First Amendment Commons^™

Free Speech And Public Order Exceptions: A Case For The U.S. Standard, Asma T. Uddin

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Commandments, Crosses, & Prayers: The Roberts Court’S Approach To Public Religion, Zachary D. Smith

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Clark Memorandum: Spring 2015, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• Watchmen on the Tower (Elder D. Todd Christofferson)
• Studying Law in the Light (Brett G. Scharffs)
• On Becoming a Spiritual Athlete (Steve Young)
• The Copyright Predicament (Clark D. Asay)
• The Case Against the Supreme Court (Erwin Chemerinsky)

The Very Old New Separationism, Alan M. Hurst

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Think Of The Children: How The Role Of Students In The Classroom Informs Future Applications Of Garcetti V. Ceballos In Academic Contexts, Aaron Worthen

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Press Definition And The Religion Analogy, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Faculty Scholarship

n a Harvard Law Review Forum response to Professor Sonja West's symposium article, "Press Exceptionalism," Professor RonNell Andersen Jones critiques Professor West's effort to define "the press" for purposes of Press Clause exceptions and addresses the weaknesses of Professor West's analogy to Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC in drawing these definitional lines. The response highlights distinctions between Press Clause and Religion Clause jurisprudence and urges a more functional approach to press definition.

In The Weeds With Thomas: Morse, In Loco Parentis, Corporal Punishment, And The Narrowest View Of Student Speech Rights, William C. Nevin

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Dangers Of Press Clause Dicta, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Faculty Scholarship

The United States Supreme Court has engaged in an unusual pattern of excessive dicta in cases involving the press. Indeed, a close examination of such cases reveals that it is one of the most consistent, defining characteristics of the U.S. Supreme Court’s media law jurisprudence in the last half century. The Court’s opinions in cases involving the media, while almost uniformly reaching conclusions based on other grounds, regularly include language about the constitutional or democratic character, duty, value, or role of the press — language that could be, but ultimately is not, significant to the constitutional conclusion reached. Although scholars …

Reversing The Tide: Restoring First Amendment Ideals In America's Schools Through Legislative Protections For Journalism Students And Advisors, Christine Snyder

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Off-Campus Cyberbullying: First Amendment Problems, Parameters, And Proposal, David R. Hostetler

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

What The Supreme Court Thinks Of The Press And Why It Matters, Ronnell Andersen Jones

Faculty Scholarship

Over the last fifty years, in cases involving the institutional press, the United States Supreme Court has offered characterizations of the purpose, duty, role, and value of the press in a democracy. An examination of the tone and quality of these characterizations over time suggests a downward trend, with largely favorable and praising characterizations of the press devolving into characterizations that are more distrusting and disparaging.

This Essay explores this trend, setting forth evidence of the Court’s changing view of the media—from the effusively complimentary depictions of the media during the Glory Days of the 1960s and 1970s to the …

Cross, Crucifix, Culture: An Approach To The Constitutional Meaning Of Confessional Symbols, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Pasquale Annicchino

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States and Europe the constitutionality of government displays of confessional symbols depends on whether the symbols also have nonconfessional secular meaning (in the U.S.) or whether the confessional meaning is at least absent (in Europe). Yet both the United States Supreme Court (USSCt) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) lack a workable approach to determining whether secular meaning is present or confessional meaning absent.

The problem is that the government can nearly always articulate a possible secular meaning for the confessional symbols that it uses, or argue that the confessional meaning is passive and ineffective. …

Invisible Women: Why An Exemption For Hobby Lobby Would Violate The Establishment Clause, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Andrew Koppelman

Faculty Scholarship

Can an employer make his employees foot the bill for his religious beliefs? Merely to ask this question is to answer it. “Religious liberty” does not and cannot include the right to impose the costs of observing one's religion on someone else. Indeed, the Supreme Court has consistently interpreted the Free Exercise Clause, the Establishment Clause, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to forbid permissive accommodations of religion in the for-profit workplace when they impose significant burdens on identifiable and discrete third parties.

In Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., however, an employer is claiming that …

Rfra Exemptions From The Contraception Mandate: An Unconstitutional Accommodation Of Religion, Frederick Mark Gedicks, Rebecca G. Van Tassell

Faculty Scholarship

Litigation surrounding use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to exempt employers from the Affordable Care Act’s “contraception mandate” is moving steadily towards resolution in the U.S. Supreme Court. Both opponents and supporters of the mandate, however, have overlooked the Establishment Clause limits on such exemptions.

The heated religious-liberty rhetoric aimed at the mandate has obscured that RFRA is a “permissive” rather than “mandatory” accommodation of religion — a government concession to religious belief and practice that is not required by the Free Exercise Clause. Permissive accommodations must satisfy Establishment Clause constraints, notably the requirement that the accommodation not impose …

Neutrality Fatality As Between Government Speech And Religion And Nonreligion: How The Government Speech Doctrine Provides A Solution, Haley Jankowski

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Defamation Is More Than Just A Tort: A New Constitutional Standard For Internet Student Speech, Reesa Miles

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Not Lol: Legal Issues Encountered During One High School's Response To Sexting, R. Stewart Mayers Ph.D., Mike F. Desiderio Ph.D.

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Religions As Sovereigns: Why Religion Is "Special", Elizabeth Clark

Faculty Scholarship

Commentators increasingly challenge religion’s privileged legal status, arguing that it is not “special” or distinct from other associations or philosophical or conscientious claims. I propose that religion is “special” because it functions metaphorically as a legal sovereign, asserting supreme authority over a realm of human life. Under a religion-as-sovereign theory, religious freedom can be understood as at least partial deference to a religious sovereign in a system of shared or overlapping sovereignty. This Article suggests that federalism, which also involves shared sovereignty, can provide a useful heuristic device for examining religious freedom. Specifically, the Article examines a range of federalism …

Narrative Pluralism And The Doctrine Incoherence In Hosanna-Tabor, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

In Hosanna-Tabor Church and School v. EEOC, the Supreme Court recognized for the first time that the Religion Clauses require a “ministerial exception” to federal antidiscrimination laws, holding that religious congregations have a broad and categorical immunity against government interference in ministerial employment decisions.

Hosanna-Tabor is filled with ironies. The case is as much about unjustified discrimination and administrative inconsistency as religious liberty. The Court’s endorsement of the exception as a feature of church autonomy overlooks that churches subvert autonomy as often as they protect it. The exception described by the Court is so broad, absolute, and inflexible that it …

The Justices And News Judgment: The Supreme Court As News Editor, Amy Gajda

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Not A Free Press Court?, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Morse V. Frederick: Tinkering With School Speech: Can Five Years Of Inconsistent Interpretation Yield A Hybrid Content—Effects-Based Approach To School Speech As A Tool For The Prevention Of School Violence?, Ronald C. Schoedel Iii

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

With Religious Liberty For All: A Defense Of The Affordable Care Act's Contraception Coverage Mandate, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

The “contraception mandate” of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 poses a straightforward question for religious liberty jurisprudence: Must government excuse a believer from complying with a religiously burdensome law, when doing so would violate the liberty of others by imposing on them the costs and consequences of religious beliefs that they do not share? To ask this question is to answer it: One's religious liberty does not include the right to interfere with the liberty of others, and thus religious liberty may not be used by a religious employer to force employees to pay the costs …

New Jersey's Anti-Bullying Fix: A Solution Or The Creation Of An Even Greater First Amendment Problem?, Lindsay Nash

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tatooist V. Tattoo: Separating The Service From The Constitutionally Protected Message\, Hannah H. Porter

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

American Atheists, Inc. V. Davenport: Endorsing A Presumption Of Unconstitutionality Against Potentially Religious Symbols, Eric B. Ashcrof

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Digitally Unknown: Why The Ninth Circuit Should Wish To Remain Anonymous In In Re Anonymous Online Speakers, Brandon T. Crowther

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Eliminating The Subjective Intent Requirement For True Threats In United States V. Bagdasarian, Jake Romney

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Defining Fraud As An Unprotected Category Of Speech: Why The Ninth Circuit Should Have Upheld The Stolen Valor Act In United States V. Alvarez, Natali Wyson

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can Students Be Disciplined For Off-Campus Cyberspeech?: The Reach Of The First Amendment In The Age Of Technology, Allan G. Osborne Jr., Charles J. Russo

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.