First Amendment Commons^™

Free Speech Faces Hostile Environment: An Aggressive Hunt For Sex Harassment Leaves Plenty Of Wreckage, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

Take the case of James Maas, who has been teaching at Cornell University for more than 30 years and whose Psychology 101 is perhaps the largest undergraduate course in the country (attracting about 1,000 students every semester). He was won numerous teaching awards. In 1994, Mr. Maas was called before Cornell's "Professional Ethics Committee" to defend himself against charges of sexual harassment. The allegations centered around his "overly friendly and affectionate behavior" - which, it turns out, were hugs and occasional social kisses, most often in front of class or family.

The most notable example of a professor who stood …

Competition Policy In America 1888-1992: History, Rhetoric, Law, Rudolph J.R. Peritz

Books

Americans have long appealed to images of free competition in calling for free enterprise, freedom of contract, free labor, free trade, and free speech. This imagery has retained its appeal in myriad aspects of public policy--for example, Senator Sherman's Anti-Trust Act of 1890, Justice Holmes's metaphorical marketplace of ideas, and President Reagan's rhetoric of deregulation.

In Competition Policy in America, 1888-1992, Rudolph Peritz explores the durability of free competition imagery by tracing its influences on public policy. Looking at congressional debates and hearings, administrative agency activities, court opinions, arguments of counsel, and economic, legal, and political scholarship, he finds …

Freedom Of Speech And Press

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Worlds Apart: Reconciling Freedom Of Speech And Equality, John A. Powell

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Cass Sunstein's "New Deal" For Free Speech: Is It An "Un-American" Theory Of Speech?, Richard J. Vangelisti

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

John Milton's Areopagitica And The Modern First Amendment, Vincent A. Blasi

Faculty Scholarship

The traditional liberal argument for free speech is now under fire from several directions. Critics from the left, the center, and the right find simplistic the claim that unregulated expression promotes the search for truth, the protection of self-government, the autonomy of individuals, and the control of concentrated power. Even if free speech does serve these values to a considerable degree, there are costs associated with liberty, costs the critics say are not sufficiently recognized in the standard liberal accounts.

As a general matter, but especially regarding the freedom of speech, liberalism is seen as too doctrinaire, too optimistic about …

New Restrictions On Academic Free Speech: Jeffries V. Harleston Ii, Richard H. Hiers

UF Law Faculty Publications

Notwithstanding academic freedom's venerable and near-sacrosanct place among academicians in the United States today, the Supreme Court first accorded it constitutional status only in the 1950s. The Court did not recognize First Amendment speech rights of public employees generally until 1968. In subsequent years, the Court evolved two separate lines of cases: the one relating to, and generally protective of, academic freedom in public colleges and universities; the other, relating to the speech rights of public school teachers and public employees in other work contexts. The Supreme Court has yet to address the question whether the severely restrictive standards developed …

At Work In The Marketplace Of Ideas: Academic Freedom, The First Amendment, And Jeffries V. Harleston, Stephen A. Newman

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Speech And Press

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric, Evidence, And Bar Agency Restrictions On Speech By Attorneys, Lloyd B. Snyder

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

There are two problems with permitting litigation about attorney speech to proceed without requiring bar disciplinary agencies to present empirical data or other evidence to support claims that restrictions on attorney speech are necessary. First, the history of bar association restrictions on attorney speech should make us skeptical that the bar rules are based on lofty ideals about protection of the public. The restrictions began as rules promulgated by elite corporate lawyers whose effect was to limit the activities of their less affluent brethren who were representing criminal defendants and other impoverished clients. The purpose of the rules was to …

Defending Pornography: Free Speech & The Fight For Women’S Rights, Nadine Strossen

Books

The newest attacks on the First Amendment and on free expression have come from a vocal and influential segment of the feminist movement that has launched a successful - and puritanical - crusade against "pornography" as the root of discrimination and violence against women. But, as Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, forcefully argues, this view of sexuality as inherently dangerous does profound damage to human rights in general, and to women's rights in particular. In Defending Pornography, Strossen shows that, since the late 1970s, a new and startling alliance has been fused between "procensorship" feminists, most …

Authors, Editors, And Uncommon Carriers: Identifying The "Speaker" Within The New Media, Michael I. Meyerson

All Faculty Scholarship

First Amendment analysis has historically depended on whether a party is a speaker, an editor, or a carrier. With communications technology rapidly evolving, determining which category is appropriate becomes increasingly complex, and ascertaining the First Amendment protections that are applied to various actors in the process of diffusing ideas becomes difficult. This article looks to the historical treatment of the First Amendment rights of speakers, editors, and distributors. This article traces the Supreme Court’s treatment of speech regulations on new technologies, from telegraph and telephone regulations to the seminal Turner Broadcast System, Inc. v. FCC case that created rules for …

Public Institutions Of Culture And The First Amendment: The New Frontier, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

The general subject of my lecture today is the relationship between the First Amendment and public institutions of culture, which I take to be those sponsored and supported by the state with the clear purpose of preserving and promoting high culture in the United States. These include universities, museums, theaters, libraries, public broadcasting networks, programs for art in public places, and the national endowments for the arts and the humanities. All of these institutions or programs are vested with the responsibility of insuring the preservation of high human achievement in the areas to which they are devoted (knowledge, art, music, …

Virtual Constitutions: The Creation Of Rules For Governing Private Networks, Michael I. Meyerson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the legal issues involving the owners of private computer networks. These issues include public/private network distinctions, First Amendment free speech issues, liability for computer network owners for improper speech posted on their networks, and anti-trust questions. The article analyzes the complexities that result from different forms of network ownership and the relationship of such networks to governmental entities.

