First Amendment Commons^™

Learned Hand And The Self-Government Theory Of The First Amendment: Masses Publishing Co. V. Patten, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

Sitting as a federal district judge in the case of Masses Publishing Co. v. Patten, Learned Hand was called upon to interpret the Espionage Act of 1917 just six weeks after its passage. The Act was potentially the most speech-restrictive piece of federal legislation since the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. Judge Hand recognized this and ruled that the terms of the Act must be construed in light of the first amendment. He defined the limits of legally protected war criticism, and presumably of political advocacy generally, according to a test that makes the crucial consideration the content of …

First Freedom: Religion And The Bill Of Rights, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

This volume is a collection of seven papers delivered at a symposium assembled in April 1989 upon the occasion, almost two hundred years hence, of the passage of the Bill of Rights by the First Congress. The unifying theme is stated to be the historical context of both Religion Clauses in the First Amendment, but the authors are driven primarily by Establishment Clause concerns. The Thrust of the essays deal with the originalism advanced during the years of Reagan Administration, and nonpreferentialism comes in for particular criticism, both pejoratively characterized as that "growing clamor".

The Establishment Clause As A Structural Restraint On Governmental Power, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

This Article inquires into whether the singular purpose of the Establishment Clause is to secure individual rights, as is conventionally believed, or whether its role is more properly understood as a structural restraint on governmental power. If the Clause is indeed structural in nature, then its task is to negate from the purview of civil governance all matters “respecting an establishment of religion.” Conceptualizing the role of the Establishment Clause as either rights-securing or structural has profound consequences for the nation's constitutional settlement concerning the interrelationship of government and religion.

Section 1983, Martin A. Schwartz, Honorable George C. Pratt, Leon Friedman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cable Traffic And The First Amendment Must-Carry Under A Diversity Approach And Antitrust As Possible Alternative, Bruno Vandermeulen

LLM Theses and Essays

Recent technological progress in the field of telecommunications has greatly changed the competitive structure between broadcasters, cable operators, and telephone companies. The legal and economic environment for these media participants has shifted, and new problems have arisen. One major problem is the enhanced threat of concentration of media corporations, as corporate bigness becomes desirable and the number of diversified owners of media outlets continues to decrease. This paper analyzes broadcasting regulations and subsequent case law to show the concern by the legislature and regulatory agencies to preserve diversity in opinion and media-ownership through emphasis on “localism” and a “marketplace of …

The Future And The First Amendment, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

It is my honor and pleasure to deliver this year's Sullivan Lecture. I have an especially warm feeling toward this Law School. Two years ago, at the invitation of your Professor Distelhorst, I participated in the Capital Law School program for teaching American law to Japanese lawyers. For five stimulating weeks I enjoyed the intellectual and social company· of Japanese attorneys, while teaching them the outlines of American constitutional law. Twice a week, in the evening, for three continuous hours, and after a full work day, these dedicated lawyers would willingly become students again and suffer patiently through my highly …

First Amendment Standards For Government Subsidies Of Artistic And Cultural Expression: A Reply To Justices Scalia And Rehnquist, Lionel S. Sobel

Vanderbilt Law Review

May an opera house limit its productions to operas, or must it also show rock musicals? May a municipal theater devote an entire season to Shakespeare, or is it required to book any potential producer on a first come, first served basis?"'" As Professor Kenneth Karst observed in his comment on Southeastern Promotions, the Court's majority "answered these questions with silence."The failure of the Court to respond to Justices Scalia and Rehnquist is puzzling, because in both cases their questions are easily answered. ...

None of these answers, however, would have required a different result in Arkansas Writers' Project or …

The Establishment Clause And Nativity Scenes: A Reassessment Of Lynch V. Donnelly, Richard S. Myers

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Comments On Commercial Speech, Constitutionalism, Collective Choice, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Case Digest, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Picketing Outside Foreign Embassies is Protected Speech Under the First Amendment and Restrictions on this Speech Must Serve a Compelling Government Interest and be Narrowly Tailored to the Specific Situation--Boos v. Barry, 108S.Ct. 1157 (1988).

