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What Price Victory?: The Triumph of First Amendment Absolutism And Its Costs

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2018

Publication Title

Common Reader

Abstract

Two years ago I was kibitzing with a group of under-50 First Amendment scholars at the nation’s most bustling academic First Amendment conference, held annually at Yale Law School. Our discussion wound from anti-LGBT funeral protests through campaign finance, campus speech, and government secrecy. One considerably more seasoned attendee, the legendary free speech litigator Floyd Abrams, listened with keen interest. (I later learned that he provided funding for the conference.) After sitting quietly through much of the conversation, Abrams genially but pointedly asked why we young scholars all wanted to limit the freedom of speech so much.

Keywords

First Amendment Absolutism

Publication Citation

Gregory P. Magarian, What Price Victory? : The Triumph of First Amendment Absolutism and Its Costs., Common Reader, May 9, 2018.

Comments

A Review of Lloyd Abrams, "The Soul of the First Amendment".

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