Download or read book We the Corporations How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights written by Adam Winkler and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Award for Nonfiction Finalist National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Finalist A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A PBS “Now Read This” Book Club Selection Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Economist and the Boston Globe A landmark exposé and “deeply engaging legal history” of one of the most successful, yet least known, civil rights movements in American history (Washington Post). In a revelatory work praised as “excellent and timely” (New York Times Book Review, front page), Adam Winkler, author of Gunfight, once again makes sense of our fraught constitutional history in this incisive portrait of how American businesses seized political power, won “equal rights,” and transformed the Constitution to serve big business. Uncovering the deep roots of Citizens United, he repositions that controversial 2010 Supreme Court decision as the capstone of a centuries-old battle for corporate personhood. “Tackling a topic that ought to be at the heart of political debate” (Economist), Winkler surveys more than four hundred years of diverse cases—and the contributions of such legendary legal figures as Daniel Webster, Roger Taney, Lewis Powell, and even Thurgood Marshall—to reveal that “the history of corporate rights is replete with ironies” (Wall Street Journal). We the Corporations is an uncompromising work of history to be read for years to come.

Download or read book Corporate Personhood and the Rights of Corporate Speech written by Adam Winkler and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This article argues that, contrary to the claims of some anti-corporate critics, corporate free speech rights have not been a product of corporate personhood under the Fourteenth Amendment. The free speech rights of business corporations are not equal to that of natural individuals but in fact are more limited. Moreover, this article contends that there are at least 4 different, distinct free speech rights held by business corporations and each is subject to its own set of constitutional rules and limits. The Supreme Court, however, often confuses the various rights and they different strands of reasoning among the cases are inconsistent and incoherent.

Download or read book Corporate Speech and the Rights of Others written by Thomas Wuil Joo and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Supreme Court is often erroneously criticized for giving business corporations the constitutional rights of human persons. In fact, constitutional decisions protecting corporations tend to be based not on the rights of corporate “persons,” but on the rights of other persons: human individuals such as shareholders or persons who listen to the content of corporate speech. Shareholders' property and privacy interests have been invoked to protect corporations from regulatory takings and from unreasonable searches, for example. In the First Amendment context, Citizens United and other opinions have invoked the rights of others in a different way, invalidating corporate speech regulations on the ground that they infringe upon the public's right to hear corporate messages. These “rights of others,” however, can conflict with the rights of other others: corporate shareholders who might not want corporate assets used to express such messages. The Court has dismissed this concern with the inaccurate assertion that shareholders control a corporation's messages through “corporate democracy.” This contention, and not corporate constitutional “personhood,” is the true fallacy of corporate speech jurisprudence. Corporate governance is not democratic. In the interests of money-making efficiency, the law concentrates power in professional managers. As intended, this arrangement is likely to benefit shareholders financially. But it does not give them meaningful input into corporate decision-making, leaving them open to the misuse of corporate property. Thus the “rights of others” may justify the regulation of corporate speech.

Download or read book Corporations and the Value of Free Speech written by Tzu-Yi Lin and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Corporate Speech and the First Amendment written by Coates, IV (John C.) and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Article draws on empirical analysis, history, and economic theory to show that corporations have begun to displace individuals as direct beneficiaries of the First Amendment and to outline an argument that the shift reflects economically harmful rent seeking. The history of corporations, regulation of commercial speech, and First Amendment case law is retold, with an emphasis on the role of constitutional entrepreneur Justice Lewis Powell, who prompted the Supreme Court to invent corporate and commercial speech rights. The chronology shows that First Amendment doctrine long post-dated both pervasive regulation of commercial speech and the rise of the U.S. as the world's leading economic power - a chronology with implications for originalists, and for policy. Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals decisions are analyzed to quantify the degree to which corporations have displaced individuals as direct beneficiaries of First Amendment rights, and to show that they have done so recently, but with growing speed since Virginia Pharmacy, Bellotti, and Central Hudson. Nearly half of First Amendment challenges now benefit business corporations and trade groups, rather than other kinds of organizations or individuals, and the trend-line is up. Such cases commonly constitute a form of corruption: the use of litigation by managers to entrench reregulation in their personal interests at the expense of shareholders, consumers, and employees. In aggregate, they degrade the rule of law, rendering it less predictable, general and clear. This corruption risks significant economic harms in addition to the loss of a republican form of government.

