First Amendment Commons^™

Wikileaks Would Not Qualify To Claim Federal Reporter’S Privilege In Any Form, Jonathan Peters

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Article addresses whether WikiLeaks could claim a federal reporter's privilege if the U.S. government or a U.S. entity tried to compel one of the site's staff members to disclose the source(s) of any documents it has released. After exploring the origins of the First Amendment-based privilege, the Author argues that WikiLeaks would not be able to claim it. First, the website does not engage in investigative reporting. Second, it has not taken steps consistently to minimize harm. He also discusses congressional attempts to pass a federal shield law, paying special attention to H.R. 985 and S. 448, the two …

Employment Division V. Smith: "The Sky That Didn't Fall", David B. Frohnmayer

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Smith In Theory And Practice, Nelson Tebbe

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Employment Division v. Smith controversially held that general laws that were neutral toward religion would no longer be presumptively invalid, regardless of how much they incidentally burdened religious practices. That decision sparked a debate that continues today, twenty years later. This symposium Essay explores the argument that subsequent courts have in fact been less constrained by the principal rule of Smith than advocates on both sides of the controversy usually assume. Lower courts administering real world disputes often find they have all the room they need to grant relief from general laws, given exceptions written into the decision itself and …

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

Faculty Publications

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 …

The Religion Clauses As Mutually Reinforcing Mandates: Why The Arguments For Rigorously Enforcing The Free Exercise Clause And Establishment Clause Are Stronger When Both Clauses Are Taken Seriously, Alan Brownstein

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Political (And Other) Safeguards Of Religious Freedom, Richard W. Garnett

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Use Of Copyrighted Works After Smith, Rfra, And Eldred, Steven D. Jamar

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Awakening The Press Clause, Sonja R. West

Scholarly Works

The Free Press Clause enjoys less practical significance than almost any other constitutional provision. While recognizing the structural and expressive importance of a free press, the Supreme Court has never recognized explicitly any right or protection as emanating solely from the Press Clause. Recently in the Court’s Citizens United decision, Justices Stevens and Scalia reignited the 30-year-old debate over whether the Press Clause has any function separate from the Speech Clause.

The primary roadblock to recognizing independent meaning in the Press Clause is the definitional problem - who or what is the “press”? Others have attempted to define the press, …

Badmouthing Authority: Hostile Speech About School Officials And The Limits Of School Restrictions, Emily Gold Waldman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Dark Side Of The Force: The Legacy Of Justice Holmes For First Amendment Jurisprudence, Steven J. Heyman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Modern First Amendment jurisprudence is deeply paradoxical. On one hand,
freedom of speech is said to promote fundamental values such as individual selffulfillment, democratic deliberation, and the search for truth. At the same time, however, many leading decisions protect speech that appears to undermine these values by attacking the dignity and personality of others or their status as full and equal members of the community. In this Article, I explore where this Jekyll-and-Hyde quality of First Amendment jurisprudence comes from. I argue that the American free speech tradition consists of two very different strands: a liberal humanist view that emphasizes …

Is Modern Legal Liberalism Still Compatible With Free Exercise Of Religion?, Donald R. Mcconnell

Campbell Law Review

Classic liberal legal thought has clearly been shaped by the influence of Christianity. But in recent years, the movement, like ancient Gnosticism, has some Christian elements, but has become a decidedly anti-Christian force in the courts. This comparison tracks well with the analysis of other parallel modern intellectual movements by the political scientist Eric Voegelin. It is also supported by current events such as the recent Federal District Court opinion by Chief Judge Vaughn Walker in Perry v. Schwartzenegger. Liberalism has transformed from an attempt at neutrality, to an established religion that not only promotes its own perverse version of …

Were The Framers - And The Writers Who Influenced Them - Unable To Foresee The Extent Of Secularization That Could Result From The Separation Of Church And State?, Teresa M. Blake

Campbell Law Review

While the United States is filled with religious sects, denominations, worshippers, and even fanatics, the truth is that American society has become largely secular.' When analyzing society's trend toward secularization from a legal perspective, it is only natural to begin with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment 2-the clause responsible for the separation of church and state. But is today's secular society really the brainchild of the Framers of the Constitution? Or is it an unintended result that was far beyond their realm of foreseeability? This Comment addresses these questions by surveying the writings of several influential Constitutional Framers. …

Equal Access Struggle: Counter-Military Recruitment On High School Campuses, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 459 (2011), Phillip Ruben Nava

