Congress Shall Make No Law: The First Amendment, Unprotected Expression, and the U.S. Supreme Court

The First Amendment declares that 'Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . . ' Yet, in the following 200 years, the Supreme Court has defined certain categories of expression-the obscene, the defamatory, commercial, and fighting words or disruptive expression-as constitutionally unprotected. Noted legal scholar David O'Brien provides a history of each category of unprotected speech and puts into bold relief the larger questions of what kinds of expression should (and should not) receive First Amendment protection.

• | Author: David M. O'Brien
• | Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• | Publication Date: Sep 16, 2010
• | Number of Pages: 150 pages
• | Binding: Hardback or Cased Book
• | ISBN-10: 1442205105
• | ISBN-13: 9781442205109