Download or read book Corporate First Amendment Rights and the SEC written by Nicholas Wolfson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1990-10-24 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1970s, the Supreme Court directly ruled for the first time that commercial speech is protected by the free speech clause of the Constitution. The Court, however, did not grant it the full protection afforded to political and artistic speech. The SEC regulates a vast array of corporate speech that it considers to be a type of commercial speech. In this book, Professor Nicholas Wolfson examines the SEC's considerable powers in the control of corporate information and argues that the Court's distinction between political-artistic speech and corporate speech is erroneous. Wolfson demonstrates that much of so-called political speech is concerned with economic self-interest. He finds no fundamental difference between it and corporate speech. In the domain of SEC-regulated speech, he demonstrates that traditional notions of commercial speech do not fit the parameters of SEC-regulated speech. Wolfson proposes that the SEC's regulation of proxy statements, prospectuses, investment advisory literature, and hostile takeover information should be subject to full protection of the First Amendment. He fully delineates the doctrine of commercial speech as well as the court cases that have determined the status of SEC speech. He analyzes the law and economics literature on commercial speech. Finally, Wolfson compares governance of a publicly held corporation to the governance of a political entity, and demonstrates that shareholder democracy is a political notion that should lead to full rights of free speech and freedom of association. This important critique of the regulation of corporate speech will be a valuable reference for securities and corporate lawyers, First Amendment attorneys, and institutional investors, as well as for students in business and law programs. Corporate, law, academic, and public libraries will also find it to be a notable addition to their collections.

Download or read book Corporations Are People Too written by Kent Greenfield and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why we’re better off treating corporations as people under the law—and making them behave like citizens Are corporations people? The U.S. Supreme Court launched a heated debate when it ruled in Citizens United that corporations can claim the same free speech rights as humans. Should corporations be able to claim rights of free speech, religious conscience, and due process? Kent Greenfield provides an answer: Sometimes. With an analysis sure to challenge the assumptions of both progressives and conservatives, Greenfield explores corporations' claims to constitutional rights and the foundational conflicts about their obligations in society. He argues that a blanket opposition to corporate personhood is misguided, since it is consistent with both the purpose of corporations and the Constitution itself that corporations can claim rights at least some of the time. The problem with Citizens United is not that corporations have a right to speak, but for whom they speak. The solution is not to end corporate personhood but to require corporations to act more like citizens.

Download or read book The Corporate Free speech Movement written by Robert L. Kerr and published by LFB Scholarly Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Regulating Speech in Cyberspace written by Emily B. Laidlaw and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-07 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Private companies exert considerable control over the flow of information on the internet. Whether users are finding information with a search engine, communicating on a social networking site or accessing the internet through an ISP, access to participation can be blocked, channelled, edited or personalised. Such gatekeepers are powerful forces in facilitating or hindering freedom of expression online. This is problematic for a human rights system which has historically treated human rights as a government responsibility, and this is compounded by the largely light-touch regulatory approach to the internet in the West. Regulating Speech in Cyberspace explores how these gatekeepers operate at the intersection of three fields of study: regulation (more broadly, law), corporate social responsibility and human rights. It proposes an alternative corporate governance model for speech regulation, one that acts as a template for the increasingly common use of non-state-based models of governance for human rights.

Download or read book Corporations Are People Too written by Kent Greenfield and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why we're better off treating corporations as people under the law--and making them behave like citizens Are corporations people? The U.S. Supreme Court launched a heated debate when it ruled in Citizens United that corporations can claim the same free speech rights as humans. Should they be able to claim rights of free speech, religious conscience, and due process? Kent Greenfield provides an answer: Sometimes. With an analysis sure to challenge the assumptions of both progressives and conservatives, Greenfield explores corporations' claims to constitutional rights and the foundational conflicts about their obligations in society and concludes that a blanket opposition to corporate personhood is misguided, since it is consistent with both the purpose of corporations and the Constitution itself that corporations can claim rights at least some of the time. The problem with Citizens United is not that corporations have a right to speak, but for whom they speak. The solution is not to end corporate personhood but to require corporations to act more like citizens.

Download or read book Speech Citizenry and the Market written by Deven R. Desai and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corporate speech is out of balance. Corporations now enjoy expanded speech rights, but the ability to speak about corporations is restricted. This situation must change. That corporations are people for First Amendment questions is a fait accompli. We can debate the merits or wisdom of that fact, but the fact remains. I argue that under current Supreme Court jurisprudence, corporations are not only people for speech purposes, but corporations are often public figures. Corporations no longer exist in a purely commercial world. Like other public figures, corporations affect public affairs, take political positions, engage in matters of public concern and controversy, and have reputations. A host of political issues from fair trade to gay rights to organic farming to children's development to gender bias to labor and more intersect with and are shaped by corporate policies. Thus Google urges countries to embrace gay rights; Mattel launches a girl power campaign; activists question Nike's labor practices, McDonald's food processing, and Shell Oil's business practices; and bloggers police the Body Shop's claims about its manufacturing practices. The social, political, and commercial have converged, and corporate reputations rest on social and political matters as much, if not more, than commercial matters. A foundational commitment of free speech law, perhaps the foundational commitment, is that public figures don't and can't own their reputations. Yet, through trademark and commercial speech doctrines corporations have powerful control over their reputations. If corporations are people for free speech purposes, as a constitutional matter, their control over their reputations can be no greater than the control other public figures have. Corporations cannot have it both ways. Corporations want and receive many of the legal rights natural persons receive. They should be subject to the same limits as other powerful, public figures.

