First Amendment Commons^™

How Useful Is Judicial Review In Free Speech Cases?, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Free Speech And The Assumption Of Rationality, Frederick Schauer

Vanderbilt Law Review

First amendment doctrine is now both broad and complex, and the task of writing about all of it seems at least forbidding and perhaps impossible. Unthwarted by the magnitude of the mission, however, Franklyn Haiman has attempted, in Speech and Law in a Free Society,7 to survey and to integrate almost every area in which the first amendment restricts or should restrict the powers of the states and the federal government. Haiman's book is in some ways reminiscent of Thomas Emer-son's The System of Freedom of Expression." Like Emerson,Haiman devotes only a relatively brief introductory portion of his book to …

The Origins Of Freedom Of Speech And Press, David S. Bogen

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Attack On Categorical Approaches To Freedom Of Speech, Pierre J. Schlag

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Sedition Of Free Speech, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Several years ago, a story appeared in The New York Times which provided a graphic illustration of how the Soviet government manipulates the news about itself. Each year on May Day, the Times reported, the Soviet leadership poses for a photograph while standing atop the Lenin tomb in Red Square. In the year of the Times story, however, the photograph had undergone a number of noticeable alterations as it appeared in the various government-run media outlets. One official had been removed altogether, another had been positioned a bit closer to Brezhnev, some who had not in fact been present were …

The Skokie Legacy: Reflections On An "Easy Case" And Free Speech Theory, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

Few legal disputes in the last decade captured public attention with such dramatic force as that involving a small band of Nazis and the village of Skokie. For well over a year, the case was seldom out of the news and often thought to merit front page coverage. It all began in the spring of 1977 when Frank Collin, the leader of the Chicago-based National Socialist Party of America, requested a permit to march in front of the Skokie village hall. The community, with a Jewish population of over 40,000, several thousand of whom had survived the Holocaust, mobilized all …

American Influence On Israel's Jurisprudence Of Free Speech, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

This is a study of the role played by judicial development of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in shaping the jurisprudence of free speech in Israel - a country without a bill of rights. Rivalry and contrast between opposing modes of legal thought, judicial styles, doctrines, and finally, models of democracy within Israel's Supreme Court are major themes. Most of the adversarial elements reflect competing ideas in the intellectual history of American free speech law. Thus, the tension within Israel's Supreme Court reflects the tension between American free speech jurisprudence as it now is and as it …

Trustees Of Self-Interest?, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

Unconventional approaches to frequently addressed issues can be particularly illuminating, and John Lofton's discussion of the press and the first amendment takes a decidedly unconventional tack. Rather than focusing on the theme of governmental suppression of speech, Lofton attempts to highlight another angle: the reaction of the press to both political dissent and the official suppression of that dissent from the colonial period to the present day. His purpose, he notes, is "to examine how the American press has performed when confronted with the application of the amendment to practical events."

Categories And The First Amendment: A Play In Three Acts, Frederick Schauer

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the foregoing pages I have attempted to flesh out three different aspects of what has been broadly called "categorization."Implicit in this project is the premise that it is often quite revealing to search for important differences in the face of superficial similarity. Very often, however, when we search for differences we may discover additional points of similarity that are not at first apparent. This seems to be the case here, in that one recurrent feature is what one might inelegantly call "learnability." The concept of learnability is comprehensible only in the con-text of a separation of roles.' Thus, if …

The Jurisprudence Of Free Speech In The United States And The Federal Republic Of Germany, Donald P. Kommers

Journal Articles

This Article compares the constitutional thought of the United States Supreme Court and the West German Federal Constitutional Court in the area of free speech. The primary focus is on cases dealing with governmental restraints on speech arising out of concern for internal security' and commentary affecting the reputation of public figures. These cases reflect major lines of German and American free speech thought. The objective of this Article is to compare the concepts of free speech that have evolved in the opinions of the two tribunals and to consider the significance of the separate doctrinal paths taken by each …

The Absoluteness Of The First Amendment, Stephen W. Gard

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Despite an urgent need, the reality is that today we have no unifying free speech theory. Instead, the recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court suggest that doctrinal confusion reigns. Ironically, I would suggest that the cause of the present doctrinal confusion is not that insufficient attention has been paid to technical free speech issues, but rather that modern first amendment thinking has been dominated by "balancers." The poverty of the balancing approach, be it ad hoc or definitional in character, stems from its reliance on pragmatic considerations rather than on fundamental principles embodied in the enduring legacy of …

Confessions Of A Horizontalist: A Dialogue On The First Amendment, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

It is hardly surprising that the Supreme Court has never developed a satisfying theory of the first amendment. Free speech and press problems are many and varied, demanding the most delicate balance of interests in order to preserve a system of freedom of expression and at the same time afford proper respect for competing governmental objectives. Doctrine adapted to one medium of expression may not sit well when applied to others. With the passage of time, changes in technology, economic conditions, and the very nature of expression tend to outstrip the Court's ability to keep pace with doctrinal innovations. There …

Attorney Advertising Is Commercial Speech Protected By The First Amendment - Bates V. State Bar

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Private Copyright And Public Communication: Free Speech Endangered, Lyman R. Patterson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Copyright as it has developed is essentially a private copyright for private communications made public for profit. Theoretically,the right to copyright is derived from the act of creation, and the choice of making his creations public is that of the author. As the copyright clause makes clear, the purpose of the private monopoly of copyright is to encourage the author to make his creations available for public learning. Television, on the other hand, is primarily a medium of public communication that has as a major function the transmission of public information to the public. To apply the present law of …

Recent Cases, Robert L. Teicher, Timothy C. Maguire

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the 1930 decision of State ex rel. LaFollette v. Kohler, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the earliest free speech challenge to a candidate expenditure limitation. The court held that the state's interest in protecting the integrity of its electoral process outweighed the individual's right of communicating with the public without governmental infringement." The court's identification of the communicative effect of campaign spending anticipated the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Stromberg v. California" that communicative conduct was entitled to protection from government infringement. The Court, however, hampered the effectuation of this protection by failing to define conclusively the point …

Billboard Regulations, And Aesthetics, Richard Sutton

Cleveland State Law Review

The regulation of outdoor advertising has prompted a surprisingly prodigious amount of controversy and litigation. It has been challenged as a denial of free speech, due process, and equal protection; it has been upheld on nuisance4 and real property grounds, and sustained on the basis of public health, safety, morality, comfort and convenience, aesthetics, and the right to be let alone."

