From Contracts to Constitutions

2018 ◽  
pp. 108-132
Author(s):  
Julee T. Flood ◽  
Terry L. Leap
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Private Colleges ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Private Colleges And Universities ◽  
The U.S

Two key issues stemming from the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution are discussed: freedom of speech and academic freedom. These two ideals are largely non-existent for faculty members working at private colleges, and universities and they are probably more restricted than faculty at public institutions might imagine. This chapter focuses on U.S. Supreme Court cases (e.g., Garcetti v Ceballos) as well as AAUP definitions of academic freedom. Defamation and other free speech issues are also discussed.

Academic Freedom: In Our Minds, the Legal Myth Dies Slowly!

1999 ◽  
Vol 83 (610) ◽  
pp. 14-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Strope
Keyword(s):  
Public School ◽  
Academic Freedom ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Public School Teachers ◽  
School Teachers ◽  
The U.S

For public school teachers freedom of speech, protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, protects speech in two settings, outside the classroom and inside the classroom. This article focuses on freedom of speech in the classroom—that form of speech most often called academic freedom. Academic freedom concerns what is taught and/or how it is taught.

scholarly journals Elonis v. United States: The Doctrine of True Threats: Protecting Our Ever-Shrinking First Amendment Rights in the New Era of Communication

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-223
Author(s):  
Mary Margaret Roark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The U.S

The First Amendment protects one of our most precious rights as citizens of the United States—the freedom of speech. Such protection has withstood the test of time, even safeguarding speech that much of the population would find distasteful. There is one form of speech which cannot be protected: the true threat. However, the definition of what constitutes a "true threat" has expanded since its inception. In the new era of communication—where most users post first and edit later—the First Amendment protection we once possessed has been eroded as more and more speech is considered proscribable as a "true threat." In order to adequately protect both the public at large and our individual right to free speech, courts should analyze a speaker’s subjective intent before labeling speech a "true threat." Though many courts have adopted an objective, reasonable listener test, the U.S. Supreme Court now has the opportunity, in deciding Elonis v. United States, to take a monumental step in protecting the First Amendment right to free speech. By holding that the speaker’s subjective intent to threaten is necessary for a true threat conviction, the Court will restore the broad protection afforded by the First Amendment and repair years of erosion caused by an objective approach.

Where to limit the freedom of speech? Analysis in the context of the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the fighting words doctrine

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-256
Author(s):  
Karolina Palka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Socialist Party Of America ◽  
The Right

This article is about the limits of the right to free speech. The first section provides a brief introduction to this topic, primarily in the context of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The second section describes the case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, which was fundamental to the topic of this paper because the United States Supreme Court created the so-called "fighting words" doctrine based on it. In the next two sections, two court cases are presented that perfectly demonstrate the limits of the right to free speech in the United States: Snyder v. Phelps and Village of Skokie v. National Socialist Party of America. The fifth part shows the right to freedom of speech in the context of Polish civil, criminal, and constitutional law, as well as acts of international law binding on Poland. The last part is a short summary.

The First Amendment’s Impact on Bloggers

2012 ◽  
pp. 216-230
Author(s):  
Joshua Azriel
Keyword(s):  
Work Environment ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Privacy Protection ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Invasion Of Privacy ◽  
After Hours ◽  
Federal Laws ◽  
Legal Consequences

This chapter examines the First Amendment’s challenges to bloggers in the United States and highlights the potential legal consequences for victimizing someone online. While the First Amendment protects an overall right to free speech, there are certain boundaries to this right. Federal Internet-related speech laws, libel, invasion of privacy, copyright, trademark, and others are analyzed within the context of blogging. The author discusses the potential legal consequences to blogging at work or after hours and how personal blogs can negatively impact the work environment. Several Supreme Court cases are discussed to assist bloggers in understanding the scope of contemporary Internet free speech laws. An analysis of U.S. federal laws restricting online speech and an overview of the following areas of speech law are provided: libel, invasion of privacy, protection for confidential sources, copyright, trademark, true threats, and obscenity.

An Inconsistent Jurisprudence: The Doctrinal Spectrum

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-136
Author(s):  
Edward A. Jr. Purcell
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Commerce Clause ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence ◽  
The U.S

This chapter explores Justice Antonin Scalia’s constitutional jurisprudence across the broad range of issues he addressed. The chapter shows that he contradicted his originalist jurisprudence in interpreting the First Amendment (both its free speech and religion clauses) as well as the Fourth, Fifth, and Eleventh Amendments, and that he did the same in construing a variety of other constitutional doctrines including those involving standing, the treaty power, affirmative action, the Commerce Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s own appellate jurisdiction. The chapter argues that he frequently twisted, ignored, and abandoned his jurisprudential principles and methodologies he proclaimed and that the principal consistency his decisions and opinions reveal was his commitment to his own ideological goals and values.

