First Amendment Commons^™

The Constitutional Status Of Speech About Oneself, R. George Wright

Cleveland State Law Review

We have accepted above the well-established idea that speech about oneself that is also intended to convey some sort of political idea or to address some matter of public concern can typically be distinguished from speech about oneself with no such further intent. On this basis, we have argued, contrary to recent contentions, that the latter sort of speech-speech that is "merely" about the self, or about one's merely personal or private concerns-should not generally qualify for any sort of elevated free speech protection. Fundamentally, this is because such speech does not systematically promote any of the consensually recognized and …

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

Journal Articles

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 …

A New Approach To Nineteenth-Century Religious Exemption Cases, Jud Campbell

Law Faculty Publications

Scholars frequently cite early nineteenth-century cases to ascertain the original meaning of the Free Exercise Clause. Previous studies, however, have ignored crucial trends in those decisions, thus leading to mistaken emphasis on the denial of religious accommodation claims. This Note argues that prevailing theological views, skepticism of courtroom declarations of religious belief, and contemporary notions of judicial deference better explain nineteenth-century cases than does a wholesale rejection of judicially enforceable religious exemptions. This novel approach clarifies previously unexplained tensions in early free exercise opinions. It also suggests that the Supreme Court’s holding in Employment Division v. Smith is inconsistent with …

Imaginary Threats To Government's Expressive Interests, Helen Norton

Publications

The Supreme Court’s emerging government speech doctrine permits the government to refuse to allow other parties to join, and thus change or distort, its own message. In this way, the government speech doctrine appropriately protects government’s legitimate – and valuable – expressive interests by providing a defense to free speech clause claims by private speakers who seek to compel the government to deliver their own views. Too often, however, governmental bodies are asserting their own expressive interests to claim – and some courts are permitting them to exercise – the power to punish private parties’ speech that does not threaten …

Teaching Values, Teaching Stereotypes: Sex Education And Indoctrination In Public Schools, Jennifer S. Hendricks, Dawn Marie Howerton

Publications

Many sex education curricula currently used in public schools indoctrinate students in gender stereotypes. As expressed in the title of one article: "If You Don't Aim to Please, Don't Dress to Tease," and Other Public School Sex Education Lessons Subsidized by You, the Federal Taxpayer, Jennifer L. Greenblatt, 14 Tex.J. on CL. & CR. 1 (2008). Other lessons pertain not only to responsibility for sexual activity but to lifelong approaches to family life and individual achievement. One lesson, for example, instructs students that, in marriage, men need sex from their wives and women need financial support from their husbands. …

Campaign Speech Law With A Twist: When The Government Is The Speaker, Not The Regulator, Helen Norton

Publications

Although government entities frequently engage in issue-related campaign speech on a variety of contested ballot and legislative measures, this fact has been entirely overlooked in contemporary First Amendment debates over campaign speech law specifically and government speech more generally. The Supreme Court's "campaign speech" and "government speech" dockets have focused to date on claims by private parties that the government has restricted or silenced their speech in violation of the First Amendment. In contrast, disputes over what this Article calls "governmental campaign speech" involve Free Speech Clause and other challenges by private parties who seek instead to silence the government's …

Putting The Shock Value In First Amendment Jurisprudence: When Freedom For The Citizen-Journalist Watchdog Trumps The Right Of Informational Privacy On The Internet, Clay Calvert, Mirelis Torres

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article, which takes the July 2010 ruling by the Fourth Circuit in Ostergren v. Cuccinelli as a point of departure, explores the growing tension between the First Amendment right of Free Speech and the nascent right to online informational privacy. The Article addresses the "shock value" in First Amendment jurisprudence, stretching from Cohen v. California and Texas v. Johnson through the recent ruling in Ostergren. The Article also examines the traditional watchdog function of the press increasingly performed on the Internet by so-called citizen-journalists akin to Betty Ostergren. The Article concludes that while the Fourth Circuit's decision in Ostergren …

Book Review: The Free Press Crisis Of 1800: Thomas Cooper's Trial For Seditious Libel, Eric Easton

All Faculty Scholarship

This article was an invited book review of a book of the same title by Peter Charles Hoffer. Hoffer, Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia, has published this accessible case history as part of the University Press of Kansas’s Landmark Law Cases & American Society series, which he co-edits.

