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The first amendment, a crucial component of American constitutional law, is under attack from various groups advocating for censorship in universities and public schools. The censors assert that restrictive speech codes preventing anyone from engaging in any expression deemed hateful, offensive, defamatory, insulting, or critical of sacred religious or political beliefs and values are necessary in a multicultural society. These speech codes restrict critical comments about race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical characteristics, and other traits in the name of tolerance, sensitivity, and respect. Many hate speech codes are a violation of the first amendment and have been struck down by federal and state courts. They persist in jurisdictions where they have been ruled unconstitutional; most universities and public schools have speech codes. This assault on the first amendment might be a concern to all citizens, especially university professors and social studies educators responsible for teaching students about the democratic ideals enshrined in our constitution. Teachers should resist unconstitutional speech codes and teach their students that the purpose of the first amendment is to protect radical, offensive, critical, and controversial speech.

Fifty years ago the political scientist Robert Dahl concluded that courts are usually in sync with “the policy views dominant among the lawmaking majorities” and thus offer little help to aggrieved minorities (Dahl, 1957, p. 285). In recent years, Dahl's classic formulation has received renewed attention. This chapter uses the example of the Rehnquist Court's First Amendment decisions to analyze “regime politics” theory. On religion cases the Rehnquist Court was generally in sync with the socially conservative strain in the Republican Party, but in other First Amendment areas the pattern is far more complex, raising questions about the relationship between conservative judges and the political movements that brought them to office.

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.

With the rise of social networking and the immediacy of electronic communication, the potential for harassment, threats, cyberbullying, perceived defamation, and general incivility is greater than ever before. First Amendment issues create legal, philosophical and practical problems for administrators. In this chapter, the authors examine the intersection of First Amendment protections and student Internet conduct and provide practical information that student conduct administrators can readily apply in their daily work. Included are First Amendment definitions and concepts, an overview of policy considerations to protect the rights of both the individuals involved and the institution, a discussion of the distinctions between public and private institutions, investigation strategies, and a case study to walk readers through an examination of the issues and decision-making best practices for student conduct administrators.

Analyses and evaluates the right to freedom of speech in the US through a discussion of the Supreme Court Case of Glickman decided in 1997. Covers the detail and findings of the case and presents the Central Hudson test which is used to determine the State’s interest. Concludes that there must be a balance between rights and restrictions and that restrictions should be no more extensive than necessary to serve the interest of the government.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states in 2018 that safeguarding “civil liberties is critical” to their official duties. The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS, as its website explains,

reviews and assesses complaints from the public in areas such as: physical or other abuse; discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability; inappropriate conditions of confinement; infringements of free speech; violation of right to due process … and any other civil rights or civil liberties violation related to a Department program or activity.

My chapter tracks the centrality of deportability in shaping the civil liberties and rights that DHS is tasked with enforcing. Over the course of the twentieth century, people on US soil saw an expanding list of civil liberties and civil rights. Important scholarship concentrates on the role of the courts, state and federal governments, advocacy groups, social movements, and foreign policy driving these constitutional and cultural changes. For instance, the scholarship illustrates that coming out of World War I, the US Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did not protect something the Justices labeled “irresponsible speech.” The Supreme Court soon changed course, opening up an era ever since of more robust First Amendment rights. What has not been undertaken in the literature is an examination of the relationship of deportability to the sweep of civil liberties and civil rights. Starting in the second decade of the twentieth century, federal immigration policymakers began multiplying types of immigration statuses. A century later, among many others, there is the H2A status for temporary low-wage workers, the H2B for skilled labor, and permanent residents with green cards. The deportability of each status constrains access to certain liberties and rights. Thus, in 2016, when people from the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties within DHS act, they are not enforcing a uniform body of rights and liberties that applies equally to citizens and immigrants, or even within the large category of immigrants. Instead, they do so within a complicated matrix of liberties and rights attenuated by deportability, which has been shaped by the history of the twentieth century.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of social discount rates on the economic significance of CO₂ mitigation in the benefit‐cost analysis of recent amendments of Building Regulations Part L.

The benefit of mitigating CO₂ emission by raising the standard of building in amended building regulations is estimated by an integrated‐assessment economic model called DICE at different social discount rates proposed by economists and government.

The benefit of CO₂ mitigation is highly sensitive to the choice of social discount rate that the value of social discount rate is a crucial factor to decide the economic viability of recent and future amendments of Building Regulations Part L. The more positive the social discount rate used in the benefit‐cost analysis, the less sustainability appears to be because higher discount rate tips the balance in favour of current benefits against future costs.

This paper focuses on the impact of social discount rates on the shadow price of CO₂ emission. Further researches are needed to estimate the private benefits and costs to construct and operate buildings complying with amended Building Regulations Part L so as to produce a solid benefit‐cost analysis on the amendment of the building regulations.

If sustainable development, similar to other traditional investment, is subject to feasibility judgement in a common metric, more attentions are needed to be given by sustainability literature on the issue of discounting.

This paper for the first time evaluates the environmental benefits of amending the Building Regulations and the sensitivity of the benefits to the choice of social discount rates.

This chapter argues that the theoretical core of the First Amendment can be found in the concept of disestablishment, and that the meaning of disestablishment can be, and has been, extended from the religious sphere to the secular. It explores the historical development of rights of conscience and dissent, and the application of those rights to various changing historical circumstances, such as the development of political parties and the struggle over slavery. It then turns to an application of this analysis to several contemporary First Amendment controversies, including campaign finance and sexual expression.

During the months leading up to and immediately following President Donald Trump’s election, the unique intersection of classroom academic freedom and teacher and students’ first amendment rights would be duly tested, as headlines reminded citizens, parents, and pundits that the reach of raw emotions and political viewpoints did not stop at the schoolhouse door. School and classroom-based events would eventually test the norms of community, the interpretation of legal precedents, the resolve of district and school leadership, and the rights or limits thereof of the teachers themselves. This analysis is grounded on case studies of eight such incidents, all of which occurred at the high school level in public school districts. These eight cases are analyzed in terms of the incidents, the teacher’s actions or speech, the consequences, the relevant legal precedents surrounding academic freedom, the parental, student, and community reaction, and the short- and long-term impacts moving forward.

What does it mean in practice to claim a right? Does claiming a right add to the persuasive power of political demands? Does it clothe political demands with a moral urgency, setting such claims apart from the ordinary class of interests? In examining these questions, I suggest that in practice rights’ claims add little to political discourse. This is because Americans equate their policy preferences with rights. I find scant evidence for the belief that Americans have sufficient knowledge of rights to make them meaningful or that pronouncements of rights have persuasive power or imbue issues with heightened moral legitimacy.