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13 - A Potential Solution

The Party System as a Public Forum

from Part IV - Passé Equal Protection and a Way Forward

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2022

Wayne Batchis
Affiliation:
University of Delaware
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Summary

Categories matter in First Amendment jurisprudence. The freedom of speech and its derivative rights1 work as a remarkably powerful immunity from ordinary law. Cabining and defining this immunity categorically serves to promote clarity and certainty that First Amendment freedoms will be there as a reliable shield even when deeply unpopular, and it also provides the flexibility to give sufficient weight to nonexpressive interests where appropriate. Categories can refer to discrete kinds of content deemed to receive less than full First Amendment protection, such as true threats, child pornography, and libel. Categories are also used to differentiate kinds of speakers – a government employee versus a private employee, an individual human being versus an associational entity comprising multiple human beings, the government versus a private corporation. Finally, categories are used to distinguish various platforms for expression, whether differentiating a public forum like a public park versus a private forum such as the inside of a private home; a privately owned public place like a shopping mall versus a limited public forum controlled by government that serves a narrow constituency, such as a system for registering and funding student organizations at a public university.

Type
Chapter
Information
Throwing the Party
How the Supreme Court Puts Political Party Organizations Ahead of Voters
, pp. 222 - 243
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • A Potential Solution
  • Wayne Batchis, University of Delaware
  • Book: Throwing the Party
  • Online publication: 16 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009091909.018
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  • A Potential Solution
  • Wayne Batchis, University of Delaware
  • Book: Throwing the Party
  • Online publication: 16 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009091909.018
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • A Potential Solution
  • Wayne Batchis, University of Delaware
  • Book: Throwing the Party
  • Online publication: 16 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009091909.018
Available formats
×