Lee C. Bollinger - Böcker

The Supreme Court's 1919 decision in Schenck vs. the United States is one of the most important free speech cases in American history. Written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, it is most famous for saying that 'shouting fire in a crowded theater' is not protected by the First Amendment. The case itself upheld an espionage conviction, but it also created a much stricter standard for governmental suppression of speech. Over time, the standard Holmes devised made freedom of speech in America a reality rather than merely an ideal. In The Free Speech Century, two of American's leading First Amendment scholars, Geoffrey Stone and Lee Bollinger, have gathered a group of the nation's leading legal scholars (Cass Sunstein, Lawrence Lessig, Laurence Tribe, Kathleen Sullivan, Catherine McKinnon, and others) to evaluate the development of free speech doctrine since Schenk and assess where it might be headed in our post-Snowden era. Since 1919, First Amendment jurisprudence in America has been a signal development in the history of constitutional democracies--remarkable for its level of doctrinal refinement, remarkable for its lateness in coming (in relation to the adoption of the First Amendment), and remarkable for the scope of protection for free expression it has afforded since the 1960s. Since 1919, the degree of judicial engagement with these fundamental rights has grown exponentially. We now have an elaborate set of free speech laws and norms, but as Stone and Bollinger stress, the context is always shifting. New societal threats like terrorism, heightened political sensitivities, and new technologies of communication continually reshape our understanding of what sort of speech should be allowed. Publishing on the one hundredth anniversary of the decision that established free speech as we have come to understand it today, The Free Speech Century will serve as essential overview for anyone interested in how our understanding of the First Amendment transformed over time and why it continues to change to this day.

The Supreme Court's 1919 decision in Schenck vs. the United States is one of the most important free speech cases in American history. Written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, it is most famous for saying that 'shouting fire in a crowded theater' is not protected by the First Amendment. The case itself upheld an espionage conviction, but it also created a much stricter standard for governmental suppression of speech. Over time, the standard Holmes devised made freedom of speech in America a reality rather than merely an ideal. In The Free Speech Century, two of American's leading First Amendment scholars, Geoffrey Stone and Lee Bollinger, have gathered a group of the nation's leading legal scholars (Cass Sunstein, Lawrence Lessig, Laurence Tribe, Kathleen Sullivan, Catherine McKinnon, and others) to evaluate the development of free speech doctrine since Schenk and assess where it might be headed in our post-Snowden era. Since 1919, First Amendment jurisprudence in America has been a signal development in the history of constitutional democracies--remarkable for its level of doctrinal refinement, remarkable for its lateness in coming (in relation to the adoption of the First Amendment), and remarkable for the scope of protection for free expression it has afforded since the 1960s. Since 1919, the degree of judicial engagement with these fundamental rights has grown exponentially. We now have an elaborate set of free speech laws and norms, but as Stone and Bollinger stress, the context is always shifting. New societal threats like terrorism, heightened political sensitivities, and new technologies of communication continually reshape our understanding of what sort of speech should be allowed. Publishing on the one hundredth anniversary of the decision that established free speech as we have come to understand it today, The Free Speech Century will serve as essential overview for anyone interested in how our understanding of the First Amendment transformed over time and why it continues to change to this day.

This book examines the consequences of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. While Americans benefit from its broad protection of freedom of speech, they also suffer from the extremes which result from interpretation of the same amendment. Bollinger provides a masterly critique of the major theories of freedom of expression, finding them persuasive but inadequate. Buttressing his argument with references to many specific cases, as well as with careful analysis of the primary literature on free speech, he contends that the real value of toleration of extremist speech lies in the extraordinary self-control toward antisocial behaviour that it elicits: society is strenthened by the exercise of tolerance.

Lee Bollinger is one of our foremost experts on the First Amendment--both an erudite scholar and elegant advocate. In this sweeping account, he explores the troubled history of a free press in America and looks toward the challenges ahead. The first amendment guaranteed freedom of the press in seemingly clear terms. However, over the course of American history, Bollinger notes, the idea of press freedom has evolved, in response to social, political, technological, and legal changes. It was not until the twentieth century that freedom of the press came to be understood as guaranteeing an "uninhibited, robust and wide-open" public discourse. But even during the twentieth century, government continually tried to erect barriers: the sedition laws of World War One, the use of libel law, the Pentagon Papers case, and efforts to limit press access to information. Bollinger utilizes this history to explore the meaning of freedom of the press in our globalized, internet-dominated era. As he shows, we have now entered uncharted territory. What does press freedom mean when our news outlets can instantaneously disseminate information throughout the world? When foreign media have immediate access to the American market? Bollinger stresses that even though the law will surely evolve in the coming years, we must maintain our commitment to a press that is "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open," not only in America but everywhere. Given the new ability of foreign media to reach the United States via the Internet and vice versa, it is in America's national interest for press freedoms to expand overseas. While protecting the freedom of the press at home remains a crucial task, the next challenge is to help create a global public forum suitable for an increasingly interconnected world. Part of Oxford's landmark Inalienable Rights series, this book will set the agenda for how we think about the press in the twenty-first century.