Letter To Ken Yalowitz, Esq., Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

I hope you received the fax I sent with the material by Mark Rose discussing the linkages between paper money and art.

The First Amendment: When The Government Must Make Content-Based Choices, Erwin Chemerinsky

Cleveland State Law Review

Thus, I focus my attention on the problem of the First Amendment when the government must make content-based choices. I want to divide my remarks into four parts. I begin by reviewing the traditional bedrock rule of the First Amendment: The government cannot regulate speech based on its content. Second, I identify a broad range of cases where this rule cannot apply because the government must make content-based choices. Third, I suggest that the usual First Amendment principles are not helpful in analyzing these cases. Finally, I offer some initial thoughts about directions for dealing with this problem.

Feminist Jurisprudence And Free Speech Theory, Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Free Speech By The Light Of A Burning Cross, Jerome O'Callaghan

Cleveland State Law Review

For scholars of the First Amendment this case is an excellent example of the dilemmas posed by many of the doctrines created by the Court. While Justice Scalia proposes an elaborate and novel understanding of the limits of free speech regulation, Justice White responds with an assertion that Scalia's reasoning is "transparently wrong," and that his opinion is a "radical revision of First Amendment law." According to Justice Stevens, the majority opinion is no more than "an adventure in a doctrinal wonderland." Part II of this paper examines the attacks made by Justices White and Stevens against the majority opinion. …

Blackmail: Dde-Type Inquiries - 1993, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

DDE-type inquiries usually emerge from a particular brand of intuitionistically-applied deontology which one might call a "theory of side-constraints". From the deontologic notion that "persons are ends, not means," philosophers of this stripe have intuited a number of constraints that should constrain moral actors regardless of the cost. The science of side-constraints is obviously inconsistent with theories such as utilitarianism and economic wealth-maximization, where assessing the costs and benefits of an action constitute the primary guide for action. By contrast side-constraint philosophers tell us that one may not kill another person even to save a large number of other persons; …

In Re Holtzman: Free Speech Or Professional Misconduct?, David W. Wright

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Religious Participation In Public Debate, Matthew Steffey

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Broadcasting And Speech, Jonathan Weinberg

Law Faculty Research Publications

It is illegal to speak over the airwaves without a broadcast license. The FCC grants those licenses, and decides whether they will be renewed, on the basis of a vague "public interest" standard. The resulting system of broadcast regulation conflicts, starkly and gratuitously, with ordinary free speech philosophy. In this Article, the author argues that that inconsistency is crucially linked to inadequacies in free speech theory itself Conventional free speech theory ignores the extent to which imbalances of private power limit freedom of expression. It presupposes that public discourse takes place on a rational plane. The author explores the link …

How To Do Things With The First Amendment, Pierre Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

Silence And The Word, Paul Campos

Publications

No abstract provided.

New York Times Co V Sullivan: The 'Actual Malice' – Standard And Editorial Decision-Making, Geoffrey Bennett, Russel L. Weaver

Journal Articles

In an effort to explore conflicting views of the New York Times decision, this article compares how the British media functions under Britain's more restrictive defamation laws with how the US media functions under the actual malice standard. It does so based on interviews with reporters, editors, defamation lawyers, and others involved in the media in an effort to understand how they decide which stories to publish, and to gain some understanding of how libel laws affect editorial decision-making.

Blackmail And Transactional Structure - 1992, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

The Coase Theorem operates in a world where mistaken allocations can be cured by trade. But blackmail involves two areas where mistaken allocations are likely to be permanent: free speech and reputation.

Abrams V. United States: Remembering The Authors Of Both Opinions, James F. Fagan Jr.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Freedom Of Speech And The Press

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Practical Reason: The Commercial Speech Paradigm, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

First Amendment jurisprudence incorporates a continual struggle to balance coflicting interests. Free speech values must be weighed against communitarian interests in a rational manner. The article examines the foundationalist approach to this task, and finds it incapable of providing a unified First Amendment theory. Through examination of the treatment of commercial speech, the article arrives at a more coherent approach through the application of practical reasoning. The proposed methodology allows for principled analysis and decisions which yield an internally consistent body of law.

Free Speech And School Governance In The Wake Of Hazelwood, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The Supreme Court's 1988 decision in Hazelwood School District v. KuhImeier upholding public school officials' authority to censor material in a high school student newspaper sent immediate shock waves throughout the educational and legal communities. The Court's sweeping language in Hazelwood moved far beyond the narrow issue of school newspaper censorship. It even moved beyond the question of appropriate or acceptable speech in public secondary schools. It was clear that Hazelwood could have far-reaching consequences for student rights, school governance, and the scope of official authority to make curricular decisions that reflect the values of the local community.

Some …