Constitutional Law II - Professor Kobil

For the first week of classes beginning Monday, January 9, 2023, please sign up for this class on TWEN (page will be available after Jan. 3, 2022) and also read the following in the Chemerinsky casebook (in ERWIN CHEMERINSKY, CONSTITUTIONAL  LAW (Wolters Kluwer, 6th Ed. 2020)(ISBN 978-1-5438-1307-4):  

 
Week 1: Introduction to the First Amendment; Speech Advocating Unlawful Conduct & Fighting Words.

• Reading:  pp. 1177-84; 1308-46.   Consider the reasons why the U.S. Constitution includes the First Amendment, and how its goals might best be furthered.   We will begin our discussion of the First Amendment by considering its purposes, and then by studying several lines of cases where the Supreme Court has decided that specific categories of speech are (mostly) unprotected by the First Amendment.  Within this context, consider whether state or federal legislatures should be permitted to ban or limit the sale of extremely violent video games or films?  Do your answers differ if, rather than violence, the laws regulate sexual content in video games or films? What about the desirability of punishing the advocacy of dangerous political views (see calls to punish hate-speech posted online in the wake of the anti-Semitic killings in Jersey City, circa 2019.  See article found at https://www.penncapital-star.com/commentary/think-were-powerless-against-hate-speech-the-constitution-provides-plenty-of-room-to-address-it-bruce-ledewitz/)
• For our classes on Monday and Friday, consider why the Court has struggled to identify a test for the regulations of speech advocating unlawful conduct?  Which of the various tests the Court has employed over the years appropriately balances free speech concerns with national security? (Please note that the modern test is found in Brandenburg v. Ohio, on p. 1330, so read this case and the notes thereafter especially closely).  In order to punish advocacy of unlawful conduct, how certain must it be under Brandenburg that the speech will cause harm?  Consider whether the former President on January 6, 2021, was engaging in protected speech when addressed the crowd which shortly thereafter violently stormed the Capitol?  https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/08/politics/trump-january-6-speech-transcript/index.html  What about speech instructing women how to obtain abortions in states that criminalize the procedure?