| Description | Several employees walk out of their jobs at Netflix following a transphobic comedy routine by Dave Chappelle. The U.S. Supreme Court votes 8-1 in support of a high school cheerleader who posted F-bombs about her school. Former President Trump is removed or completely banned from most major social media sites following the January 2021 attack on the U.S capitol. What ties these seemingly disparate incidents together is their connection to questions of freedom of speech in the United States. Each of them invokes First Amendment claims. All of them were unimaginable topics 50 years ago and yet, from a legal perspective, all were or would be judged today using principles and legal doctrines crystalized in the 1950s and 1960s. Clearly, these are different times but what, if anything, does that mean for claims to free speech protections? This presentation seeks to frame current free speech questions within the constitutional confines of First Amendment analysis and ultimately to argue that the time is now to reconsider, update, or completely abandon outdated and impoverished legal tests and doctrines. Chris Demaske is an associate professor of communication at the University of Washington Tacoma whose research specializes in the study of First Amendment law. She is the author of two books: Free Speech and Hate Speech in the United States: The Limits of Toleration (2021) and Modern Power and Free Speech: Contemporary Culture and Issues of Equality (2009). |
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