First Amendment Commons^™

State Government—The Arkansas Freedom Of Information Act—Public Or Private Record: A Simple Distinction Threatens The Future Of Open Government In Arkansas, Pulaski County V. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc., 371 Ark. 214, 264 S.W.3d 465 (Ark. Oct. 4, 2007)., Geoffrey D. Neal

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Imperfect Vocabulary Of Religious Liberty, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

No abstract provided.

Punishing Depictions Of Animal Cruelty: Unconstitutional Or A Valid Restriction On Speech?, Kerry Adams

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

Golan V. Gonzales: An Opportunity To Reexamine The Relationship Between First Amendment Rights And Copyright Protection, Krystal Joy Gallagher

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "Spiritual Temperature" Of Contemporary Popular Music, Tracy Reilly

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

The purpose of this Article is to contribute to the volume of legal scholarship that focuses on popular music lyrics and their effects on children. This interdisciplinary cross-section of law and culture has been analyzed by legal scholars, philosophers, and psychologists throughout history. This Article specifically focuses on the recent public uproar over the increasingly violent and lewd content of death-metal and gangsta-rap music and its alleged negative influence on children. Many legal scholars have written about how legal and political efforts throughout history to regulate contemporary genres of popular music in the name of the protection of children's morals …

A First Amendment For Second Life: What Virtual Worlds Mean For The Law Of Video Games, Marc J. Blitz

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, video games have finally taken their place alongside movies, comic books, and drawings as a form of protected First Amendment speech. Since the Seventh Circuit's 2001 decision in American Amusement Machine Association v. Kendrick, court after court has struck down ordinances and statutes aimed at restricting violent video games--on the grounds that such violate game designers' and players' First Amendment speech rights. This series of rulings marks a stark change from courts' previous stance on video games, which consigned them to the same realm of unprotected non-speech conduct as games like tennis, …

Excluding Religion: A Reply, Nelson Tebbe

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This short piece replies to three prominent scholars who have offered thoughtful responses to my article, Excluding Religion. It first takes up their invitation to explore some of the ramifications of the article for legal and political theory, albeit in a limited way. Second, it revisits the article’s central argument - namely, that governments ought to have greater constitutional leeway to deny aid to religious actors and entities than is commonly thought - and shows how that proposal emerges from the conversation intact. Third, the reply defends certain limits on the practice of excluding religion, particularly the presumptive prohibition on …

The Chill Bill: The Hate Crimes Prevention Act Of 2007 And The Forgotten Dangers To The First Amendment, Hank Gates

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

This comment will address whether the Hate Crimes Prevention Act is unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment because it threatens to chill protected speech. Part II will outline the text of the House Bill 1592 as passed by the House of Representatives. Part III will outline the United States Supreme Court's overbreadth doctrine in its current form and the Supreme Court's major decisions on hate crime legislation in the past. Part IV will evaluate the potential dangers that the Act, in its current form, poses to protected speech. Ultimately, this comment concludes that Congress can draft hate crimes …

In The Matter Of Ottinger V. Non-Party The Journal News, Daniel Haier

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teaching Freedom: Exclusionary Rights Of Student Groups, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

Progressive, anti-subordination values support robust First Amendment protection for high school and university students, including strong rights of expressive association, even when those rights clash with educational institutions' nondiscrimination policies. The leading cases addressing the conflicts between nondiscrimination policies and exclusionary student groups are polarized and distorted by their culture war context. That context tainted the leading authority, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, and is especially salient in the student expressive association cases, many of which are being aggressively litigated by religious groups with strong anti-homosexuality goals. The strength of these First Amendment claims can be difficult to recognize …

The Chill Bill: The Hate Crimes Prevention Act Of 2007 And The Forgotten Dangers To The First Amendment, Hank Gates

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

This comment will address whether the Hate Crimes Prevention Act is unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment because it threatens to chill protected speech. Part II will outline the text of the House Bill 1592 as passed by the House of Representatives. Part III will outline the United States Supreme Court's overbreadth doctrine in its current form and the Supreme Court's major decisions on hate crime legislation in the past. Part IV will evaluate the potential dangers that the Act, in its current form, poses to protected speech. Ultimately, this comment concludes that Congress can draft hate crimes …

A 'Ho New World: Raced And Gendered Insult As Ersatz Carnival And The Corruption Of Freedom Of Expression Norms, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

