LAW 702 - First Amendment

Credits: 3
Conditions: Not open to students who have taken Contemporary Problems in Law and Journalism.
Description: This course will survey the U.S. Supreme Court’s jurisprudence regarding the First Amendment. Coverage will include topics associated with the free speech clause, the free press clause, the assembly clause, the establishment clause, and the free exercise clause. Since the early part of the last century, the Justices have crafted and deployed an ever-increasing number of tests and framing devices to decide claims arising under the First Amendment. This survey course will provide a basic grounding in these doctrines and will consider some of the overarching theories that support them. The course will afford the opportunity for studies consideration of political speech, commercial speech, speech by public employees, coerced speech, government-sponsored speech, symbolic speech, the problem of obscenity, the establishment of religion, the problem of defining religion, and the limits of the free exercise clause. At the conclusion of the course, students should possess a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of both First Amendment doctrine and theory.