Marvin Ammori

As noted last week, Concurring Opinions has been hosting an online symposium on Marvin’s forthcoming article, First Amendment Architecture. Marvin has provided summaries of his article in various posts, and others have contributed great pieces on these and related issues. Here’s a quick recap of the posts so far:

• The first post dismantles the concept of the First Amendment as a “negative” liberty, highlighting various areas in which it actually has resulted in affirmative obligations on the part of government.
• Brett Frischmann discusses First Amendment Architecture and the role of speech spaces in relation to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the copyright case Golan v. Holder.
• Tim Zick then offers a thoughtful analysis on conceiving of “speech spaces” beyond traditional categories, including virtual spaces like newspapers and the Internet.
• Marvin next addresses so-called “exceptions” to the conventional First Amendment framework and how they are actually core to the framework and help to elucidate what the First Amendment actually means.
• Frischmann next provides a  sixth element to the Architecture, that of a principle of nondiscrimination, that actually underlies the other principles and helps to illustrate how they properly function.
• The next post from Marvin concerns the legislated speech spaces, like those concerning common carrier rules for telephone companies and special subsidization provisions for newspapers.
• Finally, the latest post analyzes how government has had an active role in ensuring Americans are exposed to speech from “diverse and antagonistic” sources, with particular focus on must-carry provisions and media ownership limits.