First Amendment Commons^™

Reimagining Legal Education: The Transformative Power Of Small-Group Instruction, Michael I. Meyerson

Seattle University Law Review

Legal education is failing its students. Those entering their first year of law school have greater anxiety and less developed reading and writing skills than ever before. The traditional large Socratic class, which was never the most effective teaching method, has become increasingly counterproductive.

This Article contends that small-group instruction provides the opportunity for superior teaching, especially for first-year law students. Recent scholarship in active learning, educational psychology, and students’ mental health demonstrates the limitations of the traditional large Socratic class experience. Building on that theoretical foundation and informed by sustained classroom experience, this Article argues that small-group pedagogy more …

Land Without Legacy: The Case For Market-Based Appraisals On Hawaiian Home Lands, Alexis C. Owens

Seattle University Law Review

The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 (HHCA) was enacted to restore Native Hawaiians to ancestral lands and promote long term economic self-sufficiency. More than a century later, that promise remains unfulfilled. This Note argues that a central but overlooked barrier lies in the HHCA’s mandated use of the replacement cost appraisal method, which systematically undervalues homestead properties by excluding market forces. In one of the most expensive housing markets in the United States, this approach suppresses home equity, the primary means of intergenerational wealth building, and restricts beneficiaries’ access to credit and financial stability. By severing the connection between …

International Law’S Forgotten Refugees—Palestinian Refugees In Egypt

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines the legal and humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian refugees who have fled to Egypt amidst the ongoing violence in Gaza. While escaping active conflict, these refugees face systemic barriers to employment and education, rendering their living conditions precarious and unsustainable. The unique legal status of Palestinian refugees stems from the fact that they have been excluded from the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, leaving them without any meaningful international protection. This exclusion is rooted in the political complexities of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and reflects a fragmented legal framework that prioritizes limited humanitarian aid over …

Anti-Allyship And The Indirect Subordination Of Queer People, Richard Luedeman

Washington Law Review

This Article theorizes and interrogates anti-allyship as a central mechanism of modern subordination of queer people. While not new, anti-allyship is expanding rapidly under the second Trump administration. Defined as the deliberate imposition of legal, financial, and reputational costs on those who support queer individuals or institutions, anti-allyship is a strategy of indirect oppression. It targets not queer people directly, but the infrastructure of support on which queer communities rely: clinicians, educators, family members, researchers, and organizations. In doing so, it often evades the formal protections of civil rights law, which remain tethered to anticlassification models and status-based protections that …

"Speech Swept Up"—The Constitutionality Of State Prohibitions Of Conversion Therapy For Lgbtq+ Youth, Lauren A. Chivers

Washington Law Review

Since 2012, individual states have passed laws prohibiting state-licensed mental health professionals from engaging in conversion therapy with minor clients. Despite the breadth of research undermining its efficacy and documenting harms, the practice of conversion therapy persists. State regulation of conversion therapy—and thereby licensed professionals’ conduct with their clients—has emerged as a contentious issue for the judiciary. Most significantly, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the matter for the first time in 2026. In Chiles v. Salazar, the Court addressed a challenge to Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, confronting fundamental questions about this unsettled area of First Amendment law. …

Veiled Justice: Secularism And The Hijab Across Democracies, Mohamed ‘Arafa

Seattle University Law Review

For much of 2022, Iran was gripped by widespread protests led by women who openly challenged the regime’s authority, particularly its compulsory veiling laws, following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Women around the globe came around and showed solidarity with the women in Iran. However, in non-Islamic countries and societies, one can still make out many prejudices and stereotyping connected to the question of whether and to what extent veiling is mandatory for women according to Shārīe’ā law. Is wearing the hijab a choice, or rather, an essential religious practice that religious Muslim women need to obey? …

Rewriting The Playbook: The X’S And O’S Of The House Settlement And The Future Of Student-Athletes’ Voice In Their Compensation, Matthew K.V. Glazer

Seattle University Law Review

Since the formation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the 1900s, collegiate athletes (student-athletes) have been prohibited from using their own name, image and likeness (NIL) for profit. But on July 1, 2021, the NCAA changed course and began allowing student-athletes to profit from their own NIL. In the past few years, U.S. college athletics have undergone significant changes, most notably introducing monetary compensation for student-athletes’ NIL. While these changes were long overdue and ultimately beneficial, they have significantly disrupted the landscape of college sports, giving rise to numerous challenges that some experts have compared to the “Wild …

Mr. Trump Goes To Washington Part Ii: A Review Of Richard Delgado's 2025, Kevin Johnson

Seattle University Law Review

Richard Delgado’s The Rodrigo Chronicles have captivated a generation of law students and legal scholars.  Mapping the terrain of race, racism, and Critical Race Theory (CRT), the skillful, and long-running narrative series stands as a testament to Delgado’s dedication to justice for all.