Carnivalization, a concept developed by literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin and later employed in broad social and cultural contexts, is the tearing down of social norms, the elimination of boundaries, and the inversion of established hierarchies. It is the world turned upside down. Ersatz carnival is a pernicious, inverted form of carnival, one wherein counter-discourses propounded by outsiders are appropriated by elites and frequently redeployed to silence and exclude those same outsiders. The use of the slur "'ho" by gangsta' rappers in the performance of songs that articulate a vision of urban culture is an example of carnivalization. Thus, when words …

A Confused Concern Of The First Amendment: The Uncertain Status Of Constitutional Protection For Individual Academic Freedom, Neal H. Hutchens

Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation Faculty Publications

The question of whether the First Amendment protects the individual academic freedom of faculty members at public colleges and universities has resulted in divergent views among courts and legal scholars. In joining the ongoing discourse regarding constitutional protection for academic freedom, this article considers using academic freedom policies and standards voluntarily adopted by institutions as a basis to provide First Amendment protection for faculty speech at public colleges and universities. The article proposes that such policies present one alternative to help clear some of the legal fog regarding First Amendment protection for individual academic freedom, especially in relation to the …

Students’ Free Speech Rights Shed At The Cyber Gate, Vivian Lei

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Education is one of the most important functions of the government. Because public schools are under the control of state and local authorities, the administrators and teachers of these schools are subject to requirements established in the United States Constitution. For example, for more than thirty years, the Supreme Court has supported the due process rights of students facing a deprivation of liberty and property interests in education.

Turkey: At The Crossroads Of Secular West And Traditional East, Padideh Ala'i

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

On January 9, 2008 Washington College of Law at American University sponsored a conference entitled: Turkey: At the Crossroads of Secular West and Traditional East. This conference was percipitated by the recent election of the AKP party in Turkey and my trip to Turkey in summer 2007. In this short introduction to the American University International law Review symposium issue, I summarize the major issues raised in that one day conference specifically by Dean Haluk Kabaalioglu of Yeditepe University Facutly of Law, expert on EU law and Turkish-EU relations,and Professor Feroz Ahmad, the learned historian of modern Turkey. The aim …

Crawford V. Marion County Election Board: A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words And Exactly One Vote, Brian C. Crook

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Parental Rights And The State Regulation Of Religious Schools, Matthew J. Steilen

Journal Articles

In Wisconsin v. Yoder, the United States Supreme Court invalidated convictions of several Amish parents for removing their children from school in violation of state mandatory attendance laws. In reaching its decision, the Court argued that protecting the Amish parents’ decisions fit into a longstanding American tradition of giving parents control over the upbringing of their children. Yet the Supreme Court mischaracterized the history of parental rights and state interests in education. Contemporary historical research shows that parents have long ceded a large measure of control to the state in the education of their children. Still, very little has been …

(Mis)Attribution Symposium: Government Speech, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, I evaluate three issues of attribution and misattribution that arise in the so-called area of "government speech."' First, I explore when an individual might have a constitutional claim for misattribution by the state. Second, I discuss the citizen's interest in proper attribution by the government when it is speaking. Third, I consider the government's interest in avoiding expression being improperly attributed to it. This concern arises less often than is commonly assumed; what many scholars (and governments) claim to be a state interest in avoiding attribution or endorsement is in fact a state interest in not providing …

Religious Freedom, Church Autonomy, And Constitutionalism, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

Our topic at this symposium is "religion, the state, and constitutionalism"-not "the Constitution," or "the First Amendment," but "constitutionalism." Countless conferences, cases, books, and articles have wrestled with one version or another of the question, "how does our Constitution, with its First Amendment and its religion clauses, promote, protect, or perhaps restrain religion?" We are considering, it seems to me, a question that is different, and that is different in interesting and important ways: What are connections between religion and religious freedom, on the one hand, and constitutionalism, on the other?

