E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
My
Northwestern Law colleague and friend Martin Redish has been hugely influential
in the free speech area.His work has
been cited by the Supreme Court a number of times, and he is probably more
influential than any other scholar in transforming the Court’s approach to
commercial speech and campaign finance.
The
Northwestern Law Review has just published a festschrift on his work, celebrating
forty years on our faculty.It includes
contributions by James Pfander, Richard Freer, Richard Marcus, Linda Mullenix,
Jay Tidmarsh, Larry Alexander, Corey Brettschneider, myself, Eugene Volokh,
Andrea Matwyshyn, Richard Fallon, William Marshall, Howard Wasserman, Matthew
Arnould, Andrew Gavil and Christopher Yoo.
Marty and I
have longstanding disagreements about free speech theory, which we worked on
during a seminar we co-taught a couple of years ago.During that semester, I wrote a paper which
became my contribution to the festschrift, and which will probably end up being
part of a book on free speech theory and obscenity law (so comments are very
welcome).The article is called “Veil
of Ignorance: Tunnel Constructivism in Free Speech Theory.”Here is the abstract:
Modern free speech theory is dominated, in the courts and the academy
alike, by a style of reasoning that posits a few axiomatic purposes of speech
and from these deduces detailed rules of law.This way of thinking can make the law blind to the actual consequences
of legal rules, and damage both individual liberty and democracy.I develop this claim through a critique of
the work of Martin Redish, who has developed the most sustained and
sophisticated constructivist theory of free speech.
Free speech constructivism is not the only way to understand the First
Amendment. It is a fairly recent development, emerging only in the 1970s.The idea of free speech, on the other hand,
dates back to Milton’s arguments in the 1640s.This article identifies the pathologies of constructivism, and recovers
an older and more attractive free speech tradition.