The Rodrigo Chronicles are simply one of Delgado’s many intellectual contributions and part of an unparalleled scholarly legacy.  As one of the founders of CRT, he produced a landmark body of scholarship –authoring the field's primary text,  making the argument for the regulation of hate speech,  forcefully challenging the Black/white binary of civil rights that long dominated …

Threats And Political Violence, J. Richard Broughton

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Speak Up, Pay Up: Why New York Should Enact The Speak Your Truth Act And End The Chilling Effect On Sexual Assault Survivors Following The #Metoo Era, Maya Burnette

Journal of Law and Policy

Sexual assault is one of the most prevalent forms of violence in the United States. It is also one of the least reported. With criminal and civil avenues often providing little justice, many survivors turned to the public to tell their stories. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, thousands of survivors publicly shared their experiences, prompting significant social and legislative change. Yet many who spoke out faced retaliatory defamation lawsuits filed by alleged abusers to silence them. These suits, commonly known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (“SLAPP suits”), pose a substantial threat to survivors’ speech. Despite recent reforms, …

The Once And Future Freedom Of The Church: Three Stories, Steven D. Smith

BYU Law Review

This Essay, prepared to be delivered as a lecture at Brigham Young University, discusses three historical stories as a vehicle for suggesting that the concept of “freedom of the church” (or libertas ecclesiae) has not only a colorful and momentous past but an important future as well. Part I discusses how the Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna Tabor v. Evangelical Lutheran Church helped to revive the venerable theme of freedom of the church. Part II considers the relation between freedom of the church and political authority during the centuries between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and modernity. Part …

Slavery And The Myth Of Religious Liberty, Audra Lyn Savage

BYU Law Review

This is a story about two ships. One is semi-mythical. The other is half-forgotten but brutally real. The first ship is the story of early settlers who sailed from Europe to escape religious persecution and—through hard work, perseverance, and righteous rebellion—built a nation upon the fundamental freedom of religious liberty for all. The second ship represents the painful history of America, with its millions of Africans stolen from their homeland, placed in unimaginable conditions, and stripped of their language, heritage, and most significantly, their beliefs. Current religious liberty jurisprudence centers around the historical understanding of the creation and ratification of …

The Martha Wright-Reed Act: How The Fcc Took One Step Forward For Communication Equality For Deaf Individuals In Correctional Facilities And How It Could Be Expanded, Ashley Seebold

Seattle University Law Review

For decades, phone companies preyed on incarcerated individuals and their loved ones due to the lack of regulation of jail phone calls.2 In 2021, the average cost of a fifteen-minute jail phone call was about $3.3 In 2022, the average cost rose to $5.74, while some individuals faced an extreme charge of $24.82 for the same amount of time.4 In the early 2000s, consumer advocate and concerned grandmother Martha Wright-Reed called upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fix the imbalance so she could speak to her incarcerated grandson.5 Eventually, in 2023, the FCC answered her call to action and …

Muckrakers Beware, Jonathan D. Glater

Michigan Law Review

A review of Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful. By David Enrich.

How The Dod Discourages Military Families From Seeking Mental Health Counseling, Christina Welch

Seattle University Law Review

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) administration of the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) presents significant barriers to mental health care access for military spouses and children. This paper explores how the EFMP, though designed to support military families with special needs, inadvertently creates barriers to mental health treatment. Military family members often do not seek mental health treatment to avoid the program's mandatory enrollment requirements. Military family members often view enrollment in the program undesirable because enrollment can restrict the pool of potential future duty assignment locations that are available to service members.