THE POLITICS OF FREE SPEECH

2004 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-47
Author(s):  
Scott D. Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The United States ◽  
Commercial Speech ◽  
Free Theory ◽  
Legal Theorist ◽  
The U.S

Freedom of speech long has been regarded as one of the “preferred freedoms” in the United States: one of the freedoms the U.S. Supreme Court deems “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” However, what freedom of speech does—and should—mean is a highly charged question in American constitutional law. I will explore this question by examining how several prominent constitutional theorists have proposed particular approaches to free speech law in order to further their political objectives. I will examine the free speech theories of the nation's leading feminist legal theorist (regarding pornography), critical race theorists (regarding hate speech), libertarian (regarding commercial speech), and legal republican (regarding deliberative democracy). I also will discuss the principal criticisms of each of these theories, whether the courts have been influenced by any of them, and, in conclusion, whether it is possible to advance a nonpolitical (i.e., a purely law-based or value-free) theory of free speech.

INDUSTRIAL SABOTEURS, REPUTED THIEVES, COMMUNISTS, AND THE FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION

2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-91
Author(s):  
Keith E. Whittington
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
National Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Freedom Of Association ◽  
Fundamental Freedom ◽  
The U.S

The idea of a constitutional freedom of association was embraced by the U.S. Supreme Court in the mid-twentieth century as implicit in the First Amendment. Although initially endorsed by the Court as a fundamental freedom that was necessarily entwined with the freedom of speech when confronted with cases in the 1930s and 1940s of local government officials cracking down on speakers and assemblies discussing strikes and labor unions, the justices were far more divided and skeptical of freedom of association claims in cases from the mid-1940s through the early 1960s when state and national government officials were pursuing a variety of anticommunist measures. This article examines the early jurisprudential development of the constitutional freedom of association and its grounding in the First Amendment, and suggests some of the limits that the notion always carried with it. Politics and jurisprudence combined to limit its applicability in the anticommunism cases.

Averting Two Dystopias

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey Brettschneider
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
The State ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Hate Groups

This introductory chapter provides an overview of value democracy. According to value democracy, all viewpoints should be protected by rights of free speech from coercive bans or punishment. However, the state also has an obligation in value democracy that extends beyond protecting freedom of speech. It should engage in democratic persuasion, actively defending the democratic values of freedom and equality for all citizens when it “speaks.” The notion of state speech is common in First Amendment jurisprudence. It often refers to the various non-coercive functions of the state, ranging from pure expression, such as speeches, to issues of funding. By using democratic persuasion to articulate the reasons for rights, value democracy aims to answer the critics who contend that liberalism cannot defend its most basic values or counter the threat to equality that might come from hate groups in civil society.

The Right to Free Speech

Troublemakers ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 11-50
Author(s):  
Kathryn Schumaker
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Student Activism ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
School Segregation ◽  
Constitutional Rights ◽  
Freedom Summer ◽  
Des Moines ◽  
The Right ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines how two student free speech cases, Burnside v. Byars and Blackwell v. Issaquena County, emerged out of the 1964 Freedom Summer voter registration campaign in Mississippi in 1964. This chapter argues that the two cases were the result of increased student activism following Freedom Summer and that these two First Amendment cases were the result of conflict over the broader issues of racial discrimination and school segregation in Mississippi. These cases were eventually cited in the U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit Tinker v. Des Moines, which established the constitutional rights of all students and led to increased litigation. This chapter explains how the rationale in these cases focused on whether students were considered disorderly, and it argues that concepts like disorder can be racially coded and therefore affect the perception of student actions differently based on the race of students and the context of the action.

The Secret Ballot

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall P. Bezanson
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Washington State ◽  
Public Disclosure ◽  
Secret Ballot ◽  
The Government

This chapter examines the expansion of free speech to the largely mute act of voting in elections and to the protection of a person's affiliations and associations with others from public disclosure at the hands of the government. It does so through the recent Doe v. Reed case and a gay rights referendum in Washington State. It addresses the following questions: How should the freedom of speech be interpreted to protect such undeniably important acts as voting and joining with others—say, in a church or a charitable cause? Is it possible to read “freedom of speech” as protecting them without at the same time losing all pretense of restraint on the Supreme Court's power to interpret the Constitution? In addressing these larger questions, the chapter shows the parts of the First Amendment that were first pulled apart—speaker, speech, purpose—stitched back together in the form of constitutional doctrine. Is the resulting web of free speech doctrine and theory coherent or symmetrical, or is it just a tangled mess?

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