Freedom of Speech: The Supreme Court and Judicial Review

Martin Shapiro

Feb 2011 · Quid Pro Books

About this ebook

One of the great continuing disputes of U.S. politics is about the role of the Supreme Court. Another is about the First Amendment. This book is about both. A classic defense of the openly political role of the Court, this book belies the notion reasserted more recently by Chief Justice Roberts that judges are just neutral umpires. Especially in the area of speech, judges make policy; they create law.

Especially in the realm of free speech, the Court must own up to its political function, Martin Shapiro argues in a way that seems to anticipate the current vogue of judicial "modesty."  He takes head-on the supposed modesty and deference of Frankfurter, Hand, and others, and supports the legacy of "clear and present danger" inherited from Holmes and Brandeis. The book is thus timeless in its insight as to the true position of the Court in the legal landscape.

In FREEDOM OF SPEECH: THE SUPREME COURT AND JUDICIAL REVIEW, Shapiro offers a provocative challenge to those who uphold the judicially “modest” interpretation of the role of the Supreme Court and who would keep the Court inviolate from the political process. Each branch of the government, he says, represents specific clienteles and defends specific interests and beliefs. Shapiro argues that one of the Supreme Court’s unique functions is to defend those interests which can find no defenders elsewhere; those speakers whose methods we may not be able to countenance, whose ideologies we may deplore, whose objectives we may fear.

Part of the Classics of Law & Society Series from Quid Pro Books.

About the author

Martin Shapiro is the James W. and Isabel Coffroth Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He has taught in the political science departments at Harvard and Stanford Universities and at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego. He joined the Berkeley law faculty in 1977. Shapiro earned his PhD in political science, in 1961, from Harvard.

In addition to this classic study, Shapiro is the author of Law and Politics in the Supreme Court; Supreme Court and Administrative Agencies; Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis; and Who Guards the Guardians: Judicial Control of Administration. In 2003, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts section of the American Political Science Association.