In Fear and the First Amendment, Dr. Kevin A. Johnson and Dr. Craig R. Smith examine how fear figures in First Amendment questions ruled on by the contemporary Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts. This compelling work dissects a series of pivotal decisions that sparked an era of dramatic precedents. Each chapter in this book analyzes one or more First Amendment cases and a variety of related fears – whether evidentiary or not – that pertain to a given case.
These cases include Morse v. Frederick, which takes up the competing fears of school administrators’ loss of authority and students’ loss of free speech rights. The authors touch on corporate funding of elections in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, from the fear of corporate influence on electoral politics to corporate fears of alienating their consumers by backing political candidates. They explore religious freedom and fears of homosexuality
