First Amendment Commons^™

Contract Law Should Be Faith Neutral: Reverse Entanglement Would Be Stranglement For Religious Arbitration, Michael J. Broyde, Alexa J. Windsor

Faculty Articles

The first section of this Article will outline the ways in which communities—religious and other groups, including the LGBTQ+ community—have used and continue to use private law to achieve meaningful dispute resolution. By diminishing the role of civil courts to review arbitrations, parties may tailor their resolutions to prioritize community values that may be misaligned with secular society. Outside of historical religious usage, private law offers a field ripe for jurisprudential growth. Through alternative dispute resolution, affinity-based minority groups can pave an avenue towards justice which accurately reflects the unique values of their lived experiences.

The second section will provide …

The Campus Battle Over Expression And Equality: Combatting Discrimination By Restricting Freedom?, Faisal Bhabha

Articles & Book Chapters

Given that the purpose of post-secondary education is to advance knowledge, academic life requires protection from unreasonable interference arising from institutional policies or public pressure. This paper argues that, in the interests of providing a safe and inclusive learning environment, universities have run the risk of unduly restricting debate and the exchange of ideas through unwarranted applications of anti-discrimination norms on campus. Based on a detailed review of the jurisprudence, the author contends that human rights legislation imposes no requirement, and provides little authority, for constraining thought or speech in higher education. Indeed, the threats to freedom of expression on …

Unprecedented Precedent And Original Originalism: How The Supreme Court’S Decision In Dobbs Threatens Privacy And Free Speech Rights, Leonard Niehoff

Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has drawn considerable attention because of its reversal of Roe v. Wade and its rejection of a woman’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy. The Dobbs majority, and some of the concurring opinions, emphasized that the ruling was a narrow one. Nevertheless, there are reasons to think the influence of Dobbs may extend far beyond the specific constitutional issue the case addresses.

This article explains why Dobbs could have significant and unanticipated implications for the law of privacy and the law of free expression. I argue that two …

To Prohibit Free Exercise: A Proposal For Judging Substantial Burdens On Religion, Eric H. Wang

Emory Law Journal

In Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court famously held that the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause permits neutral laws of general applicability to incidentally burden religion without offering religious exemptions. Today, many people—including Justice Alito in his concurrence in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia—are calling for Smith to be replaced by a jurisprudence that applies strict scrutiny to neutral, generally applicable laws that place a substantial burden on religion.

Yet, both before and after Smith, what exactly has constituted a “substantial burden” on religion has been far from clear. While some courts indicate that burdens on …

Awakening The Law: Unmasking Free Exercise Exceptionalism, Berta Esperanza Hernández-Truyol

Emory Law Journal

The U.S. Constitution protects myriad, often intertwined, individual rights. Sometimes, protected fundamental rights collide, yet the Constitution lacks a methodology to resolve such clashes. Indeed, an internal tension exists even within the rights included in the First Amendment, as whenever the government acts to protect Free Exercise it advances religion. Rather than adopt a methodology that respects and considers all constitutional rights at issue in instances when constitutional rights are in collision, the Court has embraced Free Exercise Exceptionalism (“FEE”), a doctrine pursuant to which the Court elevates Free Exercise above all rights, including the prohibition expressed in the Establishment …

The ‘Weaponized’ First Amendment At The Marble Palace And The Firing Line: Reaction And Progressive Advocacy Before The Roberts Court And Lower Federal Courts, Seth F. Kreimer

Emory Law Journal

It once seemed that the First Amendment doctrine developed by the Supreme Court stood as a bulwark protecting grassroots struggles for social change. In the twenty-first century, however, particularly since the appointments of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito in 2005, a number of observers have begun to view the Supreme Court’s First Amendment work as a “weaponized” redoubt of reaction.