A broad explanation of the various dimensions of the problem of "bad" speech on the internet within the American context.One of the most fiercely debated issues of this era is what to do about "bad" speech-hate speech, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and incitement of violence-on the internet, and in particular speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone have gathered an eminent cast of contributors--including Hillary Clinton, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Newt Minow, Cass Sunstein, Jack Balkin, Emily Bazelon, and others--to explore the various dimensions of this problem in the American context. They stress how difficult it is to develop remedies given that some of these forms of "bad" speech are ordinarily protected by the First Amendment. Bollinger and Stone argue that it is important to remember that the last time we encountered major new communications technology-television and radio-we established a federal agency to provide oversight and to issue regulations to protect and promote "the public interest." Featuring a variety of perspectives from some of America's leading experts on this hotly contested issue, this volume offers new insights for the future of free speech in the social media era.

A broad explanation of the various dimensions of the problem of "bad" speech on the internet within the American context.One of the most fiercely debated issues of this era is what to do about "bad" speech-hate speech, disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and incitement of violence-on the internet, and in particular speech on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. In Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone have gathered an eminent cast of contributors--including Hillary Clinton, Amy Klobuchar, Sheldon Whitehouse, Newt Minow, Cass Sunstein, Jack Balkin, Emily Bazelon, and others--to explore the various dimensions of this problem in the American context. They stress how difficult it is to develop remedies given that some of these forms of "bad" speech are ordinarily protected by the First Amendment. Bollinger and Stone argue that it is important to remember that the last time we encountered major new communications technology-television and radio-we established a federal agency to provide oversight and to issue regulations to protect and promote "the public interest." Featuring a variety of perspectives from some of America's leading experts on this hotly contested issue, this volume offers new insights for the future of free speech in the social media era.

A timely defense of affirmative action policies that offers a more nuanced understanding of how centuries of invidious racism, discrimination, and segregation in the United States led to and justifies such policies from both a moral and constitutional perspective.Since 1961, the issue of "affirmative action" has been a hotly contested legal and political issue. Intended to address our nation's often horrifying discrimination against Black Americans and other minorities, affirmative action has led over the past sixty years to far greater minority representation across a vast range of industries, government positions, and academic institutions. Nonetheless, affirmative action policies in the United States continue to fall under assault. In A Legacy of Discrimination, Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone, two of America's leading constitutional scholars, trace the policy's history and the legal challenges it has faced over the decades. They argue that in order to fully comprehend affirmative action's original intent and impact, we must re-acquaint ourselves with the era in which it arose, beginning with the most important Supreme Court decision of the 20th century, 1954's Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Assessing this history, Bollinger and Stone introduce subsequent, and evolving, affirmative-action case law that had the intent and effect of constraining social, educational, and economic progress for Black people and other minority groups. They demonstrate how and why affirmative action policies stand on firm legal ground and must remain protected. Further, they explain why Americans must view affirmative action as a long-term moral commitment to secure justice, especially for Black Americans, after three and a half centuries of grave injustice that violates the most essential aspirations of our nation.A timely and robust overview of the history of our nation's historical and continuing racial discrimination and of the advent of affirmative action as a critical means to address this history, this book will serve as a powerful defense of a policy that has accomplished more than most people realize in making America a fairer and more inclusive country.

