POSTPONED - Free Speech as Civic Structure: A Comparative Analysis of How Courts and Culture Shape the Freedom of Speech - Ronald Krotoszynski

*This event has been postponed*

 

SCRIPT presents

About the seminar
Most people assume that words matter - that legal language can constrain both government actors and citizens alike. In the context of constitutional text, however, we should be cautious about making this assumption too readily or credulously.

The presence - or absence - of an entrenched right to freedom of speech within a constitution or Bill of Rights does not reliably prefigure the rigor with which the domestic courts will protect the freedom of speech in general or political speech in particular. But why do courts, in so many places, essentially freelance when they must define and apply the freedom of speech?  Moreover, why do so many academics commonly assume that we are talking about the same thing when we talk about 'the freedom of speech' when the actual scope of the right, and justifications offered in support of it, vary widely across legal cultures and domestic legal systems?

Professor Krotoszynski explores the relevance - and irrelevance - of constitutional text to safeguarding expressive freedoms (including the freedoms of speech, assembly, petition, and association).

 

About the speaker
Ronald Krotoszynski is the John S. Stone Chair, Director of Faculty Research, and Professor of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. Krotoszynski is also the author of several books including: Privacy Revisited: A Global Perspective On The Right To Be Left Alone (Oxford University Press 2016) and Reclaiming The Petition Clause: Seditious Libel, "Offensive" Protest, And The Right To Petition The Government For A Redress Of Grievances (Yale University Press 2012). Krotoszynski's most recent book is The Disappearing First Amendment (Cambridge University Press 2019).

This event is free and open to all. No registration necessary.