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Notions of Comity and the Act of State Doctrine Preclude U.S. Federal Courts from Exercising Jurisdiction over the Actions of Foreign Corporations when Those Actions Constitute a Violation of U.S. Antitrust Laws but are Protected by Legislation in a Foreign Country--O.N.E. Shipping Ltd. v. Flota Mercante Grancolombiana, S.A., 830 F.2d 449 (2d Cir.1987).

Trends In First Amendment Protection Of Commercial Speech, Mary B. Nutt

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent Development:

The first amendment guarantees that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press."' Over the past few decades, the Supreme Court has applied the first amendment to commercial speech only sporadically. The Court has vacillated between refusing to apply the first amendment, liberally extending first amendment guarantees,4 and applying limited first amendment protections to commercial speech.' This expansion and contraction of first amendment protection stems partly from three factors: (1) the Court's characterization of the speech at issue as commercial or noncommercial, (2) the Court's perception of the relevant regulation as content-based …

Constitutional Law—Freedom Of Speech And Of The Press—Officials May Censor School-Sponsored Student Speech If Censorship Has Valid Educational Purpose, Charles William Burton

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Teaching Function Of The First Amendment, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

In this important book, Professor Bollinger seeks to understand and remedy the inadequacy he perceives in the way our legal culture deals with extremist speech. He argues that the high level of protection the first amendment has been construed to require serves a social function that has not been fully recognized or carefully evaluated. His thesis is that the contemporary social function of the idea of freedom of speech is to help the society develop a general capacity for tolerance, a capacity that determines how we respond to many forms of conduct as well as speech. Once this function is …

Public Access To Civil Court Records: A Common Law Approach, Ronald D. May

Vanderbilt Law Review

Courts have long recognized a general common law right of access to courtroom proceedings' and court records. Recently, however, courts have begun to consider whether the first amendment of the Constitution protects this right of access. In 1980 the United States Supreme Court in Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia held that the press and the public have a first amendment right to attend criminal trials. The Supreme Court found this right implicit in the various clauses of the first amendment. Although the Supreme Court has taken few opportunities since Richmond Newspapers to define precisely the contours of the first amendment …

Broadcasters' First Amendment Rights: A New Approach?, L. Allyn Dixon, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

The passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 offered the blueprint for the modern system of public broadcasting and regulation and largely freed noncommercial broadcasting to become a viable alternative to the commercial broadcasting" offered by the three national networks. Since becoming intimately involved in noncommercial broadcasting by providing partial funding, the federal government has imposed regulations on noncommercial broadcasters far more rigid than the restrictions imposed on commercial broadcasters. Recently, however, in a decision that some might regard as heralding greater equality between the first amendment rights of commercial and noncommercial broadcasters and continuing the trend toward loosening …

The Supreme Court’S 1984–85 Church-State Decisions: Judicial Paths Of Least Resistance, Ruti G. Teitel

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Toward A General Theory Of Church-State Relations And The First Amendment, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

Although government intervention in religious affairs is a new and understandably worrisome experience for many American churches, history instructs us that the confrontation is not novel. We can find some comfort in the fact that this double wrestle of state with church and state with individual believers is a perennial match. After all, it has been nearly sixty years since a brutish measure in Oregon making parochial school education unlawful had to be sidelined by the United States Supreme Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters.' Over forty-five years ago the Supreme Court decided Lovell v. City of Griffin, snuffing …

Constitutional Fact Review, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States held that the clearly erroneous standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a) does not prescribe the scope of appellate review of a finding of actual malice in defamation cases governed by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Rather, as a matter of "federal constitutional law," appellate courts "must exercise independent judgment and determine whether the record establishes actual malice with convincing clarity." Thus, in addition to the familiar judicial duty to "say what the law is," the first amendment imposes a special duty with respect to law application: both …

The Pathological Perspective And The First Amendment, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutions are designed to control, or at least influence, future events – political events, adjudicative events, to some extent even interactions between private parties. Yet the future is unknowable, largely unpredictable, and inevitably variable. At any moment there exists a short-run future, a long-run future, and a future in between. The future is virtually certain to contain some progress, some regression, some stability, some volatility. How is a constitution supposed to operate upon this vast panoply?

