scholarly journals Meaning in the Use of Freedom: The Free Press Underground, the University of Missouri, and Students for a Democratic Society

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Chris Drew

The Free Press Underground was an independent newspaper edited and published by University of Missouri students in the 1960’s. Four students were arrested for distributing a February,1969 edition of the paper. One of those students was ultimately expelled. Her name was Barbara Papish. She and the ACLU took the MU’s Board of Curators to court, and ultimately made it to the Supreme Court in 1973. Papish’s expulsion was ruled unconstitutional. A deeper analysis of the historical context surrounding this incident will reveal the ongoing power struggle and antagonism shared between the University and the student publishers, and draw lessons for contextualizing free speech incidents. This will be shown as necessary for seeing the underlying purpose, intent, and meaning buried beneath the oft over simplified struggle for public opinion surrounding morality and freedom, as exemplified by this incident.

AmeriQuests ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Percy DeWitt

David M. O’Brien’s Congress Shall Make No Law: The First Amendment, Unprotected Expression, and the Supreme Court serves as a significant contribution to the field of First Amendment Law by offering an overview of crucial issues and, moreover, by emphasizing the outlook for the future of free speech. O’Brien’s credentials position him favorably for the task; he was a judicial fellow and research associate with the Supreme Court, he has written numerous articles and books on the Supreme Court, and he is currently the Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Law at the University of Virginia. Considering the daunting task of compiling a succinct account and analysis of the history of free speech in the United States, Professor O’Brien does well to allow readers to better understand the complexities of free speech policy in the United States.


Author(s):  
Ulf Johansson Dahre

The principle of free speech is considered fundamental for the democratic society. Free speech is a non-partisan principle that serves and favours no one. However, two recent controversial court cases in the Swedish Supreme Court show that the neutral free speech principle does not exist. The Supreme Court argued, in spite of the presumed neutrality of who says what, that it does matter who says what. The two cases concerned hate speeches against homosexuals. In the case against the speech of the church cleric, the court argued that freedom of religion is more fundamental than free speech and thus considered the disdain of homosexuals within the confi nes of the law. In the other case concerning the hate speech by a Nazi-nationalistic group, the same court argued that this was illegitimate speech. The speeches were similar in content. The conclusion from this might be that there is no such thing as free speech. The free speech arena is just a battlefi eld where different ideas and ideologies are competing for political and cultural hegemony in the state. Law, moreover, is an expression of the court’s defi nition of the cultural content in society.  


1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 1139-1153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory A. Caldeira

I show the intimate connection between the actions of the justices and support for the Supreme Court during one of the most critical periods of U.S. political history, the four months of 1937 during which Franklin D. Roosevelt sought legislation to “pack” the high bench with friendly personnel. Over the period from 3 February through 10 June 1937, the Gallup Poll queried national samples on 18 separate occasions about FDR's plan. These observations constitute the core of my analyses. I demonstrate the crucial influence of judicial behavior and the mass media in shaping public opinion toward the Supreme Court. This research illuminates the dynamics of public support for the justices, contributes to a clearer understanding of an important historical episode, shows the considerable impact of the mass media on public attitudes toward the Court, and adds more evidence on the role of political events in the making of public opinion.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-28
Author(s):  
Dragutin Avramović

Following hypothesis of Andrew Watson, American professor of Psychiatry and Law, the author analyses certain psychological impacts on behavior of judges and examines the relationship between their idiosyncrasies and their judicial decisions. The survey encompasses the judges of Criminal Department of the Supreme Court of Cassation of the Republic of Serbia and, also, for comparative reasons, the judges of Criminal Department of the First Basic Court in Belgrade. Considering the main issues there is no great discrepancy between answers given by the judges of the Supreme Court and those of the Basic Court. Most responses of the Serbian judges deviate from Watson's conclusions, namely: they do not admit that they feel frustrated due to heavy caseloads, the significant majority of judges are reluctant to acknowledge their prejudices and influence of biases on their ruling, the significant majority of judges are not burdened with the idea of possible misuse of their discretion, they nearly unanimously deny that public opinion and media pressure affect their rulings, etc. Generally, the judges in Serbia are not willing to admit that they cannot always overcome their own subjectivities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 223
Author(s):  
Thiago Aguiar Pádua

RESUMOEste artigo busca dialogar com recentemente artigo publicado pelo professor Eduardo Mendonça, no qual expõe a percepção de que o desgaste da representação político-parlamentar daria lugar a uma atuação do Supremo Tribunal Federal como representante da opinião pública. Discordamos de sua construção teórica a partir de recurso metodológico da argumentação jurídica. Realizamos análise sobre dois documentos contextualizados de nossa historiografia constitucional, advindos as vésperas de dois períodos de exceção, e que também se fundamentavam no mesmo desgaste da representação político-parlamentar: 1) missiva escrita por Monteiro Lobato em 1924 ao presidente Artur Bernardes, e, portanto, as vésperas da revolução de 1930; e, 2) artigo-manifesto escrito por Goffredo Telles Jr em 1963, e assim sendo, as vésperas do golpe de Estado Civil-Militar de 1964. Articulamos discussão de premissas, utilizando o pensamento do jurista e sociólogo argentino Roberto Gargarella, discutindo as causas do desgaste da representação político-parlamentar, constatando que tal desgaste decorre da forma como as instituições foram desenhadas, de maneira a afastar a cidadania das discussões políticas, por temor do fenômeno democrático. Concluímos constatando que ao invés de se realizar empoderamento de um agente decisório, de duvidosa conotação democrática como o STF, mais adequado seria estimular e fomentar o acesso da população à “Sala de Máquinas da Constituição”.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Desgaste da Representação Política; Suprema Corte; Opinião Pública; Sala de Máquinas da Constituição.  ABSTRACTThis article is a dialogue with a recently published article by the professor Eduardo Mendonça, which exposes perception that the erosion of political and parliamentary representation would result in a performance of the Supreme Court as a representative body of public opinion. We disagree with his theoretical construction, articulating the critique from methodological analysis of the legal argument. We also analysis two documents of our constitutional history, coming on the eve of two periods of exception, which also were based on the same argument of erosion of political and parliamentary representation: 1) The letter written in 1924 by Monteiro Lobato to President Artur Bernardes, and therefore short before the 1930’s revolution. 2) The article-manifest written by Goffredo Telles Jr in 1963 a few days before the 1964 Civil-Military coup d’état. We articulate a discussion of premises, using the thought of the argentine sociologist and jurist Roberto Gargarella, discussing the causes of the erosion of political and parliamentary representation, noting that such thing arises from the way the political institutions were designed, in order to depart citizenship of political discussions, for the fear of the democratic phenomenon. We conclude noting that instead of performing empowerment of a decision-making agent of dubious democratic connotation, as the Supreme Court, most appropriate would be to encourage and foster the population's access to “Engine Room of Constitution”.KEYWORDS: Erosion of political and parliamentary representation; Supreme Court; Public Opinion; Engine Room of the Constitution.


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