While freedom of speech is a defining characteristic of the United States, the First Amendment right is often regulated within certain environments. For years, schools have attempted to monitor and regulate student communication both within the educational environment and in student use of social media and other online communication tools.…

Presents an overview of the increase in incidents involving censorship in all areas of the United States. (NKA)

Noting that the "marketplace of ideas" metaphor often used in the study of freedom of speech is drawn from classical economics, this paper cites J. Murray's definition of the concept as "the idea that citizens in a democracy are well served if opinions of all kinds, accurate or inaccurate, are freely circulated." The first…

The establishment of First Amendment protection for statements of opinion has extended the category of protected expression, but judicially created tests for distinguishing fact from opinion provide limited guidance for judges and place little constraint on judicial interpretation of language. In writing the Supreme Court's majority opinion in…

Discusses a court case involving a student's use of puns in an assembly speech, Shakespeare's use of puns, the relationship between banning offensive words and the censorship of ideas, and the difficulty with placing a ban on the expression of "indecent" puns and double entendre and of deciding what is "appropriate." (EL)

Argues that the Supreme Court's decision--upholding the constitutionality of disciplinary actions taken against a public high school student who delivered a speech laden with sexual metaphor (though not obscene language) in a nominating assembly--was improper in that it attempted to articulate a false dichotomy between "political…