First Amendment Commons^™

Limiting Tort Liability For Online Third-Party Content Under Section 230 Of The Communications Act, Jonathan A. Friedman, Francis M. Buono

Federal Communications Law Journal

Section 230 of the Communications Act provides online service providers (OSPs) with immunity from liability for harms arising from third-party content that is made available through an OSP's services. Some courts have recently held that section 230 immunity covers not only defamation but any tort claim that would make an OSP liable for information originating from the OSP's users or commercial partners. This Article argues that section 230 has been properly interpreted by the courts and that, contrary to the claims of critics, those decisions have not created a disincentive for OSPs aggressively to monitor their sites for defamatory or …

Editorial Rights Of Public Broadcasting Stations Vs. Access For Minor Political Candidates To Television Debates, Kyu Ho Youm

Federal Communications Law Journal

In Arkansas Education Television Commission v. Forbes, the Supreme Court of the United States held that a state-owned public station did not violate the First Amendment in excluding a third-party candidate from a political debate organized and broadcast by the television station because the debate was a nonpublic forum. In this Article, Professor Youm examines the constitutional and statutory framework on the access for political candidates to TV debates, the judicial interpretations of the political candidates' claim for access to public television debates, and the Supreme Court's balancing in Forbes of the conflicts between the candidates' access rights and the …

Viacom-Cbs Merger: Media Competition And Consolidation In The New Millennium, Andrew Jay Schwartzman

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Ass'n V. United States: A Retreat From Full First Amendment Protection For Commercial Speech, Frances Clay

Mercer Law Review

In Greater New Orleans Broadcasting Ass'n v. United States, the United States Supreme Court considered whether 18 U.S.C. § 1304 which prohibits the broadcast of gambling advertisements, violated First Amendment protection of commercial speech—speech related only to the speaker's and the audience's economic interests—when applied to broadcast advertisements within states that have legalized casino gambling. Many critics expected, and perhaps hoped, the Supreme Court would seize this opportunity to discard, or at least drastically modify, the Central Hudson balancing test that the Court has used in commercial speech cases for almost twenty years. The Court refused to do so, …

Schmitt Reads Marx, Jorge E. Dotti

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Counterspeech 2000: A New Look At The Old Remedy For "Bad" Speech, Robert D. Richards, Clay Calvert

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bernstein V. United States Depament Of Justice: A Cryptic Interpretation Of Speech, Seth Hanson

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Amici Curiae Center For Education Reform Et. Al., In Support Of Appellants, Nicole Stelle Garnett, Richard W. Garnett, Paul D. Clement

Court Briefs

Nos. 00-3055, 00-3060, 00-3063
Doris Simmons-Harris v. Dr. Susan Tave Zelman

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division

From the Introduction and Summary of Argument

As many scholars have recognized, and as far too many economically disadvantaged parents are painfully aware, many of our urban public schools fail to live up to the promise of Brown. Too many poor children are consigned, and their parents resigned, to unsafe and underperforming schools. But Cleveland's school-choice program empowers hundreds of parents, who likely would not otherwise have the choice, to decide whether …

Confederate License Plates At The Constitutional Crossroads: Vanity Plates, Special Registration Organization Plates, Bumper Stickers, Viewpoints, Vulgarity, And The First Amendment, Jack Achiezer Guggenheim, Jed M. Silversmith

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Of Moons, Thongs, Holdings And Dicta: State V. Fly And The Rule Of Law, Thomas L. Fowler

Campbell Law Review

Section I of this Article reviews the facts of State v. Fly, North Carolina's law of indecent exposure prior to Fly and the Court of Appeals' decision. Section II analyzes the Supreme Court's opinion in Fly and the various rationales offered by the Court to justify its decision. Section III considers the plight of the trial judges in applying the principles, statements, and analysis announced in State v. Fly. Although trial judges must apply the rule of law, and therefore must abide by the "holding" in State v. Fly, this Article argues that trial judges have the same authority as …

Student Division Symposium Sponsored By The Institute Of The Bill Of Rights Law: Policing Obscenity And Pornography In An Online World, Ann Beeson, Deirdre Mulligan, Bruce Taylor, Bruce Watson, Jonathan Zittrain

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Keeping The Sex In Sex Education: The First Amendment's Religion Clauses And The Sex Education Debate, Gary J. Simson, Erika A. Sussman

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Recalibrating The Cost Of Harm Advocacy: Getting Beyond Brandenburg, S. Elizabeth Wilborn Malloy, Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr.

