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U.S. Supreme Court,
Constitutional Law

Oct. 14, 2010

Protecting Speech and Privacy

There is another way to find liability for offensive speech in the military protest case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. By Erwin Chemerinsky of UCI, School of Law.

Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law UC Berkeley School of Law

Erwin's most recent book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism." He is also the author of "Closing the Courthouse," (Yale University Press 2017).


No principle is more basic to the First Amendment than that speech cannot be punished simply because it is offensive, even deeply offensive. That principle should be sufficient to decide one of the most high profile cases of the current U.S. Supreme Court term, Snyder v. Phelps, 580 F.3d 206 (4th Cir. 2009), cert. granted, 130 S.Ct. 1737 (2010). The issue before the Supreme Court is whether protestors at a military funeral may be held liable for their offensive spee...

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