The book discusses one of the cases arising as a result of the Alien & Sedition Act under the presidency of John Adams, mostly targeting Republicans who editorialized against the Adams administration.

From Substance To Shadows: An Essay On Salazar V. Buono And Establishment Clause Remedies, David B. Owens

Articles

Most disputes about the Establishment Clause center on its substantive meaning; whether, for example, a state subsidy promotes religion, the phrase “In God We Trust” can appear on currency, or a display of the Ten Commandments is unconstitutional. Often overlooked and lurking behind these substantive disputes is a question about what remedies are available when an Establishment Clause violation is found. Typically, an injunction prohibiting the subsidy, practice, or display is the choice. In Salazar v. Buono, however, the Supreme Court was confronted with an unusual case for two reasons. First, the doctrine of res judicata formally barred the …

Supreme Court Amicus Brief Of Aarp And The National Legislative Association On Petition Drug Prices In Support Of Petitioners, William H. Sorrell V. Ims Health, Inc., No. 10-779 (Filed March 1, 2011), Sean Flynn, Meredith Jacob, Stacy Canan

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

This Court should refuse to apply the First Amendment to Vermont’s Prescription Confidentiality Law based on two essential facts. First, the regulation at issue is limited to the commercial use or private-channel distribution of confidential data. It is thus governed by cases of this Court upholding the regulation of uses of information in purely private settings that do not inform or contribute to the public sphere. Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 526-27 n.10 (2001); Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749 (1985). Second, it concerns the regulation of secondary uses of information where the government …

The Money Blind: How To Stop Industry Bias In Biomedical Science, Without Violating The First Amendment, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

The pharmaceutical and medical device industries use billions of dollars to support the biomedical science that physicians, regulators, and patients use to make healthcare decisions—the decisions that drive an increasingly large portion of the American economy. Compelling evidence suggests that this industry money buys favorable results, biasing the outcomes of scientific research. Current efforts to manage the problem, including disclosure mandates and peer reviews, are ineffective. A blinding mechanism, operating through an intermediary such as the National Institutes of Health, could instead be developed to allow industry support of science without allowing undue influence. If the editors of biomedical journals …

Religious And Political Virtues And Values In Congruence Or Conflict?: On Smith, Bob Jones University, And Christian Legal Society, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

A basic tension in the U.S. constitutional and political order exists between two important ideas about the relationship between civil society and the state: (1) families, religious institutions, voluntary associations, and other groups are foundational sources, or “seedbeds,” of virtues and values that undergird constitutional democracy, and (2) these same institutions guard against governmental orthodoxy and overweening governmental power by generating their own distinctive virtues and values and by being independent locations of power and authority. The first idea envisions a comfortable congruence between civil society and government: the values and virtues - and habits and skills - cultivated in …

Reviving Slander, Cristina Carmody Tilley

Faculty Publications

Roman law treated differently speech restricted to small, closed communities and speech within or among large, permeable communities. Intracommunity speech was subject to unlimited tort consequences, while intercommunity speech was subject to central government regulation. As English speech law evolved, slander rules governing spoken speech became a convenient proxy for intracommunity speech regulation, while libel rules governing written speech became a convenient proxy for intercommunity speech. In American law, the conceptual collapse of slander and libel meant that constitutional limits designed to lift central government regulation of intercommunity speech perhaps inadvertently vitiated tort consequences for intracommunity speech. The Supreme Court's …

Religious Argument, Free Speech Theory, And Democratic Dynamism, Gregory P. Magarian

Scholarship@WashULaw

Political theorists have long debated whether liberal democratic norms of public political debate should constrain political arguments grounded in religious beliefs or similar conscientious commitments. In this article, Professor Magarian contends that normative insights from free speech theory have salience for this controversy and should ultimately lead us to reject any normative constraint on religious argument. On the restrictive side of the debate stand prominent liberal theorists, led by John Rawls, who maintain that arguments grounded in religion and other comprehensive commitments threaten liberal democracy by offering illegitimate grounds for government action and destabilizing democratic politics. On the permissive side …

