Center for the First Amendment
Research
Section 230 is finally getting the clear-eyed attention that it deserves. No longer is it naive to suggest that we revisit the law that immunizes... MORE
The demise of Roe v. Wade has raised a host of religious liberty questions that were submerged prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v.... MORE
The protection of intimate privacy isn’t at odds with free expression. At times, we prioritize one value over the other, but, more often, intimate... MORE
Some egalitarian theories of religious freedom allow for the possibility of religious exemptions. Theories of equal value hold that when the... MORE
Violations of intimate privacy can be never ending. As long as nonconsensual pornography and deepfake sex videos remain online, privacy violations... MORE
This piece is part of a forthcoming volume entitled Painting Constitutional Law, which pairs artist Xavier Cortada’s series of paintings, “May It... MORE
This Article uses controversies over government-sponsored religious symbols and Confederate monuments to consider the appropriate constitutional... MORE
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is an important win for religious liberty. The Supreme Court protected a Catholic agency's ability to continue... MORE
A robust public debate is currently underway about the responsibility of online platforms. We have long called for this discussion, but only recently... MORE
Are some liberal justices on the Supreme Court engaged in appeasement as a strategy of judicial decisionmaking? In prior work, we specified a... MORE
In this Article, we ask whether some liberal justices have followed a strategy of judicial appeasement in recent cases involving religious freedom,... MORE
Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States is rightly celebrated for what Holmes said in his concluding paragraph about... MORE
This paper, prepared for a University of Chicago Law School symposium on “What’s the Harm? The Future of the First Amendment,” on October 25, 2019,... MORE
The Supreme Court’s decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, holding that religious schools cannot be excluded from a state program of... MORE
Fiction and visual representations can alter our understanding of human experiences and struggles. They help us understand human frailties and... MORE
An emerging intellectual and ideological critique of liberalism is coinciding with a significant transformation of the American law of church and... MORE
Catholic integralism has reemerged as a radical critique of liberalism and as a potential source of justification for illiberal regimes. Integralists... MORE
This essay, written for a forthcoming Oxford University Press volume edited by Geoffrey Stone and Lee Bollinger, probes Oliver Wendell Holmes’s... MORE
It has become increasingly common in recent years for conservative Christian thinkers to describe cultural and legal conflicts in terms of a battle... MORE
This review of Trevor Ross’s Writing in Public: Literature and the Liberty of the Press in Eighteenth Century Britain is part of a symposium in... MORE
At the dawn of the Internet’s emergence, the Supreme Court rhapsodized about its potential as a tool for free expression and political liberation. In... MORE
The most recent call for judicial intervention into state partisan gerrymandering practices ran aground on the shoals of standing doctrine in Gill v... MORE
Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission presented a conflict between LGBT rights and religious liberty. The Supreme Court avoided... MORE
When the government enacts laws or regulations that accommodate religious believers, it may not impose significant costs on identifiable third... MORE
In considering contemporary conflicts between religious freedom and equality law, a mediating principle has proved to be important, namely the rule... MORE
Silicon Valley has long been viewed as a full-throated champion of First Amendment values. The dominant online platforms, however, have recently... MORE
In August 2017, hundreds of white supremacists came to Charlottesville, Virginia, ostensibly to protest the city council’s decision to remove a... MORE
Many theorists treat free speech as a special right. Other theorists argue that, in order for free speech to be important, it must be a special right... MORE
Though it may sound surprising, there is a great deal of debate about whether speakers have free speech rights. Those who deny it say that the... MORE
This article, the written version of the Roy R. Ray Lecture delivered at the Dedman School of Law, Southern Methodist University, explores a... MORE
In considering contemporary conflicts between religious freedom and equality law, a mediating principle has proved to be important, namely the rule... MORE
What do a revenge pornographer, gossip-site curator, and platform pairing predators with young people in one-on-one chats have in common? Blanket... MORE
The liberty of citizens in a democracy has two components – the negative liberty to be let alone and the positive liberty of self-government. Both... MORE
Twenty-six years after Employment Division v. Smith, the lower courts remain divided about its meaning. What does it mean for a law to be “generally... MORE
In Speech Matters (Princeton 2014), Seana Shiffrin explains why lying is wrong, why freedom of speech is right, and why those two views are... MORE
Disclosure laws require individuals and organizations that spend money on political speech to make public their identities. The Supreme Court and... MORE
In 2007, when the media started covering the phenomenon of cyber harassment, the public’s reaction was disheartening. Although the abuse often... MORE
In the campaign finance realm, we are in the age of the imperial First Amendment. Over the past nine years, litigants bringing First Amendment claims... MORE
This book review of Catherine Ross's Lessons in Censorship places issues involving the free speech rights of public school students in the context of... MORE