Freedom Of Expression In Secondary Schools, Ann Aldrich, Joanne V. Sommers

Cleveland State Law Review

Guzick v. Drebus, currently under consideration on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, raises important questions concerning the application of the First Amendment to secondary school students.

Unconstitutional Conditions Upon Public Employment: New Departures In The Protection Of First Amendment Rights, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

No abstract provided.

Free Speech And Prior Restraints - Kovach V. Maddux

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Attorneys--Self-Incrimination--The Attorney's Privilege Against Self-Incrimination In A Disbarment Proceeding, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A state court has jurisdiction to deal with the alleged misconduct of attorneys practicing before it either explicitly by statute or by ' virtue of its power to control the conduct of its own affairs. Indeed, it can suspend or disbar an attorney who fails to maintain the standard of conduct established for members of the legal profession. One aspect of such a standard is that an attorney is bound not to obstruct the administration of justice, a duty which imposes upon him an affirmative obligation to cooperate with the courts. The question frequently arises whether, in order to satisfy …

Ernst & Schwartz: Censorship: The Search For The Obscene, Erwin B. Ellmann

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Censorship: The Search for the Obscene By Morris L. Ernst and Alan U. Schwartz

Paul & Schwartz: Federal Censorship: Obscenity In The Mail, Harry Kalven Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Federal Censorship: Obscenity in the Mail. By James C. N. Paul and Murray L. Schwartz.

The Free-Ness Of Free Speech, Robert A. Leflar

Vanderbilt Law Review

Freedom of speech under Anglo-American law has never been an absolute right, and numerous exercises of free speech (and of free press)have been subjected to inhibiting legal sanctions, both criminal and civil,almost from the beginning of our common law heritage. It is true that the Blackstonian rule prohibiting "previous restraints upon publications" purported, to protect absolutely the initial right to publish. But an absolute right to publish what one may thereafter be criminally punished or forced to pay civil damages for publishing is obviously illusory in its absoluteness.It is not an absolute right in any real sense of the term. …

Constitutional Law - Freedom Of Speech And Press - Prohibitions On The Publication Or Distribution Of Anonymous Campaign Literature, Frank G. Reeder S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was charged under a federal statute' with the publication and distribution of a pamphlet which concerned a candidate for United States Senator in a special senatorial election and which did not contain the name of the person or group responsible for its publication and distribution as required by the statute. The defendant alleged that his occupation as a farmer made him particularly subject to regulation by the federal government, and that he feared coercion or reprisals from the federal representatives with whom he dealt if he complied with the statute's disclosure requirement. On motion to dismiss the information on …

Public Speech And Public Order In Britain And The United States, Richard E. Stewart

Vanderbilt Law Review

This paper will not attempt a general comparison of free speech in Britain and the United States. It concentrates on one aspect of the free speech problem. That aspect is speech that does or may lead to a breach of the peace by the audience.'

Meiklejohn: Political Freedom, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Political Freedom. By Alexander Meiklejohn

Mr. Justice Jackson, Free Speech, And The Judicial Function, Walter F. Murphy

Vanderbilt Law Review

All free speech cases decided by the United States Supreme Court are hard cases; and, if they do not, according to the old saw, make bad law, they do make law which is both fragile and fascinating. Wrapped up inside the kernel of each of these cases are many of the most troublesome problems which confront a democratic government: the relation of majority rule to minority rights, the necessity of peace and order but the equally imperative necessity of open discussion, and, not least, the paradoxical role of an appointive judiciary in curbing, in the name of democracy and freedom, …

Constitutional Law - Freedom Of Press - Validity Of Motion Picture Licensing Statute, Dean L. Berry S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The distributor of the motion picture "Lady Chatterley's Lover" applied to the Motion Picture Division of the New York State Education Department for a license, required by New York law, for public presentation of the film. The application was denied on the ground the film was "immoral" within the meaning of the licensing statute. On review, the Board of Regents approved this determination, but on appeal the state supreme court reversed the Board. A divided court of appeals reversed the supreme court, holding that the contents of the film met the statutory definition of "immoral." On appeal to the Supreme …

"Congress Shall Make No Law…":Ii, O. John Rogge

Michigan Law Review

The framers of the federal bill of rights by the First and Tenth Amendments sought to deny Congress power over utterances unless they were connected with criminal conduct other than advocacy. Any power over such utterances was to reside in the states. However, the Supreme Court departed from the framers' intent.

One of the factors in this development was the emergence of an undefined federal police power. This occurred largely under the commerce and postal clauses. It began over a century ago. As early as 1838 Congress passed a law requiring the installation of safety devices upon steam vessels. Beginning …

"Congress Shall Make No Law..."*, O. John Rogge

Michigan Law Review

It is the position of the writer that, at least so far as Congress is concerned, speech is as free as thought, and that unless and until speech becomes a part of a course of conduct which Congress can restrain or regulate no federal legislative power over it exists. State power, despite the Fourteenth Amendment, may be somewhat more extensive. Certainly the framers of the First Amendment intended that it should be. This article will deal with federal power over speech.