First Amendment Commons^™

You Can’T Say That!: Public Forum Doctrine And Viewpoint Discrimination In The Social Media Era, Micah Telegen

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The growing prevalence of privately-owned social media platforms is changing the way Americans and their governments communicate. This shift offers new opportunities, but also requires a reinterpretation of the First Amendment’s proscription of government limitations of speech. The public forum doctrine and its proscription of viewpoint discrimination seem particularly stretched by the digital revolution and the development of social media. In ongoing cases, litigants and courts have invoked the doctrine to limit the government’s ability to ‘block’ those who comment critically on government pages—much to the chagrin of those who note the private status of the companies hosting the pages …

Kennedy's Last Term: A Report On The 2017-2018 Supreme Court, Marc O. Degirolami, Kevin C. Walsh

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Twenty-eighteen brought the end of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s tenure on the Supreme Court. We are now entering a period of uncertainty about American constitutional law. Will we remain on the trajectory of the last half-century? Or will the Court move in a different direction?

The character of the Supreme Court in closely divided cases is often a function of the median justice. The new median justice will be Chief Justice John Roberts if Kennedy’s replacement is a conservative likely to vote most often with Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito. This will mark a new phase of …

Speech-And-Display Laws: Balancing Physicians' Free Speech Rights And States' Interests In The Context Of Abortion, Emily Ruppert

Journal of Law and Policy

“The question is not pro-abortion or anti-abortion, the question is who makes the decision: a woman and her physician, or the government.” – Gloria Steinem

The Law Of Advertising Outrage, Mark Bartholomew

Journal Articles

This article examines the stimulation of audience outrage, both as a marketing strategy and as a subject of legal regulation. A brief history of advertising in the United States reveals repeated yet relatively infrequent attempts to attract consumer attention through overt transgressions of social norms relating to sex, violence, race, and religion. Natural concerns over audience reaction limited use of this particular advertising tactic as businesses needed to be careful not to alienate prospective purchasers. But now companies can engage in “algorithmic outrage”—social media advertising meant to stimulate individual feelings of anger and upset—with less concern for a consumer backlash. …

The Modern Public Square: Digital Viewpoint Discrimination In The Age Of @Realdonaldtrump, Jonathan Groffinan

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that official social media accounts used by political figures for public engagement should be classified as designated public forums, ensuring First Amendment protections against viewpoint discrimination. It contends that blocking users based on their viewpoints violates constitutional rights, as such accounts serve as modern public squares essential for free speech and open discourse.

A Clear And Present Danger: The Need For Regulated Accountability For Online Service Providers To Preserve And Promote Free Speech, Notice, And Due Process, Benjamin H. Winters

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

A Fish Out Of Water: Why The Gao's Approach To Finding Agency Propaganda Is Inadequate In The Social Media Age, Jennifer Pierce

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reasonable Action: Reproductive Rights, The Free Exercise Clause, And Religious Freedom In The United States And The Republic Of Ireland, Liam Ray

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note will argue that by denying certiorari in Stormans v. Wiesman, the Supreme Court missed an important opportunity to provide guidance to the states as to how the Free Exercise Clause applies to the kind of stocking and dispensing regulations adopted by the State of Washington. This Note will further argue from a policy perspective that the approach to these kinds of regulations adopted by the Republic of Ireland (“ROI”) presents the best approach for states to adopt because it provides a balance in terms of respecting the free exercise rights of pharmacists and pharmacy owners with …

An Antitrust Approach To Corporate Free Exercise Claims, Ronald J. Colombo

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article suggests that antitrust law’s concept of market power could similarly be employed in balancing the free exercise rights of a corporation or any for-profit business venture against the rights of individuals. When a business enterprise seeks a religious liberty exemption from a rights-granting law, a major factor in assessing its claim should be the degree to which it wields market power in the relevant market. If the business is a monopolist, and, a fortiori, wielding tremendous market power, its claim for a free exercise exemption should probably fail. If, conversely, the business is but a minor marketplace …

Locked Up, Shut Up: Why Speech In Prison Matters, Evan Bianchi, David Shapiro

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article proceeds in three Parts. Part I describes the deferential Turner standard that governs First Amendment claims brought by prisoners. Virtually every word uttered or written to a prisoner and virtually every word uttered or written by a prisoner receives extremely limited legal protection. Largely as a result of this legal regime, senseless censorship is all too common in American prisons. Jailers and prison officials seem to have received the message that they can ban speech with impunity.