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Barnes-Wallace V. City Of San Diego: "Psychological Injury" And Its Effect On Standing, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 507 (2011), Andrew Meyer

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword: The Impact Of Citizens United, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. Xxiii (2011), Steven D. Schwinn

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Commentary: Campaign Finance In The Wake Of Citizens United, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 583 (2011), Thomas E. Mann

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Small-Donor Public Financing In The Post-Citizens United Era, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 619 (2011), Monica Youn

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Capitalist Joker: The Strange Origins, Disturbing Past, And Uncertain Future Of Corporate Personhood In American Law, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 643 (2011), David H. Gans, Douglas T. Kendall

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

So What If Corporations Aren't People?, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 701 (2011), Ilya Shapiro, Caitlyn W. Mccarthy

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Citizens United And Tiered Personhood, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 717 (2011), Atiba R. Ellis

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ending A Peculiar Evil: The Constitution, Campaign Finance Reform, And The Need For Change In Focus After Citizens United V. Fec, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 773 (2011), Carson Griffis

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Free Speech On The Battlefield: Protecting The Use Of Social Media By America's Soldiers, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1085 (2011), David Johnsen

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Regulating Morality Through The Common Law And Exclusionary Zoning, George P. Smith Ii, Gregory P. Bailey

Scholarly Articles

The extent to which a free society seeks to regulate sexual expression is problematic. What was defined as immoral or contra bonos mores in the 20th century, has become less of an issue in today’s liberal society. Freedom of sexual intimacy and expression are, to be sure, 1st Amendment and 14th Amendment rights. But, with every assertion of a fundamental right or liberty must come a concomitant understanding that there is a co-ordinate responsibility to exercise that right reasonably. Determining the reasonableness of any conduct grounded in these two amendments must be fact sensitive and guided by community standards. Broad, …

Religious Freedom, Church-State Separation, & The Ministerial Exception, Carl H. Esbeck, Thomas C. Berg, Kimberlee Wood Colby, Richard W. Garnett

Faculty Publications

The Hosanna-Tabor case concerns the separation of church and state, an arrangement that is often misunderstood but is nevertheless a critical dimension of the freedom of religion protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution. For nearly a thousand years, the tradition of Western constitutionalism - the project of protecting political freedom by marking boundaries to the power of government - has been assisted by the principled commitment to religious liberty and to church-state separation, correctly understood. A community that respects - as ours does - both the importance of, and the distinction between, the spheres of political and religious …

Between Liberalism And Theocracy, John D. Inazu

Campbell Law Review

Our symposium conveners have focused us on "the relationship between liberalism and Christianity and their influence on American constitutionalism."' My objective is to complicate the relationship and reorient the influence. The focus of my inquiry is the liberty of conscience and its implications for navigating the relationship between church and state.' By approaching these issues through the lens of political theology (as distinct from either political or constitutional theory), I hope to show that some of the most significant embodiments of conscience in the American colonies can neither be squared with an individualistic liberalism (as some on the left are …

Handcuffing The Press: First Amendment Limitations On The Reach Of Criminal Statutes As Applied To The Media, Lee Levine, Nathan E. Siegel, Jeanette Melendez Bead

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Back To The Future? The Effects Of Citizens United V. Fec In The 2010 Election, 44 J. Marshall L. Rev. 595 (2011), Peter L. Francia

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Incendiary Speech And Social Media, Lyrissa Lidsky

Faculty Publications

Incidents illustrating the incendiary capacity of social media have rekindled concerns about the "mismatch" between existing doctrinal categories and new types of dangerous speech. This Essay examines two such incidents, one in which an offensive tweet and YouTube video led a hostile audience to riot and murder, and the other in which a blogger urged his nameless, faceless audience to murder federal judges. One incident resulted in liability for the speaker even though no violence occurred; the other did not lead to liability for the speaker even though at least thirty people died as a result of his words. An …

The Cross National Memorial: At The Intersection Of Speech And Religion, 61 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 1171 (2011), Mary Jean Dolan

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Snyder V. Phelps: A Hard Case That Did Not Make Bad Law, Paul E. Salamanca

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In Snyder v. Phelps, the Court stood by the First Amendment in hard times. A religious group conducted a protest some 1,000 feet from a fallen marine's funeral, holding such pickets as “God Hates the USA,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and “You're Going to Hell.” Despite the empathy that virtually anyone would feel for the marine's grieving father, the Court held by a vote of eight to one that his action for intentional infliction of emotional distress and intrusion upon seclusion could not survive, owing largely to the public nature of the issues the protesters had raised. “Hard …