Scholarship@WashULaw

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

2017

Publication Title

Washington University Law Review

Abstract

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 First Amendment's protections for free expression.' The book argues that those decisions, taken as a whole, excessively constrain free speech within a particular managerial framework. Rather than helping speech to flourish in all its noisy, messy glory, the Roberts Court favors First Amendment claims from powerful institutional speakers while backing the government against more socially and politically marginal speakers. Corporate political spenders and commercial data miners exemplify the Roberts Court's First Amendment winners, while peace activists and fringe religions exemplify its losers. The Roberts Court's First Amendment priorities constitute the managed speech of my title. The book contrasts managed speech with a free speech model I call dynamic diversity, which seeks to protect the change-making capacity of free speech by maximizing the range of perspectives and participants in public debate.

Keywords

Robert's Court, Corporate and Commercial Data Mining, First Amendment, Free Speech, United States Supreme Court

Publication Citation

Gregory P. Magarian, The View from My Window The Roberts Court’s First Amendment Symposium, 95 Wash. U. L. Rev. 1459 (2017)

Download

Share

COinS