Category: 95:6

The experience of writing a book and then reading what some very smart and knowledgeable people have to say about the subject matter is humbling and a little dizzying. In Managed Speech: The Roberts Court’s First Amendment, I try to make some sense of the present Supreme Court’s decisions over the past decade about the…

In his insightful new book, Managed Speech: The Roberts Court’s First Amendment (2017), Professor Greg Magarian criticizes the Roberts Court for adopting a “managed speech” approach in its First Amendment cases. According to Professor Magarian, that approach gives too much power to private and governmental actors to manage public discourse, constrain dissident speakers, and instill…

The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has been praised in many quarters as a committed ally of free speech. Certainly, a number of Roberts Court decisions do protect speech. Putting aside the Court’s controversial campaign finance decisions—the merits of which divide even free speech advocates—the Roberts Court’s speech-protective decisions include several cases in…

One of Professor Magarian’s more impressive achievements in Managed Speech is paying the Roberts Court the compliment of providing a theory that runs through its various First Amendment cases. The book shows us surprising and hidden connections between disparate opinions by the Justices of the Court, and between different areas of First Amendment law. Importantly,…

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 ACLU v. Reno (1997), the Supreme Court adopted a bold vision of Internet expression to strike down a federal law – the Communications Decency Act – that restricted digital expression to…

John Roberts assumed his position as Chief Justice of the United States just prior to the commencement of the October 2005 Term of the Supreme Court. That was seven years after Google was incorporated, one year before Facebook became available to the general public, and two years before Apple released the first iPhone. The twelve…