Critical Approaches to the First Amendment

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1. That the first amendment instead of helping to achieve healthy and robust debate actually serves to preserve the status quo, with that status quo containing major inequities.

2. That we are not merely autonomous, rationale beings, but instead are also products of a socially constructed system in which some groups have historically been in empowered and others systematically disempowered.

3. There can be no such thing as an objective or content neutral interpretation in law in general or in the first amendment in particular.

4. That not all speech should be valued on the basis that it is speech. Some speech should be viewed in terms of the harm it causes.

5. That there is no "equality" in the "freedom" of speech.

6. That some peoples speech is more free and more robust than others.