The Supreme Court Defines the Marketplace of Ideas

1996 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Wat Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Marketplace Of Ideas ◽  
Regulatory Scheme ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The U.S

The marketplace of ideas metaphor is the model most called upon by the U.S. Supreme Court in the resolution of free-expression cases. Justices have used the theory in the adjudication of virtually every area of First Amendment law, despite increasing attacks on the theory. For the most part, however, the Court does not recognize a single, universal marketplace of ideas, but numerous mini-marketplaces, each with its own dynamics, parameters, regulatory scheme, and audience.

Defining Government Speech: Recent Approaches and the Germaneness Principle

2005 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 398-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward L. Carter
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Private Speech ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Government ◽  
The U.S

In the last decade, the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts have fashioned the -principle that the First Amendment does not limit the government's ability to determine the content of its own messages. Yet the Supreme Court has not defined what is meant by “government speech.” Defined broadly, it may encompass viewpoint-based messages on controversial social issues, privately funded advocacy on behalf of certain industries, and official endorsement of certain ideologies. In the face of this uncertainty, and confronted with numerous recent cases in which the government asserts its right to expression, the U.S. courts of appeal have devised three major approaches to distinguishing government speech from private speech. The Supreme Court touched on aspects of these approaches in an important 2005 opinion, yet significant questions remain about the definitional contours of the Court's developing government speech doctrine.

Assembly, Press, and Petition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Zick
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Speech Clause

Chapter 3 examines the Free Speech Clause’s interactions with its First Amendment cousins—the Assembly Clause, Press Clause, and Petition Clause. It explains how and why the Supreme Court collapsed these distinctive rights into a general “Free Expression Clause” that is governed primarily by free speech doctrines and principles. The chapter examines in detail the events and influences that led each clause to be subordinated to or supplanted by the Free Speech Clause. It explains the negative consequences of free speech expansionism, for the non-speech rights and the freedom of speech. The chapter considers existing proposals for recovering or reviving the Assembly, Press, and Petition Clauses, but argues that we must rethink and expand the project. We need to work toward a First Amendment pluralism that not only disaggregates the elements of the fictional “Free Expression Clause,” but also reconnects once and still “cognate” rights of speech, assembly, press, and petition.

scholarly journals The Holmes Truth: Toward a Pragmatic, Holmes-Influenced Conceptualization of the Nature of Truth

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-203
Author(s):  
Jared Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
William James ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Oliver Wendell Holmes ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Truth as a fundamental ingredient within the flow of discourse and the application of freedom of expression in democratic society has historically received considerable attention from the U.S. Supreme Court. Many of the Court’s central precedents regarding First Amendment concerns have been determined by how justices have understood truth and how they have conceptualized the complex relationship truth and falsity share. Despite the attention truth has received, however, the Court has not provided a consistent understanding of its meaning. For these reasons, this article examines how the Supreme Court has conceptualized truth in freedom-of-expression cases, ultimately drawing upon the results of that analysis, as well as pragmatic approaches to philosophy, the so called “pragmatic method” put forth by American philosopher William James, to propose a unifying conceptualization of truth that could be employed to help the Court provide consistency within its precedents regarding the meaning of a concept that has been central to the Court’s interpretation of the First Amendment since, in many ways, another pragmatist and friend of James’s, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, substantially addressed truth in his dissent in Abrams v. United States. The article concludes by proposing that the courts conceptualize the nature of truth via three substantially related understandings: that truth is a process, that it is experience-funded, and that it is not absolute and is best approached without prejudice. Each of the three ingredients relates, at least to some extent, with thematic understandings put forth by the Court in previous freedom-of-expression cases, and therefore does not represent a significant departure from justices’ traditional approaches to truth. The model, most ideally, does seek, with the help of pragmatic thought and ideas put forth by Justice Holmes, to encourage consistent recognition of certain principles regarding truth as justices go about considering its nature in First Amendment cases.

