Professor William R. Davie, PhD
Class: VLW 405
Office: V.L. Wharton Hall 327
TR 2:00 - 3:15 p.m.
Office phone: (337) 482-6140
Office Hours:
E-mail address: wrd3819@louisiana.edu
MWF 10-12, or by appt.
Course description
Deals
with media law and ethics in the historical and philosophical context of the
First Amendment freedoms of speech and the press; includes libel; privacy
laws; free press and fair trial, protection of news sources; obscenity, regulation
of advertising and broadcasting.
Prereq:
Upper-division status.
Required textbook
Freedom
of Speech in the United States, 5th ed. by Thomas L. Tedford and Dale
A. Herbeck (Strata, PA: Strata Publishing, 2004).
The goal
of this course is to show students how to apply the principles and laws of
freedom of speech and the press, including the rights to monitor and criticize
power, and to dissent. This will be
achieved by familiarizing students with the historical antecedents of free
expression in the United States and Great Britain; by learning about the American
judicial system; by exploring legal and ethical tensions arising from competing
interests, such as national security, personal reputation, and privacy.
We will discuss major principles of communication law, and relevant
landmark cases. We also will address ethical questions pertinent
to communication conduct, including how to ethically pursue truth, fairness,
and diversity. Upon completion, students
should be able to explain existing communication law theories, analyze legal
policies, and identify ethical standards.
Course requirements
Participation
is an important part of your grade. This
class will employ an adaptation of the Socratic method where students are
expected to have read and learned required cases before each class session
and are prepared to extemporaneously discuss the facts of each case, including
legal principles and outcome. Because you will be tested on your understanding
of issues and cases, it is suggested that you create cards or computer documents
for the material covered. This will
aid you in test preparations, and help you during class lectures. You also may want to form small study groups
to aid your comprehension of the material and to study for tests. Legal concepts
can be better understood through such discussions.
Grades
are based on two exams of equal value, a written case briefing and Socratic
dialogue on the case, a research paper with an oral presentation before the
class based on an outline of the paper, and power points. The research paper and the oral argument cover the same subject that will be approved
in advance by the professor. Students may apply the law to a particular case,
analyze case history, or argue for or against one of the landmark cases by
explaining the background of the case, the principle established, and its
enforcement. Research papers and the outlines for oral presentations must
be submitted on the day of presentation, 10-to-12 pages in length (not including
cover sheet and bibliography), typed and proofread carefully. Please follow an appropriate style manual (APA,
MLA, Chicago) and be consistent.
Grading
Percentages*
*All grading on 100-point scale: 100 -90 = A,
89 -80 = B, 79 -70 = C, 69 -60 = D, 59 -0 = F.
Class Schedule (subject to change)
___________________________________________________________
Week 1
8/22-8/24*: Sources of the Law and Freedom to Speak
Reading:
Chapter 1: Freedom of Speech: The English Heritage, and
Chapter
2: Freedom of Speech in America to World War I
*TR 8/24 - last day for adding classes
___________________________________________________________
Week 2
8/29-8/31:
Treasonous Words and Prior Restraint
Reading:
Chapter 3: Political Heresy: Sedition in the United States since 1917
Cases to know Tuesday: Schenck
v. United States
(1919)
Abrams
v. United States
(1919)
Cases
to know Thursday: Gitlow
v. New York
(1925)
Brandenburg
v. Ohio (1969)
___________________________________________________________
Week 3
9/5-9/7*:
Slander, Libel and Privacy
Reading:
Chapter 4: Defamation and Invasion of Privacy
Cases
to know Tuesday: New
York Times v. Sullivan
(1964)
Hutchinson v. Proxmire (1979) CB/SD: CANDACE URBANOWSKI
Gertz
v. Welch (1974)
CB/SD: JESSICA MCCHESNEY
Cases to know Thursday: Time
v. Hill (1967)
CB/SD: NIKKI THIBODEAUX
Cox
Broadcasting v. Cohn
(1975) CB/SD: MALLORY JUNEAU
Hustler
v. Falwell (1988)
CB/SD: SKYLER HEBERT
*M 9/4 Labor Day Holiday
___________________________________________________________
Week 4
9/12-9/14:
Blasphemous and Obscene Litigation
Reading:
Chapter 5: Religio-Moral Heresy: From Blasphemy to Obscenity
Cases to know Tuesday: Roth
v. United States
(1957)
Ginzburg
v. United States
(1966)
Cases
to know Thursday: Stanley
v. Georgia (1969)
CB/SD: DENNIS DENT
Miller
v. California
(1973)
___________________________________________________________
Week 5
9/19-9/21:
Incitement Issues
Reading:
Chapter 6: Provocation to Anger and Words that Wound
Cases to know Tuesday:
Chaplinsky
v. New Hampshire
(1942) CB/SD: ALLISON CRAWFORD
Terminiello
v. Chicago
(1949) CB/SD: JENNIFER BOBO
Cases
to know Thursday: Gooding
v. Wilson (1971)
R.A.V.
