James Weinstein

An article by College of Law Professor James Weinstein titled, “Participatory Democracy as the Central Value of American Free Speech Doctrine,” has been published in the May 2011 edition of the Virginia Law Review. Weinstein’s article, along with one by Robert Post, Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, were the featured articles in the law review’s Symposium on Free Speech.

Weinstein defends the view that contemporary American free speech doctrine is best explained as assuring the opportunity for individuals to participate in the speech by which we govern ourselves. He contends that this democracy-based theory is both descriptively powerful and normatively attractive.

To read the article, click here.

The volume also contains eight responses, from prominent constitutional law scholars, to Weinstein’s and Post’s articles. In Weinstein’s reply to those responses, he writes, “Creation of knowledge, as Professor Robert Post observes, requires a culture of ‘respect, reason, fairness, accuracy, integrity, honesty, logic, and civility.’ The responses to my opening statement exemplify these admirable qualities by fairly, accurately, and civilly engaging my argument that the core of contemporary free speech doctrine is best explained in terms of participatory democracy.”

Weinstein responds to the critiques by focusing on the arguments “that most profoundly challenge my position or which reveal the need for clarification.”

To read his reply, click here.

Weinstein is the Amelia Lewis Professor of Constitutional Law and a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the College of Law, and he is an Associate Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Public Law. His areas of academic interest are Constitutional Law, especially Free Speech, as well as Jurisprudence, Federal Courts, Civil Procedure and Legal History. Weinstein is co-editor of Extreme Speech and Democracy, and has written numerous articles in law review symposia on a variety of free speech topics, including: obscenity doctrine, institutional review boards, commercial speech, database protection, campaign finance reform, the relationship between free speech and other constitutional rights, hate crimes and campus speech codes. He also has written several articles on the history of personal jurisdiction and its implication for modern doctrine.