In recent years, many litigants have found the First Amendment to be a useful tool. One could mention pornography actors, tattoo artists, death row... MORE
This is a short reply to an attempted rebuttal of an amicus brief that I filed in the Supreme Court’s contraception cases. The brief says that for-... MORE
Religious liberty has become much more controversial in recent years. A principal reason is deep disagreements over sexual morality. On abortion, gay... MORE
The idea that religion warrants special treatment has been criticized as violating norms of equality and fairness. In response, Andrew Koppelman has... MORE
A growing number of critics have asked whether singling out religion for special treatment is morally justifiable. In Religion Without God, Ronald... MORE
It is axiomatic that whether speech is protected turns on whether it poses a serious risk of harm — in Holmes’s formulation, a “clear and present... MORE
What does it mean to say that the government may not “restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content?”... MORE
This essay in an exercise in responding to the question “how did we get here” with respect to a contest contemporary issue in First Amendment... MORE
Tobacco policy in the United States is being transformed from the laissez faire approach (accompanied by a stunning history of industry deception)... MORE
Violations of sexual privacy, notably the non-consensual publication of sexually graphic images in violation of someone's trust, deserve criminal... MORE
This review essay for the Yale Law Journal of Robert Post’s Citizens Divided: Campaign Finance Reform and the Constitution contrasts Post’s hopeful... MORE
Campaign finance law is in shambles, and many believe that wealthy, shadowy interests dominate American politics. Reformers have rested their hopes... MORE
The idea that religious institutions should play a central role in understanding the First Amendment has become increasingly prominent in recent... MORE
This symposium paper presents a dilemma for present-day proponents of “freedom of the church,” who argue that religious institutions: (1) are... MORE
In First Amendment doctrine, the “chilling effect” is often invoked as an objection to an otherwise legitimate rule that has the incidental effect of... MORE
Creating a physical place of worship is a core First Amendment activity, but churches are often unpopular in the zoning context, and zoning law... MORE
A central feature of First Amendment law is the prohibition on content discrimination: the government generally may not regulate expression on the... MORE
This review of Money, Politics, and the Constitution: Beyond Citizens United, soon to appear in the Election Law Journal, canvasses this collection... MORE
Disclosure of information causes trouble under multiple First Amendment paradigms. Although First Amendment doctrine favors purpose inquiries over... MORE
In seeking to develop a more coherent theory of the First Amendment’s Expression Clauses, the Supreme Court has largely overlooked an important... MORE
Can religion or race ever be the basis for legitimate government policies? For several decades, constitutional law concerning both religion and race... MORE
This Article argues that leading accounts of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses fail to provide a coherent and morally attractive position on... MORE
Conventional wisdom, embraced by judges and scholars alike, holds that mandatory disclosure chills political speech. That must be right for some... MORE
This Essay, written for a symposium commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Employment Division v. Smith, examines the politics of free exercise... MORE
Despite the heated legal, political, and scholarly battles that rage around the Court’s Establishment Clause decisions, this Article contends that... MORE
This paper offers a defense of the idea that taxation to promote religion infringes on taxpayers’ freedom of conscience. Critics have argued that... MORE
This article examines three free speech cases decided by the Supreme Court in its past two Terms. The three cases – United States v. Stevens, Snyder... MORE
New expressive technologies continue to transform the ways in which members of the public speak to one another. Not surprisingly, emerging... MORE
A pervasive problem in public discourse is the seemingly increasing prevalence in public debate of demonstrably false factual propositions, such as... MORE
Social networking sites and blogs have increasingly become breeding grounds for anonymous online groups that attack women, people of color, and... MORE
The Rawlsian texts appear not to be consistent with regard to the status of the right of freedom of association. Interestingly, Rawls's early work... MORE
Government aid to religious schools can be governed by either of two principles: no aid to religion, or no discrimination among schools. No aid... MORE
This Article assesses the alarming proposition at the core of the school’s argument in Morse v. Frederick: that a school has constitutional power to... MORE
When a trade secret owner discovers its trade secrets have been posted on the Internet, there is currently no legislative mechanism by which the... MORE
Much of the Supreme Court's modern religion clause doctrine has been forged in conflicts that directly implicate the traditional powers of local... MORE
This article is a contribution to a symposium on Locke v. Davey (2004), in which the Supreme Court first confronted the question whether singling out... MORE
Although the language of the First Amendment refers to freedom of speech, it turns out that most of the vast universe of speech remains untouched (... MORE
This essay investigates the special problems that a speech taboo imposes on people who decide that they are going to talk about the very speech that... MORE
The central contention of this paper is that the Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence can best be understood from a political perspective. The... MORE