With this volume, Roe v. Dobbs: The Past, Present and Future of a Constitutional Right of Abortion, we confront the remarkable beginning and end--once again, after a half-century-of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, shockingly overruled by the Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The goal of this book is to bring together some of our nation's leading constitutional scholars, historians, philosophers, and medical experts to share their views on whether there should be a constitutional right to abortion and what the consequences of Dobbs might be.What makes this subject unique is how it intersects with our own lives, since both Bollinger and Stone were law clerks at the Supreme Court in the year that Roe was decided (1973)--Stone for Justice William Brennan and Bollinger for Chief Justice Warren Burger. During the Court's 1972 Term, when Roe was decided, the Court was in a state of flux. President Nixon had just appointed four Justices to the Court--Burger, Blackmun, Powell, and Rehnquist. The era of the Warren Court was clearly over. In those days, the Justices were non-partisan, often joined opinions across the political/ideological spectrum, and approached cases with an open mind. That in large part explains why the Court could reach the decision it did in Roe, with five of the six Republican-appointed Justices and two of the three Democratic-appointed Justices in the majority, and one Republican-appointed justice (Rehnquist) and one Democratic-appointed justice (White) in dissent. It was a different Court and a different era.

With this volume, Roe v. Dobbs: The Past, Present and Future of a Constitutional Right of Abortion, we confront the remarkable beginning and end--once again, after a half-century-of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, shockingly overruled by the Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The goal of this book is to bring together some of our nation's leading constitutional scholars, historians, philosophers, and medical experts to share their views on whether there should be a constitutional right to abortion and what the consequences of Dobbs might be.What makes this subject unique is how it intersects with our own lives, since both Bollinger and Stone were law clerks at the Supreme Court in the year that Roe was decided (1973)--Stone for Justice William Brennan and Bollinger for Chief Justice Warren Burger. During the Court's 1972 Term, when Roe was decided, the Court was in a state of flux. President Nixon had just appointed four Justices to the Court--Burger, Blackmun, Powell, and Rehnquist. The era of the Warren Court was clearly over. In those days, the Justices were non-partisan, often joined opinions across the political/ideological spectrum, and approached cases with an open mind. That in large part explains why the Court could reach the decision it did in Roe, with five of the six Republican-appointed Justices and two of the three Democratic-appointed Justices in the majority, and one Republican-appointed justice (Rehnquist) and one Democratic-appointed justice (White) in dissent. It was a different Court and a different era.

Money in political campaigns is a subject of endless current interest and enormous consequence for American democracy. Beginning in 1976, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court established a framework for public campaign regulation that declared that money constitutes "speech" and that the only constitutional basis upon which the government can regulate money was to prohibit corruption or the appearance of corruption. The Court then defined corruption narrowly and held that direct "contributions" to candidates could be limited on that basis but that "expenditures," by political candidates and others, could not. Over time as the role of money became more and more serious in politics the Court in a number of decisions seemed to be turning more willing to accept regulation. But in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the new conservative Supreme Court sharply turned against permitting regulation, including of corporations. Today that regime of nearly full protection for anyone spending virtually any amount of money for or against candidates and issues remains securely in place. The question, after a half century of this system, is whether this interpretation of the First Amendment is sound or not. If yes, then what are the justifications and what will be the consequences? If not, then what are alternative interpretations and what would the world be like under each one? The contributors, all scholars and experts in this area, give their interpretations and proposals.

Money in political campaigns is a subject of endless current interest and enormous consequence for American democracy. Beginning in 1976, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court established a framework for public campaign regulation that declared that money constitutes "speech" and that the only constitutional basis upon which the government can regulate money was to prohibit corruption or the appearance of corruption. The Court then defined corruption narrowly and held that direct "contributions" to candidates could be limited on that basis but that "expenditures," by political candidates and others, could not. Over time as the role of money became more and more serious in politics the Court in a number of decisions seemed to be turning more willing to accept regulation. But in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the new conservative Supreme Court sharply turned against permitting regulation, including of corporations. Today that regime of nearly full protection for anyone spending virtually any amount of money for or against candidates and issues remains securely in place. The question, after a half century of this system, is whether this interpretation of the First Amendment is sound or not. If yes, then what are the justifications and what will be the consequences? If not, then what are alternative interpretations and what would the world be like under each one? The contributors, all scholars and experts in this area, give their interpretations and proposals.

The university is a foundational institution in society and a cornerstone of democracy. However, recent actions taken by the Trump administration pose an existential threat to this institution by undermining its singular animating right: academic freedom. In Academic Freedom in the Era of Trump, preeminent thinkers draw from their experience as university leaders and First Amendment scholars to portray this troubling moment for academic freedom. The volume examines the legal, historical, and philosophical foundations of academic freedom, its First Amendment roots, and the implications of recent political interference. The Supreme Court has now enshrined the principle of academic freedom within our First Amendment jurisprudence, unceasingly affirming the principle while continuing to refine its contours. Yet, the Trump administration has employed an authoritarian playbook to assault this principle, withholding federal research funding and exploiting antidiscrimination laws, among other tactics. To prevail in this moment, universities must defend academic freedom by clarifying and reaffirming the constitutional origins, emphasizing the indispensable societal role, and refining and articulating the distinct culture and structures of universities that allow the principle to flourish. Urgent and timely, this book offers a powerful defense of the university as a space for free inquiry and democratic resilience.

