First Amendment Commons^™

The Marketplace Of Ideas Online, Dawn C. Nunziato

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article surveys the severe problems in today’s online marketplace of ideas and the efforts that regulators—and the online platforms themselves—have recently adopted in an attempt to address such problems. In Part I, this Article examines the historical foundations of the “marketplace of ideas” model, as articulated in Holmes’s early opinions, as well as the Court’s eventual adoption of the marketplace model and, with it, the adoption of counterspeech, instead of censorship, as the default response to harmful speech. Part II then examines the scope and extent of the problems besieging the modern online marketplace of ideas, focusing on problems …

Compelled Commercial Speech And The First Amendment, Martin H. Redish

Notre Dame Law Review

For the most part, the First Amendment is viewed as a means of restricting government’s authority to suppress expression. Both speakers and listeners are assumed to benefit from speech, and, therefore, the more communication of opinion and information, the better it is for both society and the democratic system. However, for a variety of important reasons, the courts have extended First Amendment protection to limit government’s power to compel expression by private individuals and entities. The Court has wisely recognized that governmental compulsion to speak can often bring about many of the very same constitutional and democratic pathologies brought on …

Costs And Challenges Of The Hostile Audience, Frederick Schauer

Notre Dame Law Review

In my own newly famous city of Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as in Berkeley, Boston, Gainesville, Middlebury, and an increasing number of other locations, individuals and groups engaging in constitutionally protected acts of speaking, marching, parading, protesting, rallying, and demonstrating have become targets for often-large groups of often-disruptive counterprotesters. And although most of the contemporary events have involved neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan, and other white supremacist speakers who are met with opposition from audiences on the political left, it has not always been so. Indeed, what we now identify as the problem of the hostile audience has often involved more …

Keynote Address: Staying Afloat And Engaged In Today's Flooded Marketplace Of Speech, Michael Y. Scudder

Notre Dame Law Review

The contributions to this Symposium cover substantial ground, address important issues, and offer much to react to. This Symposium, I submit, also occurs at a time of significance for the First Amendment in the Supreme Court. Perhaps the Court’s most fervent and consequential defender of free speech, Justice Anthony Kennedy, has retired. His impact on American constitutional law was enormous, including, in my view, in the area of free speech. I had the privilege of clerking for Justice Kennedy, admire him deeply as judge and person, and want to offer some reflections on what I see as a few of …

On "Clear And Present Danger", Leslie Kendrick

Notre Dame Law Review

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissent in United States v. Abrams gave us the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor and the “clear and present danger” test. Too often unremarked is the contradiction between the two. At the same time that Holmes says “the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market,” he also says that “the present danger of immediate evil” permits Congress to restrict the expression of opinion. When the anticipated harm comes about through acceptance of the speaker’s idea, then the imposition of the clear and present danger …

Marketplace Of Ideas, Privacy, And The Digital Audience, Alexander Tsesis

Notre Dame Law Review

The availability of almost limitless sets of digital information has opened a vast marketplace of ideas. Information service providers like Facebook and Twitter provide users with an array of personal information about products, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. While this data enriches the lives of those who share content on the internet, it comes at the expense of privacy.

Social media companies disseminate news, advertisements, and political messages, while also capitalizing on consumers’ private shopping, surfing, and traveling habits. Companies like Cambridge Analytica, Amazon, and Apple rely on algorithmic programs to mash up and scrape enormous amounts of online and otherwise …

Holmes, Humility, And How Not To Kill Each Other, John Inazu

Notre Dame Law Review

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissent in Abrams v. United States is one of the intellectual anchors of modern First Amendment doctrine. In that opinion, Holmes sets out two core aspects of his free speech jurisprudence: his pragmatic concern about majoritarian control and his quasi-libertarian preference for the “competition of the market.” In the century since Abrams, we have witnessed changes in society, technology, and politics that have shaped and reshaped the contours of our First Amendment landscape. But not everything has changed—some aspects of our human experience remain remarkably similar to the context in which Holmes wrote.

One unchanged …

On Public Employees And Judicial Buck-Passing: The Respective Roles Of Statutory And Constitutional Protections For Government Whistleblowers, Heidi Kitrosser

Notre Dame Law Review

In Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court held that public employees have no First Amendment protections for speech made “pursuant to their official duties.” Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy assured readers that the holding did not undermine “the potential societal value of employee speech.” Among other things, Kennedy pointed to a “powerful network of legislative enactments—such as whistle-blower protection laws and labor codes—available to [public employees] who seek to expose wrongdoing.” Yet as Justice Souter pointed out in dissent and as several amici had informed the Court in their briefs, “the combined variants of statutory whistle-blower definitions and …

The Missing Marketplace Of Ideas Theory, Mary-Rose Papandrea

Notre Dame Law Review

One hundred years ago, Justice Holmes embraced the marketplace of ideas in his dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States. The same year as this centennial anniversary, Justice Kennedy, one of the most ardent adherents to this theory, retired from the Supreme Court. The dovetailing of these two events offers the perfect excuse to evaluate the marketplace of ideas in the Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence today.

