions during the present war on terrorism have made all too clear, that doctrine allows intolerable suppression of political debate and dissent – the expressive activity most integral to our constitutional design. At the same time, present doctrine fails to give a clear account of why the Constitution protects expressive autonomy and when that protection properly should yield to government interests, leading to an inconsistent and unsatisfying free speech regime. In this article, Professor Magarian advocates …

Reclaiming The Public Forum: Courts Must Stand Firm Against Governmental Efforts To Displace Dissidence, Christopher B. Ford

ExpressO

Recognizing that the right to free speech for dissidents is increasingly at risk in the United States, this submission catalogs manifold methods the government has employed to constrain free speech and urges that courts not only serve as a bulwark against further erosion of public expression of dissent but endeavor to restore access to the public forum that recently has been lost. The submission surveys the background of the right to free expression and provides details and examples of the government’s increasing tendency to suppress dissident speech by deploying heavily armed police in demonstrations, committing violent acts against peaceful protesters, …