The Limits Of Tort Privacy, Neil M. Richards

Scholarship@WashULaw

The conception of tort privacy developed by Warren, Brandeis and Prosser sits at the heart of American understandings of privacy law. Rooted in protection of private information against unwanted collection, use, and disclosure, tort privacy protects against emotional injury, and was directed by design against disclosures of true, embarrassing facts by the media. In this essay, I argue that as conceived by Warren and Brandeis and interpreted by Prosser, tort privacy is a poor vehicle for grappling with problems of privacy and reputation in the digital age. Tort privacy, especially the disclosure tort, has from its inception been in conflict …

Twittering Away The Right Of Publicity: Personality Rights And Celebrity Impersonation On Social Networking Websites, Andrew M. Jung

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Within the past couple of years, social networking websites have become an immensely popular destination for people from all walks of life. Websites like Facebook and Twitter now count tens of millions of worldwide users, including world leaders and a number of celebrities. Eventually, users realized that social networking websites lent themselves to the quick and easy impersonation of celebrities through the creation of fake social networking accounts, often as a form of parody. One subject of such impersonation was professional baseball manager Tony La Russa, who took the then-unprecedented step of suing his impersonators and Twitter over the incident. …

From One [Expletive] Policy To The Next: The Fcc's Regulation Of "Fleeting Expletives" And The Supreme Court's Response, Brandon J. Almas

Federal Communications Law Journal

After the broadcast of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, during which the lead singer from U2 uttered an expletive on national television, the FCC revisited its prior policy on the use of expletives on the airwaves and declared, for the first time, that "fleeting expletives" are offensive according to community standards and are therefore finable. In a lawsuit filed in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Fox Television Stations, Inc. along with a number of other broadcasters argued that the FCC's new policy was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act and unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The Second …

Draft Of Beck Lecture - 2010, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

I am grateful to the wonderful BU community that has taught me so much, and to those who made this event possible. I thank Dean O'Rourke for hosting this wonderful event, Mary Gallagher, Cornell Stinson and Erin Elwood for organizing it, and I thank you all for coming. I am honored to follow Bill Ryckman in the Chair, a man I admire. Most especially I thank Phil Beck for his generosity to the Boston University School of Law in funding this Chair. It's flattering to me having been chosen its recipient, and flattering to the school that Phil chose us …

The First Amendment’S Religion Clauses: The Calvinist Document That Interprets Them Both, Leah Farish Esq.

College of Arts and Cultural Studies Faculty Research and Scholarship

This paper suggests that the Westminster Confession of Faith's provisions about church and state, revised in Philadelphia at the start of the Constitution's ratifying convention, furnished much of the syntax and vocabulary for the First Amendment's religion clauses. Recognizing the cultural links between the new American government and the Presbyterian Church, the author argues that it was natural for the founders to look to how the new Westminster Confession situated church and state. The author argues that Fisher Ames's proposed wording for the First Amendment won immediate adoption because it resonated with the Confession, standing as it did in that …

Fcc V. Fox Television Stations And The Fcc's New Fleeting Expletive Policy, Jerome A. Barron

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Article focuses on the Supreme Court's decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 129 S. Ct. 1800 (2009). In that case, the Supreme Court upheld an important change in the FCC indecency regulation. In the past, the FCC's policy had been that the broadcast of a single expletive did not violate FCC indecency policy. In order for such fleeting expletives to be actionable, the FCC required that they had to be repetitive and gratuitous. But in 2004, in response to the use of some expletives by entertainers during the Golden Globe Awards, the FCC changed its policy and …

Music As Speech: A First Amendment Category Unto Itself, David Munkittrick

Federal Communications Law Journal

Perhaps the most ubiquitous of art forms, music accompanies daily activities from shopping to jogging. Music permeates modem society, and there is little question it constitutes an integral mode of expression. Despite recognition of music's worth, however, there is little explanation of music in First Amendment jurisprudence. A rationale for First Amendment protection begins with analysis of the particular medium of speech. Through a foray in musical aesthetics and the history of musical censorship, this Note discusses the role of music in political, societal, and individual experience. Music has had an important role in political events, from the fall of …