This sense of the rightward tilt of Supreme Court decisions is rooted in reality. Examining 104 Supreme Court First Amendment cases decided during the 2005–2020 Terms, it turns out that successful litigants are four times as likely to come …

Leave Your Conscience At The Court: Religious Tax Protest Before And After Rfra, Samuel D. Brunson

Faculty Publications & Other Works

In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of Americans objected, on religious grounds, to paying income taxes on the grounds that certain government spending violated their religious beliefs. These religious tax protestors largely came from two traditions: Catholics, who opposed government spending on abortion and Quakers, whose Peace Testimony prohibited them from paying taxes that funded war.

These First Amendment objections proved singularly unavailing. Courts consistently held that the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution does not excuse tax payments, irrespective of the sincerity and ardor of a religious believer’s objections. This constitutional rule was fundamental and established enough that …

Sex Offenders And Internet Speech: First Amendment Protections For America's Most Reviled Outcasts, Gabriel Aderhold

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gag With Malice, Shaakirrah R. Sanders

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article brings agriculture privacy and other commercial gagging laws into the ongoing debate on the First Amendment actual malice rule announced in New York Times v. Sullivan. Despite a resurgence in contemporary jurisprudence, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have recently questioned the wisdom and viability of Sullivan, which originally applied actual malice to state law defamation claims brought by public officials. The Court later extended the actual malice rule to public figures, to claims for infliction of emotional distress, and—as discussed in this Article—to claims for invasion of privacy and to issues of public importance or concern.

United …

How Scotus's Recent Decision On The Cheerleader Case Impacts Public School Students' Due Process Rights For Their Off-Campus Conduct, Abby Efron

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Nestlé V. Doe: A Death Knell To Corporate Human Rights Accountability?, Phillip Ayers

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court in Nestlé v. Doe held that foreign plaintiffs who claimed to be victims of overseas tortious conduct by corporate defendants had no jurisdiction to sue in federal courts using the Alien Tort Statute. This Comment looks at the history of the Alien Tort Statute, from its inspiration, long dormancy, and recent reinvigoration beginning in the 1980s. The Comment then explores the background of Nestlé and its issues with child slavery in its cocoa supply chain. From there, the Comment analyzes the Nestlé v. Doe decision, and posits an alternative outcome. Finally, this Comment looks for a new …

Learning From Mistakes: A Guide To Expanding The Oversight Board, Kevin Frazier

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

More than 4.4 billion people use social media. A few platforms attract a significant number of those users—for example, 2.9 billion people use Facebook, 2.3 billion use YouTube, and 1.2 billion use WeChat. How these major platforms govern themselves with respect to content moderation has an impact on billions of users and may lead to policy changes across other platforms that affect billions more. That is why it is so important to analyze Meta’s Oversight Board—an independent body created for the purpose of “promot[ing] free expression by making principled, independent decisions regarding content on Facebook and Instagram by issuing recommendations …

A Fresh Start: Sealing Eviction Records In Rhode Island, Katie Gradowski

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fuoco V. Polisena, 244 A.3d 124 (R.I. 2021), David Marks

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Henry V. Media General Operations, Inc., 254 A.3d 822 (R.I. 2021), Stefanie D. Fischer

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cyber Sit-Ins: Bringing Protest Online By Modernizing The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act, Blair V. Robinson

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mind The Gap: A Tribute To David Logan On His Retirement, Colleen P. Murphy, Justin R. Kishbaugh

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Diverse Scholarship, David Anderson

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Changemakers: Master Of Studies In Law: "Exactly What I Needed...": John Marion, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Protecting A Real Or Imagined Past: Justice Samuel Alito And The First Amendment, Derigan Silver, Dan V. Kozlowski

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the First Amendment jurisprudence of Justice Samuel Alito. In this article, we argue that the principles behind his decision-making are not always necessarily traditional methods of constitutional analysis, and litigants should understand the frames and lenses Alito uses to make decisions when making their arguments to him. The article concludes with a discussion of Alito’s overall approach to the law and some thoughts on how he is attempting to reshape the First Amendment. We write that, above all, it is clear he is seeking to protect a real or imagined past that, in his mind, is under …