Individual Rights and the First Amendment

1983 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 23-23
Author(s):  
Joel B. Grossman
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Class Discussion ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Individual Participant ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Judicial Protection

This seminar is designed to explore the role of the Supreme Court and the First Amendment in protecting, encouraging, and regulating free expression in the United States. Class discussion, readings, (and to the extent possible) individual participant reports, will focus on key doctrinal developments, on the extent to which First Amendment values have become part of the prevailing legal/political culture, on the effectiveness of judicial protection of First Amendment rights, and on contrasting liberal and conservative approaches to defining and implementing First Amendment values.Since the 1960s consistently, and before that sporadically, the Supreme Court has articulated a liberal theory of the First Amendment which emphasizes the importance of free expression for its own sake as well as its unique instrumental role in the achievement and preservation of other cherished rights.

Missed Opportunity: Educating Newspaper Readers about First Amendment Values

1989 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-53
Author(s):  
Dorothy Bowles
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Historical Examination ◽  
Missed Opportunity

Historical examination of how editorial writers explained important First Amendment decisions by the Supreme Court indicates that readers received short shrift in terms of how editorial writers discussed free expression issues and values. Editorial writers, often poorly versed themselves in the kinds of legal issues under judicial review and dependent on largely untrained reporters for details, concentrated their editorial judgments on reported facts of the cases, not issues, values or implications for society.

A Note on the Law and Economics of Stolen Valor

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-119
Author(s):  
Dennis L. Weisman
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Wage Premium ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Law ◽  
Jel Classifications

The issue of stolen valor concerns the act of trading on false claims of being awarded valorous military service medals. The Supreme Court overturned the 2005 Stolen Valor Act, largely on First Amendment grounds, ruling that even false speech deserves some protection. Misrepresentation that devalues the reputation of medals for valor may not violate the revised statute despite reducing the expected wage premium associated with being awarded the medal for valor and discouraging investment in military effort. Hence, the law and economics of stolen valor are in some conflict. JEL Classifications: D82, H1, K23

scholarly journals Patterson v. McLean: A Confirmation of the New Right at the U.S. Supreme Court

2005 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 987-1009
Author(s):  
George M. Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Presidential Appointments ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

In two consecutive national elections a conservative, Ronald Reagan, was elected President of the United States. When Justice Lewis Powell announced his retirement during the late months of the Reagan administration, it was apparent that the President's last appointment could shift the ideology of the Court to conservatism for the first time since the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower. President Reagan's prior appointments, Sandra Day O'Connor and Antonin Scalia, had joined William Rehnquist, an appointee of President Nixon and Bryon White, an appointee of President Kennedy to comprise a vociferous minority of four in many instances, especially cases involving civil rights. The unexpected opportunity for the appointment of a conservative jurist caused great anxiety in the media and in the U.S. Senate, the later having confirmation power over presidential appointments to the Supreme Court. This article examines the consequences of the Senate's confirmation of Justice Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court. The impact, which was immediate and dramatic, indicates that conservative ideology will predominate on major civil rights issues for the remainder of this century.

scholarly journals Le contrôle des prix et des revenus au Canada

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-310
Author(s):  
Richard G. Lipsey
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The U.S

Abstract This paper is a summary of the Legal Factum submitted by the Canadian Labor Congress to the Supreme Court of Canada. It intends to demonstrate the irrelevance of the Anti-Inflationnary Act of October 1975. Three main questions are dealt with. First, was there an economic crisis in October 1975? Analysing various sets of data, the paper concludes that, by no stretch of imagination, could October 1975 be called an economic crisis. Second, was there a policy crisis in the sense that traditional methods had been tried and failed? It establishes here that no serious attempt had been made to contain inflation by traditional fiscal and monetary tools by October 1975. Third, what results can be expected from income policies? This part gives a summary of the voluminous evidence for the U.K. and the U.S., and concludes that the evidence of other incomes policies is that their effects on slowing the rate of inflation are small and often transitory.

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