The university is a foundational institution in society and a cornerstone of democracy. However, recent actions taken by the Trump administration pose an existential threat to this institution by undermining its singular animating right: academic freedom. In Academic Freedom in the Era of Trump, preeminent thinkers draw from their experience as university leaders and First Amendment scholars to portray this troubling moment for academic freedom. The volume examines the legal, historical, and philosophical foundations of academic freedom, its First Amendment roots, and the implications of recent political interference. The Supreme Court has now enshrined the principle of academic freedom within our First Amendment jurisprudence, unceasingly affirming the principle while continuing to refine its contours. Yet, the Trump administration has employed an authoritarian playbook to assault this principle, withholding federal research funding and exploiting antidiscrimination laws, among other tactics. To prevail in this moment, universities must defend academic freedom by clarifying and reaffirming the constitutional origins, emphasizing the indispensable societal role, and refining and articulating the distinct culture and structures of universities that allow the principle to flourish. Urgent and timely, this book offers a powerful defense of the university as a space for free inquiry and democratic resilience.

Rich in historical detail, Images of a Free Press is an elegant, powerful guide to the evolution of our modern conception of freedom of the press, which finds expression in laws that protect print journalism and regulate broadcast media. Bollinger argues that this distinction remains meaningful but he advocates a more sophisticated approach to issues of privacy, access, and technology. Providing concrete guidelines for improving media laws, Images of a Free Press is a vital First Amendment primer for lawyers, media professionals, and critics, and all concerned citizens."Images of a Free Press is the natural sequel to Lee Bollinger's first book, The Tolerant Society, and is destined to become a standard in first amendment scholarship."—Rodney A. Smolla, Constitutional Commentary"Revisiting themes he first explored some fifteen years ago, Bollinger now adds further to our understanding of the complex relationship among the First Amendment, the Supreme Court, the public, the press and the democratic process. This is a work of insight, sensitivity, and power. Bollinger has a profound knowledge of and a deep affection for his subject, and it shows."—Geoffrey R. Stone, Michigan Law Review"This thoughtful, understated book remains a call to come join the town meeting and hammer out some new rules of order. Scholars and citizens alike could do well to read Bollinger's book and accept his challenge."—Yale Law Review"For a number of years, Lee Bollinger has argued that the First Amendment has been applied differently to the print media than it has been to the broadcast media. In his new book, Images of a Free Press, Bollinger provides a concise, persuasive account of why this is so—and why it ought to be so."—Columbia Law Review

For more than 200 years, the freedom of speech - considered among Americans' most precious rights - has been guaranteed by the Constitution. Yet, as Lee Bollinger and Geoffrey Stone point out in their introduction, the First Amendment as we know it is largely a creation of the past 80 years. "Eternally Vigilant" brings together a stellar group of distinguished legal scholars to reflect boldly on the past, and future of the First Amendment. Organized thematically, the book begins with an historical overview by David Strauss and an examination of the philosophical underpinnings of the First Amendment by Vincent Blasi. Kent Greenawalt and Richard Posner explore the lessons of the initial Supreme Court decisions on the freedom of speech; Robert Post, Frederick Schauer and Stanley Fish reflect on the general First Amendment theory and doctrine; and Lillian BeVier, Owen Fiss and Cass Sunstein address contemporary free speech issues and the future of free speech. Stone and Bollinger provide helpful introductory notes to each essay, and also offer an informal "dialogue" to introduce nonexperts to the major issues of free speech jurisprudence.The result is a unique volume that reaches across the entire spectrum of First Amendment issues and offers a series of speculative essays that explore such diverse subjects as seditions libel, campaign regulation, commercial advertising, obscenity, and the new media.

While freedom of speech has been guaranteed us for centuries, the First Amendment as we know it today is largely a creation of the past 80 years. "Eternally Vigilant" brings together a group of distinguished legal scholars to reflect boldly on its past, its present shape, and what forms our understanding of it might take in the future. The result is a unique volume spanning the entire spectrum of First Amendment issues, from its philosophical underpinnings to specific issues like campaign regulation, obscenity and the new media.