Download or read book Commercial Speech as Free Expression written by Martin H. Redish and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-10 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For many years, commercial speech was summarily excluded from First Amendment protection, without reason or logic. Starting in the mid-1970s, the Supreme Court began to extend protection but it remained strictly limited. In recent years, that protection has expanded, but both Court and scholars have refused to consider treating commercial speech as the First Amendment equivalent of traditionally protected expressive categories such as political speech or literature. Commercial Speech as Free Expression stands as the boldest statement yet for extending full First Amendment protection to commercial speech by proposing a new, four-part synthesis of different perspectives on the manner in which free expression fosters and protects expressive values. This book explains the complexities and subtleties of how the equivalency principle would function in real-life situations. The key is to recognize that as a matter of First Amendment value, commercial speech deserves treatment equivalent to that received by traditionally protected speech.

Download or read book Speechless Volume 1 of 2 EasyRead Super Large 24pt Edition written by Bruce Barry and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2007 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A factory worker is fired because her boss disagrees with her political bumper sticker. A stockbroker feels pressure to resign from an employer who disapproves of his off-hours political advocacy. A flight attendant is grounded because her airline doesn't like what she's writing in her personal blog. Is it legal to fire people for speech that makes employers uncomfortable, even if the content has little or nothing to do with their job or workplace? For most American workers, the alarming answer is yes. Speechless takes on the state of free expression in the American workplace, exploring its history, explaining how and why Americans have come to take freedom of speech for granted, and demonstrating how employers can legally punish employees for speaking their minds. Bruce Barry shows how constitutional law erects formidable barriers to free speech in workplaces, while employment law gives employers wide latitude to suppress speech with impunity--even speech that is unrelated to the job or the company. Employers, with rights of property ownership over not just what they manage but how they manage, can decide just how much employee speech they will tolerate. Workers have little choice but to accept conditions of employment or go elsewhere. Barry argues that a toxic combination of law, conventional economic wisdom, and accepted managerial practice has created an American workplace in which freedom of speech--that most crucial of civil liberties in a healthy democracy--is something you do after work, on your own time, and even then (for many), only if your employer approves. Barry proposes changes both to the law and to management practice that would expand employees' expressive rights without jeopardizing the legitimate interests of employers. In defense of freer speech in and around the workplace, Barry argues that a healthy democracy depends in part on the experience of liberty at work. Workplaces are key venues for shared experience and public discourse, so workplace speech rights matter deeply for advancing citizenship, community, and democracy in a free society.

Download or read book The First Amendment written by David L. Hudson and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Corporate Speech Securities Regulation and an Institutional Approach to the First Amendment written by Michael R. Siebecker and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the First Amendment shield politically tinged corporate speech from the compelled disclosure and reporting requirements embedded in the U.S. securities laws? The question arises in the securities regulation context because of an impending jurisprudential train wreck between the Supreme Court's commercial speech doctrine and its approach to corporate political speech. As corporations begin mixing commercial messages with political commentary, First Amendment jurisprudence simply provides insufficient guidance on the role government should play in regulating that speech. Although First Amendment jurisprudence generally counsels against governmental restrictions on corporate political speech without regard to the truth or falsity of the message, a different branch of that same jurisprudence suggests governmental regulation of commercial speech remains essential to ensure consumers receive accurate information and to maintain market efficiency. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has never articulated sufficiently clear definitions of quot;commercialquot; or quot;politicalquot; speech, or the boundaries between them, to address claims of politically tinged corporate speech. Because the securities laws essentially operate through content based regulation of compelled speech, which often touches inherently political matters, the securities laws seem especially vulnerable to constitutional attack. Considering the limitations of current speech jurisprudence, this Article examines whether the quot;institutional approachquot; to the First Amendment advocated by Frederick Schauer provides a theoretical basis for maintaining a robust securities regulation regime. Following that approach, a determination of speech rights in any particular institutional setting should depend on an assessment of the societal importance of the institution as well as the relationship between speech rights and the institution's basic role. The Article concludes that an institutional approach to First Amendment jurisprudence not only provides sufficiently strong reasons for insulating the securities regulation regime from the First Amendment's reach, but also lends strong support for embracing a new institutional approach to First Amendment jurisprudence itself.

Download or read book Corporations are Not People written by Jeffrey D. Clements and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2012 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first practical guide for every citizen on the problem of corporate personhood and the tools we have to overturn it. Jeff Clements explains why the Citizen's United case is the final win in a campaign for corporate domination of the state that began in the 1970s under Richard Nixon. More than this, Clements shows how unfettered corporate rights will impact public health, energy policy, the environment, and the justice system. Where Thom Hartmann's Unequal Protection providesa much-needed detailed legal history of corporate personhood, Corporations Are Not People answers the reader's question: "What does Citizens United mean to me?" And, even more important, it provides a solution: a Constitutional amendment, included in the book, which would reverse Citizens United. The book's ultimate goal is to give every citizen the tools and talking points to overturn corporate personhood state by state, community by community with petitions, house party kits, draft letters, shareholder resolutions, and much more.

Download or read book Human Liberty and Freedom of Speech written by C. Edwin Baker and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baker here evaluates the prevalent justifications for freedom of speech and formulates a liberty theory, which he applies to contemporary free speech cases as a means of suggesting possible reforms to free speech doctrine.