Street Shootings: Covert Photography And Public Privacy, Nancy D. Zeronda

Vanderbilt Law Review

Street photographers, like snipers, pride themselves on stealth.' Camouflaged in nondescript clothing, they wander the streets undetectable, armed, and on the hunt. When they find their mark, they act quickly. As the famous twentieth-century street photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson described: "The creative act lasts but a brief moment, a lightning instant of give-and-take, just long enough for you to level the camera and to trap the fleeting prey in your little box." While methods of "trapping prey" vary from shooter to shooter, the mission remains the same-staying as covert as possible and catching an unknowing subject in a candid pose. In …

The Power Of The Parental Trump Card: How And Why Frazier V. Winn Got It Right, Jocelyn Floyd

Chicago-Kent Law Review

When two fundamental rights are in conflict, such that the protection of one requires the infringement of the other, courts must weigh those rights against each other to determine which is ultimately greater. In Frazier v. Winn, the Eleventh Circuit dealt with precisely such an issue: specifically, the rights of parents pitted against those of their children. This note explores the history of both parental rights and student's rights in school to show why the court appropriately affirmed that children's right to free speech is only as expansive as their parents allow, justified by the parents' fundamental right to …

Proving Fair Use: Burden Of Proof As Burden Of Speech, Ned Snow

Faculty Publications

Courts have created a burden of proof in copyright that chills protected speech. The doctrine of fair use purports to ensure that copyright law does not trample rights of speakers whose expression employs copyrighted material. Yet those speakers face a burden of proof that weighs heavily in the fair use analysis, where factual inquiries are often subjective and speculative. Failure to satisfy the burden means severe penalties, which prospect quickly chills the free exercise of speech that constitutes a fair use. The fair-use burden of proof is repugnant to the fair use purpose. Today, copyright holders are exploiting the burden …

Brief Of Constitutional Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Ryan A. Shores, Richard W. Garnett

Court Briefs

No. 09-592
Eleanor McCullen v. Martha Coakley

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

From the Summary of Argument

The Court should grant certiorari to reverse the First Circuit's decision upholding against First Amendment challenge a prohibition on public-forum speech that applies only at freestanding clinics where abortions are performed, exempts clinic agents and employees, and criminalizes peaceful, non-obstructive speech, including conversation with willing listeners, stationary handbilling, and speech from a conversational distance. By granting certiorari, the Court can begin to reconstruct a consensus on free speech principles that …

The High Cost Of Free Speech: Anti-Solicitation Ordinances, Day Laborers And The Impact Of 'Backdoor' Local Immigration Regulations, Kristina M. Campbell

Journal Articles

This paper examines how local efforts to regulate the activities of immigrants, while not regulation of immigration per se, can have a substantial and detrimental effect on the civil rights of immigrants and Latinos. The paper discuss how day laborers - individuals, mostly Latino men, who seek short-term employment in public fora - are routinely targeted by state and local governments, federal immigration authorities, anti-immigrant activists, and the general public as a symbol of the employment of unauthorized aliens. Even though many day laborers are lawfully present, or have authorization to work in the United States, due to the high-profile …

First Amendment Protection Of Teachers' Instructional Speech: Extending Rust V. Sullivan To Ensure That Teachers Do Not Distort The Government Message, Emily White Kirsch

Cleveland State Law Review

The emergence of political activism in the 2008 presidential election extended throughout the country and even to where partisan politics have no place: the public school classroom. In 2004, the New York City Board of Education enacted a regulation that prohibited teachers from wearing any material supporting political candidates or organizations. During the 2008 election, teachers who wanted to wear partisan political buttons in the classroom while teaching claimed that the regulation violated their First Amendment rights. Although the Southern District of New York ultimately held that the teachers had no First Amendment claim, the court's decision, which involved sorting …

Abridging Constitutional Rights: Sexting Legislation In Ohio, Weronika Kowalczyk

Cleveland State Law Review

What happens when you combine technology, raging adolescent hormones, and rash decisions? As we have seen these past few years, one outcome is “sexting” the trend of teenagers transmitting sexually suggestive text messages or photographs through cell phones and similar communication devices. In 2009, the media was saturated with stories pertaining to sexting, from discussing the ramifications of engaging in it including cyber bullying, slashed reputations, and serious criminal charges to providing guidelines for what parents and educators could do to control or prevent it. Though sexting includes the transmission of messages as well as photographs, the majority of media …

Essay: Religious Displays And The Voluntary Approach To Church And State, Thomas Berg

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Panel Discussion

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.