First Amendment

First Amendment Are you an absolutistor a relativist?

Nat Hentoff: Absolutist • Northeastern graduate • Wrote liner notes for John Coltrane and Bob Dylan • First Amendment views formed by getting kicked off the News

Robert Bork: Relativist • Served Richard Nixon • Failed Supreme Court nominee • Blames liberal judges for protecting “vulgarity and obscenity”

Understanding“make no law” • Hentoff: Any restriction on speech, even libel law, violates the First Amendment • Bork: The First Amendment was meant to protect political speech, not indecency and violence

Hentoff on obscenity • Founders were unconcerned • Supreme Court didn’t mention until 1957 • Brennan, in Roth, introduced social value

Lenny Bruce • A satirist with a dirty mouth • How do you define social value? • Won on appeal, but it was too late

Bork on obscenity • Criticizes Snoop Dogg, Nine Inch Nails • Driven by aesthetic as well as legal judgments • Hentoff may be wrong — Chaplinsky,Near v. Minnesota

Hentoff versus Bork • Protection of political ideas versus threat of censorship • A loophole for censors versus a loophole for pornographers • Minority rights versus majority rule

First Amendment

First Amendment

Presentation Transcript

first amendment

First Amendment

The First Amendment

First Amendment Cases

First Amendment

First Amendment Law

First Amendment

First Amendment

The First Amendment

The First Amendment

The First Amendment

The First Amendment

First Amendment.

First Amendment Law

First Amendment

The First Amendment

First Amendment Rights

First Amendment

The First Amendment

The First Amendment

First Amendment

The First Amendment