Our Democratic First Amendment

The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of association and assembly, and the right to petition the government. Why did the Framers protect these particular rights? What role were these rights intended to play in our democracy? And what force do they retain in today's world? In this highly readable account, Ashutosh Bhagwat explores the answers to these questions. The first part of the book looks at the history of the First Amendment, early political conflicts over its meaning, and the lessons to be learned from those events about the nature of our system of government. The second part applies those lessons to our modern, fractious democracy as it has evolved in the age of the Internet and social media. Now as then, the key to maintaining that democracy, it turns out, is an active citizenry that fully embraces the First Amendment.

Introduction; Part I. The Framers' Democrocratic First Amendment: 1. Freedom of speech and of the press; 2. Assembly and association; 3. The petition clause; 4. Cognate rights and democratic citizenship; Part II. The Democratic First Amendment in the Age of Twitter: 5. Cacophony: speech and press in the Internet era; 6. DeSiloing: of civic associations, book clubs, and taverns; 7. Why assembly and petition still matter; Conclusion.

Ashutosh Bhagwat is Martin Luther King, Jr Professor of Law and the Boochever and Bird Endowed Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality at the University of California, Davis School of Law. He has clerked for Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit and Judge Anthony Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court. He is the author of The Myth of Rights (2010), as well as numerous articles on a variety of legal subjects. Professor Bhagwat is a member of the American Law Institute.