The marketplace of ideas drives many of the Court’s First Amendment decisions, from the public forum doctrine to restrictions on offensive expression to campaign finance. Although the theory is not perfect, this Article …

What Is A Confederate Monument?: An Examination Of Confederate Monuments In The Context Of The Compelled Speech And Government Speech Doctrines, Ellen Hunt

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Janus's Two Faces, Kate Andrias

Articles

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, transitions, and endings. He is often depicted as having two faces, one looking to the future and one to the past. The Supreme Court’s Janus v AFSCME case of last Term is fittingly named.1 Stunning in its disregard of principles of stare decisis, Janus overruled the forty-yearold precedent Abood v Detroit Board of Education. 2 The Janus decision marks the end of the post–New Deal compromise with respect to public sector unions and the FirstAmendment.Looking to the future, Janus lays the groundwork for further attack on labor rights—as …

Texas Indian Holocaust And Survival: Mcallen Grace Brethren Church V. Salazar, Milo Colton

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

When the first Europeans entered the land that would one day be called Texas, they found a place that contained more Indian tribes than any other would-be American state at the time. At the turn of the twentieth century, the federal government documented that American Indians in Texas were nearly extinct, decreasing in number from 708 people in 1890 to 470 in 1900. A century later, the U.S. census recorded an explosion in the American Indian population living in Texas at 215,599 people. By 2010, that population jumped to 315,264 people.

Part One of this Article chronicles the forces contributing …

Policing Hate Speech And Extremism: A Taxonomy Of Arguments In Opposition, Leonard M. Niehoff

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Hate speech and extremist association do real and substantial harm to individuals, groups, and our society as a whole. Our common sense, experience, and empathy for the targets of extremism tell us that our laws should do more to address this issue. Current reform efforts have therefore sought to revise our laws to do a better job at policing, prohibiting, and punishing hate speech and extremist association.

Efforts to do so, however, encounter numerous and substantial challenges. We can divide them into three general categories: definitional problems, operational problems, and conscientious problems. An informed understanding of these three categories of …

Legislative Prayer: Historical Tradition And Contemporary Issues, Chad West

Utah Law Review

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .”1 There is a great deal of confusion among scholars, lower federal courts, and the Justices of the Supreme Court over appropriate Establishment Clause principles,2 but it is at least clear that the government “may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which establishes a state religion or religious faith, or tends to do so.”3 It has long been settled that state and local legislative bodies may, …

Fine Line Between Right And Requirement, Erin Johnson

Augsburg Honors Review

Due to the recent influx of Muslims to the United States, many people want districts to set policies concerning whether or not the school should provide accommodations for religious practices, and if so, what steps should be taken. While some districts have no problem accommodating students' religious needs, others argue that accommodating one religion would require equal accommodations for all religions, which has potential to become overwhelming. The following analysis examines the different approaches arguing for and against the school's obligation to accommodate the students' right to practice prayer in public school; I propose that the most practical policy is …

Christian Legislative Prayers And Christian Nationalism, Caroline Mala Corbin

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Response to Mary Nobles Hancock's Note explains Christian nationalism, and argues that government sponsored Christian prayers reflect and exacerbate Christian nationalism. It further contends that to help curb Christian nationalism and its ill effects, legislative prayers ought to cease entirely. Such a result is most in keeping with the Establishment Clause goal of avoiding a caste system based on religious belief.

Inappropriate For Establishment Clause Scrutiny: Reflections On Mary Nobles Hancock’S, God Save The United States And This Honorable County Board Of Commissioners: Lund, Bormuth, And The Fight Over Legislative Prayer, Samuel W. Calhoun

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Response to Mary Nobles Hancock’s Note, after noting the complexity of the issues she presents, briefly comments on Ms. Hancock’s analysis, which focuses on how current Supreme Court doctrine should be applied to legislative prayer. Part III ranges more broadly. The author's basic position is that the Supreme Court has long misconstrued the Establishment Clause. This misinterpretation in turn has led the Court mistakenly to interpose itself into the realm of legislative prayer, an incursion the Founders never intended.

God Save The United States And This Honorable County Board Of Commissioners: Lund, Bormuth, And The Fight Over Legislative Prayer, Mary Nobles Hancock

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note addresses whether, and to what extent, the four factors proposed by the Fourth Circuit, and subsequently rejected by the Sixth Circuit, are an appropriate test of the constitutionality of a legislative prayer practice under United States Supreme Court jurisprudence. Part II explores the background of the Establishment Clause and legislative prayer. The Supreme Court has placed significant emphasis on the history of legislative prayer in evaluating modern prayer practices, as seen in its two cases Marsh v. Chambers and Town of Greece v. Galloway. Part III examines the first two circuit court decisions to consider challenges to local …

Does Janus Vs. Afscme Signal The Death Of Mandatory Bar Associations?, Brendan Williams

Et Cetera

In Janus vs. AFSCME, a closely-divided U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 41-year-old precedent and ruled that the practice of public sector unions charging agency fees to non-members in bargaining units, without affirmative consent, was “compelled speech.” The dissent warned that the decision had weaponized the First Amendment, and noted that “almost all economic and regulatory policy affects or touches speech.”

Does the logic of Janus apply to mandatory bar association dues? There is strong evidence it does. And if it signals the death of mandatory bar associations, would that necessarily be a bad thing for the legal profession? This …

Broken Platforms, Broken Communities? Free Speech On Campus, Stephen M. Feldman

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Free speech disputes have broken out on numerous college and university campuses. In several incidents, protesters have attempted to block the presentations of well-known and controversial speakers who threaten the communal status of societal outsiders. These events have sparked not only widespread media coverage but also the publication of multiple scholarly books and articles. None of this scholarship, however, has recognized that the interrelated histories of free expression and democracy can shed considerable light on these matters. This Article takes on that challenge. Specifically, this Article explores the ramifications of the historical interrelationship between free expression and democracy for campus …