That is a question that ought to loom large in the deliberations of persons who propose and ratify new constitutions and new constitutional amendments. …

When Religious Exercise Is Not Free: Deprogramming And The Constitutional Status Of Coercively Induced Belief, Richard Delgado

Vanderbilt Law Review

The present Article offers a defense of deprogramming and a reply to its critics, particularly Shapiro. Part II reviews what hap-pens in many instances of cult joining and offers a conceptual account that justifies deprogramming of cult members who are unable to comprehend or surmount the coercive and deceptive influences that led to their commitment. Part III addresses constitutional problems that are triggered in the event that deprogramming should affect religious belief-an event that is by no means inevitable. Part IV discusses deprogramming and whether some variant of it is capable of remedying the type of situation ad-dressed in part …

Defamation—A Standard Of Review For Constitutional Facts, Susan Stevens

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Journalist's Privilege In Arkansas, John J. Watkins

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Establishment Clause Limits On Governmental Interference With Religious Organizations, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

In this article it will be argued that the establishment clause, properly viewed, functions as a structural provision regimenting the nature and degree of involvement between government and religious associations." The degree of involvement should be a limited one, although it is clear that the interrelationship need not nor cannot be eliminated altogether. Although the degree of desired separation has proven to be a continuing controversy, the goal of separation is not so divisive. The aim of separation of church and government is for each to give the other sufficient breathing space. The ordering principle is reciprocity in which "both …

Constitutional Law—Legislative Prayer Does Not Violate Establishment Clause, Caswell Bruton Blackard Iii

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Forced Disclosure Of Academic Research, J. Graham Matherne

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Note advocates that courts follow the procedures that rule 45 and its progeny provide to evaluate the special concerns of academic researchers, rather than rely on the Constitution to shield the academic researcher under the mystical guise of academic freedom. Part II of this Note examines the four cases in which federal courts have decided whether to force an academic to disclose his research. Part III focuses on the guidelines that the relevant Federal Rules establish for forced disclosure. Part IV discusses the academic freedom approach to forced disclosure and the common law and constitutional arguments that favor academic …

The Tort Liability Of Investigative Reporters, John W. Wade

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the most significant developments in recent years, in both constitutional and tort law, began with the holding in New York Times v. Sullivan that the first amendment places substantial restrictions on the common law tort action for defamation. Although the ramifications of New York Times are still developing,that continuing reform of the law of defamation will result is to be expected. The readjustment of the balancing of conflicting interests that New York Times represents came about at the behest of the press,and the press have been the primary beneficiaries of these developments. Indeed, some commentators contend that the …

Restrictions On Public Broadcasters' Rights To Editorialize, Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Third Party Standing, Henry Paul Monaghan

Faculty Scholarship

Traditional constitutional theory posits a narrow conception of the issues that a litigant properly may assert. A litigant may invoke only his own constitutional rights or immunities; he may challenge a statute only in the terms in which it is applied to him; and, in the application process, courts have broad power to construe the relevant statutory language so as to avoid constitutional difficulties. The Yazoo case is perhaps the best known example of judicial adherence to these canons. There, a railroad claimed that a statute mandating speedy settlement of "all claims for lost or damaged freight" contravened the fourteenth …

The Press And The Public Interest: An Essay On The Relationship Between Social Behavior And The Language Of First Amendment Theory, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

I would like to explore in this essay one aspect of the contemporary American debate over the theory of freedom of speech and press. The subject I want to address is this: whether the principle of freedom of speech and press should be viewed as protecting some personal or individual interest in speaking and writing or whether it should be seen as fostering a collective or public interest. Sometimes this issue is stated as being whether the first amendment protects a "right to speak" or a "right to hear," though in general the problem seems to be whether we should …

The First Amendment And Nonpicketing Labor Publicity Under Section 8(B)(4)(Ii)(B) Of The National Labor Relations Act, Lee Goldman

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article attempts to provide the appropriate constitutional analysis of restrictions on nonpicketing labor publicity. Part II describes the relevant statute and illustrative cases, including the Supreme Court's DeBartolo decision, that have raised but not resolved the first amendment issues concerning nonpicketing labor publicity. The cases focus attention on two restrictions the courts have imposed on nonpicketing labor publicity-the "producer-distributor" and the "for the purpose of" requirements. Part III analyzes the protected status of the nonpicketing labor speech by comparing nonpicketing labor publicity with labor picketing and commercial speech-two areas that bear superficial similarity to nonpicketing labor publicity and that …