Standing, Spending, And Separation: How The No-Establishment Rule Does (And Does Not) Protect Conscience, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

The First Amendment’s “Establishment Clause” is widely thought to protect “conscience.” Does it? If so, how? It is proposed in this paper that the no-establishment rule does indeed promote and protect religious liberty, and does safeguard conscience, but not (or, at least, not only) in the way most people think it does, namely, by sparing those who object from the asserted injury to their conscience caused by public funding of religious activity.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation - a case in which the Justices limited taxpayer standing to bring Establishment Clause claims - reminds …

Politics At The Pulpit: Tax Benefits, Substantial Burdens, And Institutional Free Exercise, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

More than fifty years ago, Congress enacted a prohibition against political campaign intervention for all charities, including churches and other houses of worship, as a condition for receiving tax deductible contributions. Yet the IRS has never taken a house of worship to court for alleged violation of the prohibition through political comments from the pulpit, presumably at least in part because of concerns about the constitutionality of doing so. This decision is surprising, because a careful review of Free Exercise Clause case law - both before and after the landmark Employment Division v. Smith decision - reveals that the prohibition …

A Proposed Restriction On The First Amendment: Protecting Children From Internet Pedophiles, Jennifer L. Pass

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Hot Pursuit: The Media's Liability For Intentional Infliction Of Emotional Distress Through Newsgathering, Heather Berger

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Anti-Slapp Law Make Benefit For Glorious Entertainment Industry Of America: Borat, Reality Bites, And The Construction Of An Anti-Slapp Fence Around The First Amendment, Jonathan Segal

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Religion In The Workplace: A Report On The Layers Of Relevant Law In The United States, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Scholarship

This article reports on the thick layers of law applicable to claims of religious exception to public and private employment workplaces in the United States. It reviews the Supreme Court's First and Fourteenth Amendment salient holdings, distinguishing public sector (government) workplaces, and the extent to which legislative bodies may and may not oblige private employers to "accommodate" religiously-asserted requirements. It also provides exhaustive footnote analyses of all major federal statutes (plus some representative state and local law variations) pertinent to the topic. Its principal conclusions are these: In the currently prevailing view of the U.S. Supreme Court, neither public nor …

Cybercrimes Vs. Cyberliberties, Nadine Strossen

Articles & Chapters

Cybercrimes vs. Cyberliberties, Chapter 8 in Internet Policy and Economics: Challenges and Perspectives 2nd ed. at 110-127 ( W.H. Lehr & L.M. Pupillo, eds. Springer, 2009).

Commerce In Religion, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As this Symposium Article contends, religion increasingly overlaps with the commercial sphere, and courts are obligated to determine whether or not to adopt an entirely hands-off approach simply because the specter of religion lurks on the horizon. Whereas the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights tends to accept its member states' separation of commercial elements out from the protections more generally accorded to religion, the U.S. Supreme Court has treated the two spheres as overlapping. To the extent that each court does consider religious transactions in terms of commercial relations, each also arrives at a very different conception …

Privatizing And Publicizing Speech, Nelson Tebbe

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

When and how should governments be permitted to use private-law mechanisms to manage their public-law obligations? This short piece poses that question in the context of Summum, which the Supreme Court decided earlier this year, and Buono, which it will hear in the fall. In both cases, the government manipulated formal property rules in order to fend off constitutional challenges. In Summum, the government took ownership of a religious symbol in the face of a free speech challenge, while in Buono it shed ownership of land containing another sectarian symbol in an effort to moot an Establishment Clause problem. Although …

Constraining Public Employee Speech: Government's Control Of Its Workers' Speech To Protect Its Own Expression, Helen Norton

Publications

This Article identifies a key doctrinal shift in courts' treatment of public employees' First Amendment claims--a shift that imperils the public's interest in transparent government as well as the free speech rights of more than twenty million government workers. In the past, courts interpreted the First Amendment to permit governmental discipline of public employee speech on matters of public interest only when such speech undermined the government employer's interest in efficiently providing public services. In contrast, courts now increasingly focus on--and defer to--government's claim to control its workers' expression to protect its own speech.

More specifically, courts increasingly permit government …

House Of Wisdom Or A House Of Cards? Why Teaching Islam In U.S. Foreign Detention Facilities Violates The Establishment Clause, Scott Thompson

Publications

In an attempt to erase Islamic-fundamentalist sentiments held by detainees apprehended in the course of the "war on terror," the United States government began teaching and preaching a more moderate version of the Qur'an and Islam to detainees in Iraq. One such detention program in Iraq was dubbed the House of Wisdom. But the wisdom of such a practice is highly suspect--both because it likely runs afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and because it may be doing more harm than good to the American effort to defuse Islamic-extremism and anti-American sentiment. This Article examines the practice …