A study used a communication perspective to examine the extent to which the civilian/military First Amendment dichotomy is warranted and to add to First Amendment theory the subject of the First Amendment rights of servicemembers. The study was limited to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, petition, and association. It did not include…

Considers if the very principles of freedom of expression and the First Amendment that underlie much of the scholarship in journalism and mass communication education is placed at risk by federal regulations that require prior approval of research designs. Presents four senior scholars' deliberations on the rationale, contradictions, ethics, and…

The "least restrictive means" test, a frequently used tool for resolving First Amendment cases in federal courts, is designed to insure that state-imposed abridgement of free expression is limited to the narrowest scope and the least impact necessary to fulfill a compelling state interest. Analysis of the history of the test since its…

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…

A study examined the current United States Supreme Court's treatment of the legal concept of freedom of expression by exploring its decisions and opinions on a quantitative basis. The individual votes and the opinions or legal rationales of the justices were recorded for the 43 First Amendment cases decided by the court between the 1981…

The ultimate test of the speech-action dichotomy, as it relates to symbolic speech to be considered by the courts, may be the fasting of prison inmates who use hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their confinement or to make political statements. While hunger strikes have been utilized by prisoners for years as a means of protest, it was…

The six articles in this collection deal with theoretical and practical freedom of speech issues. Topics covered are (1) freedom of expression and the Mormons for the Equal Rights Amendment (R. J. Jensen); (2) the U.S. Supreme Court and the First Amendment (W. A. Linsley); (3) antipornography campaigns (R. McGaffey); (4) the human rights advocacy…