San Antonio College Library

In spite of their public attractions and millions of visitors, most shopping malls are now off-limits to free speech and expressive activity. The same may be said about many other public spaces and marketplaces in American cities and suburbs, leaving scholars and other observers to wonder where civic engagement is lawfully permitted in the United States. In Public Spaces, Marketplaces, and the Constitution, Anthony Maniscalco draws on key legal decisions,...

American public schools often censor controversial student speech that the Constitution protects. Lessons in Censorship brings clarity to a bewildering array of court rulings that define the speech rights of young citizens in the school setting. Catherine J. Ross examines disputes that have erupted in our schools and courts over the civil rights movement, war and peace, rights for LGBTs, abortion, immigration, evangelical proselytizing, and the Confederate...

Discusses the relationship between copyright law and free speech and explores how copyright can be limited to benefit debate and expressive diversity.

Freedom of expression is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But if "free speech," like hate speech and propaganda, is used to oppress others, what then? Are reasonable limits needed to preserve a democratic, civilized, and tolerant society, or would they lead us down a slippery slope?

Ask Americans what the Constitution's most important feature is and most will say it's the guarantees of liberty enshrined in the Bill of Rights. In this episode, Sagal explores the history of the Bill of Rights and addresses several stories - ripped from the headlines - involving freedom of speech, freedom of religion and right to privacy.

The First Amendment and the American news media are under siege. Loathed and distrusted by the public it hungers to serve, the media faces a backlash of unprecedented proportions. This work is the first to help us understand the dangerous consequences of the disintegration of trust between the public and the news media. In a twenty-year retrospective, Sanford sifts through historical evidence and polls to explore the root causes for the mounting hostility...

Shakespeare lived in a world of absolutes, of claims for the absolute authority of scripture, monarch, and God, and the authority of fathers over wives and children, the old over the young, and the gentle over the baseborn. The author shows that Shakespeare was strikingly averse to such absolutes and constantly probed the possibility of freedom from them. Again and again, Shakespeare confounds the designs and pretensions of kings, generals, and churchmen....

"From the longtime New York Times reporter, best-selling author, and Pulitzer Prize winner-- an expansive, timely assessment of the state of free speech in America. David Shipler's recent best seller, The Working Poor, cemented his place among our most trenchant social commentators. Now, he turns his keen, illuminating focus to another endangered American ideal: freedom of speech. Through selected accounts of First Amendment invocation and infringement,...

"See only what you want to see, hear only what you want to hear, read only what you want to read. In cyberspace, we already have the ability to filter out everything but what we wish to see, hear, and read. Cass Sunstein asks the questions, Is it good for democracy? Is it healthy for the republic? What does this mean for freedom of speech?" "Republic.com exposes the drawbacks of egocentric Internet use, while showing us how to approach the Internet...