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Response To Professor Benkler, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

Professor Hamilton explores the constitutional complexity uncovered by Professor Benkler in his piece, Constitutional Bounds of Database Protection: The Role of Judicial Review in the Creation and Definition of Private Rights in Information. Specifically, Professor Hamilton highlights that our democratic structure is characterized by representation rather than self-rule. In doing so, she refocuses the role of information in the political process and highlights that different types of information require different levels of access. Professor Hamilton's analysis further illustrates how an imprecise use of terminology may lead to incorrect conclusions regarding information jurisprudence. Through her more refined lens, Professor Hamilton reconsiders …

Internet Speech And The First Amendment Rights Of Public School Students, Leora Harpaz

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Anything Goes: Examining The State's Interest In Protecting Children From Controversial Speech, Catherine J. Ross

Vanderbilt Law Review

Protecting children from contamination by speech has become the focus of national attention. The content of the protected speech that the state seeks to regulate is as varied as the form of communications targeted, including the allegedly indecent, sacrilegious, and violent in media ranging from books to the Internet. Echoing similar crusades to protect children from virtually every new form of entertainment over the last century, contemporary regulatory efforts to protect children reflect the unique legal status of children and the fragility of constitutional liberties where their vulnerabilities are invoked. But content-based restrictions on speech--even in the name of protecting …

Two Degrees Of Speech Protection: Free Speech Through The Prism Of Agricultural Disparagement Laws, Harold M. Wasserman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

In the wake of a 1989 national television broadcast reporting the alleged cancer risk of a chemical applied to apples on trees, many states passed agricultural product disparagement (APD) statutes. These statutes grant civil causes of action to the growers and sellers of perishable food products, against anyone who speaks negatively or disparagingly, without basis in scientific evidence, about the product's safety. In this Article, Howard M Wasserman explores the interplay between the APD statutes and the First Amendment. First, Mr. Wasserman discusses the three categories of restrictions on the freedom of speech, focusing primarily on private civil tort actions …

Silencing John Doe: Defamation & Discourse In Cyberspace, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

John Doe has become a popular defamation defendant as corporations and their officers bring defamation suits for statements made about them in Internet discussion fora. These new suits are not even arguably about recovering money damages but instead are brought for symbolic reasons—some worthy, some not so worthy. If the only consequence of these suits were that Internet users were held accountable for their speech, the suits would be an unalloyed good. However, these suits threaten to suppress legitimate criticism along with intentional and reckless falsehoods, and existing First Amendment law doctrines are not responsive to the threat these suits …

Comment: Separation And Schools, Kent Greenawalt

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Classroom Lecture For Copyright Law, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

The differences between direct, vicarious and contributory liability, Section 512 in related matters. Alright, now let's move on to the next question, which is criminal liability. You read some material on that. And the basic lessons that I want you to take from the material are the following. First, notice that federal copyright law does not impose criminal liability easily as ordinary laws of tangible property do. And I think that that's a good thing. Remember that guy in Les Miserables who's pursued for stealing a loaf of bread. Stealing in the sense of copying one song would not make …

The Constitutional Flaws In The New Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act: Why Rfras Don't Work, Mary Jean Dolan

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Link Between Student Activity Fees And Campaign Finance Regulations, Leslie Gielow Jacobs

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Religion In The Workplace: Proceedings Of The 2000 Annual Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools Section On Law And Religion, William P. Marshall, Roberto L. Corrada, Michael W. Mcconnell, Joanne C. Brant, Robert W. Tuttle, Ira C. Lupu

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The religion clauses of the Constitution do not have to stand against one another. Viewed broadly they both encourage tolerance of religious practice and belief, the Establishment Clause by not allowing one religion to occupy a place above all others and the Free Exercise Clause by allowing all religions to flourish. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act does no violence to either clause in attempting to restore religion to its place among other important concerns of government

The Calm Before The Storm: First Amendment Cases In The 1998-99 Term, Joel Gora

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Should The Brandenburg V. Ohio Incitement Test Apply In Media Violence Cases?, Rodney A. Smolla

Scholarly Articles

None available.

First Amendment & Goal: High School Recruiting And The State Actor Theory, David W. Dulabon

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

After hearing the arguments of both sides, the District Court for Middle Tennessee held that the recruiting rule violates the First Amendment, making the sanctions imposed by the TSSAA on Brentwood Academy void and unenforceable. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit failed to address the First Amendment issue due to its holding that the TSSAA did not constitute a state actor for constitutional law purposes. The Sixth Circuit concluded that the TSSAA's actions are not fairly attributable to the state of Tennessee. The court also noted that Brentwood Academy's purely voluntary association with the TSSAA prevented the private high school from …

Boerne And Buddhism: Reconsidering Religious Freedom And Religious Pluralism After Boerne V. Flores, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 689 (2000), Eric Pruitt

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nelson V. Mcclatchy Newspapers: What Happens When Freedom Of The Press Collides With Free Speech?, Adam Horowitz

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Resolving Tensions Between Copyright And The Internet, Walter Effross

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Religious Liberty And The Politics Of Judicial Review, Robert A. Destro

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.