The lack of comprehensive data collection by …

2025, Richard Delgado

Seattle University Law Review

"In a cutting and provocative social critique in one of the more extended Rodrigo Chronicles, Richard Delgado in 2025 employs skillful narrative—one of CRT’s many contributions to legal scholarship —to tell a gripping story of just how far the nation has descended into darkness with President Trump’s re-election. In Delgado’s vision, law professors—along with other political opponents of the President: immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, the underserved—have targets on their backs."

-excerpt from Kevin Johnson's review of 2025

The Preventative Care Gap: Completing The Aca’S Vision For Health, Abby Nagaich

Seattle University Law Review

This Note examines the preventive care mandate under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the legal, political, and practical challenges that threaten its effectiveness. While the ACA significantly expanded access to no-cost preventive services, gaps remain—particularly in behavioral health, obesity management, and equitable service delivery. Ongoing litigation, potential administrative rollbacks, and shifting political leadership further destabilize this critical component of public health policy.

This Note argues that for the ACA to fulfill its original promise—and for any health framework to succeed—preventive care must be redefined as a comprehensive, early intervention approach grounded in both systemic access and patient education. It …

Academic Freedom's Inflection Point, Jerry C. Edwards

Law Faculty Scholarship

Academic freedom faces an existential crisis. The Trump administration, building on a movement that began in the states, is seeking ideological conquest of higher education. Some universities have already surrendered. Others fight on, facing an endless barrage of assaults on their institutional autonomy. Faculty too have chosen to resist, relying on their free expression rights. One of the most potent weapons in higher education’s arsenal is the constitutional academic freedom doctrine, a First Amendment protection that safeguards faculty’s academic expression and universities’ academic judgments. But the Supreme Court’s embrace of history and tradition as a focal point of its individual …

When Artificial Intelligence Becomes Emotional Intelligence: Rethinking Section 230 Liability For Ai As A Pseudo-Therapist, Kennedy Aikey

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Platform Regulations Fail: An Institutional Fix For California Social Media Laws, Roz Kohan

LLR Forum

Three recent Ninth Circuit decisions struck down parts of California’s content moderation laws regarding transparency, child-safety, and algorithmic design on First Amendment grounds. Such challenges act as a barrier to effective platform regulation. When examining past speech regulations that withstood such challenges, telecommunications law provides guidance for the platform context. The lack of expert administrative agencies accounts for the failures of content moderation regulation. This Forum Article argues for the creation of a specialized California agency to produce rules and regulations that withstand First Amendment challenges.

Regulating Beauty: Advertising Restrictions, The First Amendment, And The Rise Of Social Media Models, Annie Miner

BYU Law Review

Unrealistic beauty standards in advertising have long raised concerns about their effects on body image and eating disorders, particularly for young women. While traditional means of advertising often use extremely thin models and digitally altered images, the shift in the advertising landscape towards an increased use of social media presents new challenges. Influencers have largely replaced models in advertising, and they often present unrealistic beauty standards, altered images, or dangerous eating and exercise habits to their young, impressionable audiences. In response to these concerns, several countries, including France, Norway, and Israel, have adopted regulations banning the use of ultrathin models …

Corporate Employment And The First Amendment Shield Against Anti-Dei Legislation, W. Mary Blee

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

No one would have thought that a Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action in higher education would affect private employment. However, the ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard did exactly that. Corporate employers’ efforts to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) were immediately pushed to the forefront of the political battlefield. In the eyes of Republican lawmakers and politicians, DEI efforts were akin to affirmative action, and therefore unconstitutional in the wake of Harvard. Their solution to this problem involved passing anti-DEI legislation and policies which restricted or eliminated employer’s DEI efforts under the guise of upholding …

The Constitution And Financial Freedom: Analyzing First Amendment Claims About Cryptocurrencies, Mithun Imbulamure

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In recent years, the United States has intensified regulatory oversight of cryptocurrency technologies. In August 2022, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer, leading to the prosecution and conviction of its developers for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Congress also amended § 6050I of the Tax Code through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, extending cash transaction reporting requirements to digital assets. These developments prompted cryptocurrency advocates to assert First Amendment protections for their activities, arguing that compelled disclosure requirements violate associational privacy and that computer code constitutes protected speech. The government …

Welcome Tilly Norwood: Forecasting Hollywood’S Ai Policy Futures, Samuel P. Rooker

