Clay Calvert Authors Two First Amendment Law Journal Articles

Clay Calvert, director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, is the author two recent articles published in prestigious law review journals.

In “Certifying Questions in First Amendment Cases: Free Speech, Statutory Ambiguity, and Definitive Interpretations” published in the Boston College Law Review, Volume 60, Issue 5, 2019, Calvert examines certification – its purposes, its pros, and its cons – in cases pivoting on whether ambiguous state statutes violate the First Amendment. He offers a four-factor analysis for the Supreme Court to deploy when deciding if certification is appropriate in any given case including whether a political speech is at issue, the length of time a case has been in the court system, whether certification might alleviate the justices’ splintering on the correct level of scrutiny, and whether certification might eliminate the need for the Court to address a constitutional question.

Calvert is also the author of “Merging Offensive-Speech Cases with Viewpoint-Discrimination Principles: The Immediate Impact of Matal v. Tam on Two Strands of First Amendment Jurisprudence” published in William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal , Volume 27, Issue 3, 2019.

This article examines flaws with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Matal v. Tam that equated giving offense with viewpoint discrimination and argues that giving offense is not synonymous with viewpoint discrimination. The article proposes two possible paths forward to help courts better clarify when a case such as Tam should be analyzed as an offensive-speech case and when it should be treated as a case involving viewpoint-based discrimination.

Posted: June 5, 2019
Category: College News, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project News
Tagged as: Clay Calvert, Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project