Part II argues that the combination of Turner deference and mass incarceration divests prisoners of expressive power, thereby distorting public …

Section 1: Moot Court: Nieves, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

The Meaning Of Wrongdoing - A Crime Of Disrespecting The Flag: Grounds For Preserving National Unity, Mohammed Saif-Alden Wattad

San Diego International Law Journal

To conclude on this issue, the rights of others, as individuals and as a whole, are formulated as the social protected interest that criminal law seeks to protect through criminal means, and it is with these rights that criminal law theory should be concerned in the first level of scrutiny. However, in the second level of scrutiny, an additional set of rights are brought into play; these are the rights of the individual, namely the actor, to exercise their constitutional rights e.g., free speech, liberty, free exercise of religion. The second level of scrutiny requires balancing those rights with the …

Reply: Conscience And Equality, Nelson Tebbe

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In this Reply, I explore some larger questions that have been prompted by the book but that fell outside its focus on the interaction between religious freedom and civil rights law. Spurred by the responses, but also independent of them, I examine the implications of my arguments for an egalitarian theory of the First Amendment. Though it is of course impossible to fully develop such a vision in this Reply, there is room to begin that work. Along the way, I answer some of the more pointed questions posed in these six responses.

Keynote Address, Ryan Calo

Seattle University Law Review

Transcript of the keynote address at the 2018 Seattle University School of Law symposium “Singularity: AI and the Law.” The keynote address is presented by Ryan Calo and discusses the current status of artificial intelligence learning, and how this current status is moving toward robotic singularity.

Robotic Speakers And Human Listeners, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

This article discusses protected First Amendment speech and how this protection should be applied to robotic speech. Robotic speech is that created by automated means, currently “bots” but the producers of automated speech are evolving. The article further differentiates between rights of the producers of this speech and listeners or consumers of the speech, and the impact of First Amendment protections on each group.

Panel 2: Accountability For The Actions Of Robots, Ryan Calo, Howard Jay Chizeck, Elizabeth Joh, Blake Hannaford

Seattle University Law Review

Transcript of the panel discussion at the 2018 Seattle University School of Law symposium “Singularity: AI and the Law” discussing human control and Artificial Intellegence learning. The panel participants are Ryan Calo, Howard Jay Chizeck, Elizabeth Joh, and Blake Hannaford.

Ethical Machines?, Ariela Tubert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores the possibility of having ethical artificial intelligence. It argues that we face a dilemma in trying to develop artificial intelligence that is ethical: either we have to be able to codify ethics as a set of rules or we have to value a machine’s ability to make ethical mistakes so that it can learn ethics like children do. Neither path seems very promising, though perhaps by thinking about the difficulties with each we may come to a better understanding of artificial intelligence and ourselves.

Panel 1: Robotic Speech And The First Amendment, Bruce E. H. Johnson, Helen Norton, David Skover

Seattle University Law Review

Transcript of the panel discussion at the 2018 Seattle University School of Law symposium “Singularity: AI and the Law.” The panel is moderated by Seattle University School of Law Professor Gregory Silverman, and discusses the forthcoming book Robotica, by David M. Skover and Ronald K. L. Collins. The panelists are Bruce E. H. Johnson, Helen Norton, and David M. Skover.

Virtual Ethics And The Creeper Act, Justin Tiehen

Seattle University Law Review

A legal and moral discussion of the development of child sex bots (CSB), childlike sex dolls, comparing society-at-large’s general squeamishness of the area, and attempts to regulate (for example, the CREEPER Act) with the prophylactic therapeutic benefits of these robots.

Artificial Intellegence And Policing: First Questions, Elizabeth E. Joh

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly larger role in all sectors of society, including policing. Many police departments are already using artificial intelligence (AI) to help predict and identify suspicious persons and places.1 Increased computational power and oceans of data have given rise to inferences about violence and threats.2 AI will change policing just as it will healthcare, insurance, commerce, and transportation. But what questions should we ask about AI and policing?