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

In late 2025, weekly trade publication Variety Magazine reported on the announcement of a new acting talent in Hollywood: Tilly Norwood. Norwood is an industry outsider and the pet project of Eline Van der Velden, who unveiled the actress’ existence to the world at the Zurich Film Festival. The announcement quickly gained media coverage while Van der Velden has since faced cyclical backlash from Hollywood trade unions, which does not seem entirely without reason. Tilly Norwood is a digital persona, a generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) program, designed by Van der Velden’s novel AI talent studio, Xicoia, to become the next …

Children, Clicks, And Constitutional Blind Spots: The First Amendment And The Regulation Of Social Media For Minors, Pepper Miller

Mercer Law Review

“A fundamental principle of the First Amendment is that all persons have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more.” This oft-quoted maxim from Packingham v. North Carolina has become a touchstone for the wave of litigation challenging state laws that restrict minors’ access to social media platforms. But, in the rapidly advancing age of social media, should the principle still stand that all persons, specifically minors, are entitled to unfettered access to such novel spaces where they can speak and listen? Underpinning the discussion of this issue lies “a …

From Claiborne To Climate: Anti-Esg Boycott Legislation And Corporate First Amendment Rights, Ingrid Tjendro

Fordham Law Review Online

Since 2021, at least twenty-one states have enacted laws targeting financial institutions and companies that incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into their business practices. This Comment examines the First Amendment implications of one specific category of such legislation—state anti-ESG boycott statutes—and argues that they constitute an unconstitutional suppression of protected corporate speech and association.

Drawing on traditional anti-boycott jurisprudence, including NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. and Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc., and the circuit split over anti-Israel boycott legislation, this Comment centers on the recent decision in American Sustainable Business Council v. Hegar …

A Qualitative Study Of Journalism Course Syllabi In Relation To The First Amendment, Elizabeth L. Bunnell

Journalism Undergraduate Honors Theses

The goal of this research is to gain more insight into collegiate journalism course syllabi and the First Amendment. The First Amendment is a foundational aspect for a career in journalism, and one way to learn how college journalism students are interacting with the First Amendment is to conduct a qualitative analysis of the syllabi. A syllabus is the contract between professor and student for the course; therefore, it should contain the most important information relating to the course. 47 syllabi were collected from the School of Journalism and Strategic Media from the Spring 2025 semester. After reading through each …

Place, Democracy, Law, And The Necessity Of Local News, Erin C. Carroll

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 2025, the painter Amy Sherald pulled her show American Sublime from the Smithsonian after the museum considered removing a painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty to avoid angering President Trump. The Baltimore Museum of Art stepped in, and it was important that it did. American Sublime needs to be seen in person. It comprises dozens of portraits of Black Americans—a farmer, a bicyclist, a balloon-holder, a child on a playground slide. The portraits are dignified, beautiful, warm, and alluring. They are, in a word, human.

In the gallery, the paintings were hung low on the walls to increase …

Criminalizing Curation, Duncan Hosie

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article surfaces emerging threats to artistic expression posed by the Dost test, which outlines six factors for interpreting a “lascivious exhibition of the genitals” under federal and many state child pornography laws. It argues that the present state of American politics has eroded normative inhibitions that previously prevented the ambiguities and vulnerabilities of child pornography prosecutions from being systematically exploited. By way of repair, the Article offers two jurisprudential reform proposals.

Synthesizing precedent, criticism, and theory, the Article demonstrates Dost invites selective enforcement against politically and religiously unpopular artwork by authorizing courts and prosecutors to assess polysemous visual works …

Locked And Unloaded: The Constitutional And Empirical Case For Firearm Safe Storage Advisories, Hillel Y. Levin, Kay L. Levine

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Constitutional law haunts our efforts to reduce the number of firearm deaths each year. But even with the evolving scope of individual rights, sensible regulation remains possible.

This Article proposes one such regulatory tool. State governments legally can and pragmatically should require firearm sellers to advise their customers of the association between improper gun storage and the risk of accidental death and suicide. Mandatory safe storage advisories implicate two strands of constitutional jurisprudence: the First Amendment’s protection against compelled speech and the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. While the Supreme Court has strengthened both doctrines in recent years, jurisdictions …