v. St. Paul
(1992)
___________________________________________________________
Week 6
9/26-9/28:
Advertising Limits
Reading:
Chapter 7: Commercial Speech
Cases to know Tuesday: Valentine
v. Chrestensen
(1942) CB/SD: SADIE GOULAS
Bigelow
v. Virginia
(1975) CB/SD: ERICA DEAN
Cases
to know Thursday: Virginia
State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976)
CB/SD: CAITLIN SONNIER
Central
Hudson Gasc v. Public Service Commission
(1980) CB/SD: IRINA DIVINSKY
___________________________________________________________
Week 7
10/3-Fall break*: Injunctions
and Constraints
Reading:
Chapter 8: Prior Restraint
Cases to know Tuesday:
Near
v. Minnesota
(1931)
New
York Times v. United States
(1971) CB/SD: STEVEN DUGAS
United
States v. Progressive (1979) CB/SD: ASHLEY
THIBODEAUX
* Fall break 10/5-10/6
___________________________________________________________
Week 8
10/10-10/12:
Access to the Court, Government and Records
Reading:
Chapter 9: Special Problems of a Free Press
Cases to know Tuesday:
Gannett
Company v. DePasquale (1979) CB/SD: CHAD WEST
Richmond
Newspapers v. Virginia
(1980) CB/SD: BRAD BERWICK
Cases to know Thursday: Nebraska Press Association v.
Stuart (1976)
CB/SD: LAUREEN DODD LUCAS
Class Schedule (cont.)
__________________________________________________________
Week 9
10/17-10/19*:
Historic and Contemporary Limits
Reading:
Chapter 10: Constraints on Time, Place and Manner
Cases
to know Tuesday: Hague
v. CIO (1939)
Grayned
v. Rockford
(1972)
Cases
to know Thursday: Perry
Education Association v. Perry Local Educators' Association (1983)
Texas
v. Johnson (1989)
CB/SD: ANN
MCINTYRE
* advising for Spring
2007 begins through 10/27
___________________________________________________________
Week 10
10/24-10/26*:
Mid-term Exam (chapters 1-10) / Organizations
Reading:
Chapter 11: Institutional Constraints in Schools, Military and Prisons
Cases
to know Tuesday: Tinker
v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)
Hazelwood
School District v. Kuhlmeier
(1988)
Cases
to know Thursday: Parker
v. Levy (1974)
Pell
v. Procunier
(1974)
*advising for Spring 2007 continues through 10/27
___________________________________________________________
Week 11
10/31 -11/2*:
Ownership Issues
Reading:
Chapter 12: Copyright
Cases
to know Tuesday Harper
and Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises (1985)
Salinger
v. Random House, Inc.
(1987)
Cases
to know Thursday: Basic
Books Inc v. Kinko's Graphics Corp.
(1991)
Campbell
v. Acuff-Rose Music
(1994)
*11/4 last day for
dropping with a "W
___________________________________________________________
Week 12
11/7-11/9:
Telecommunications
Reading:
Chapter 13: Broadcasting, Cable, and Access Theory
Cases
to know Tuesday: National
Broadcasting v. United States
(1943) : CB/SD: MANDI VERDERAME
Red
Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC
(1969) CB/SD: DANNY WILLIAMSON
Cases to know Thursday: Miami
Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974)
FCC
v. Pacifica Foundation
(1978)
___________________________________________________________
Week 13
11/14-11/16:
New Media Rules
Reading:
Chapter 14: The Internet
Cases
to know Tuesday:
CBS v. FCC (1981) CB/SD: BRITTANY BRIGNAC
Turner
Broadcasting v. FCC
(1997) CB/SD: BLAISE BERNARD
Cases to know Thursday:
Reno
v. ACLU (1997)
CB/SD: NICHOLAS MILLER
MGM V GROKSTER (1997) CB/SD:
ABBIE LEMAIRE
___________________________________________________________
Week 14
11/21-11/23*:
Ethical Issues
Reading:
Chapter 15: Approaches to Free and Responsible Communication
Cases
to know: TBA
*Thanksgiving 11/23 11/24
___________________________________________________________
Week 15
11/28-11/30:
Wrap up
Reading:
All previous chapters and lecture notes
___________________________________________________________
Week 16
12/4-12/8*:
Finals Week
Monday, Dec. 4, 2006 10:15 a.m. 12:45 p.m.
VLW 405
*Wed. 12/6
mid-exam study day
___________________________________________________________
Assignments. All papers for this class (other than
tests) should be typed or word-processed in a double-spaced format. Written assignments are due at the beginning
of class on the assigned date. One
letter grade will be subtracted for each class day that an assignment is late.
Students who anticipate reasonable delays meeting a deadline should
advise the professor at the earliest opportunity.
CMCN
345 Case Briefings Assignment & Socratic Dialogue
There are
seven parts to complete in reviewing and summarizing the cases prescribed
for this course. First is the citation,
which includes the name of the case, the volume and beginning page numbers
of the legal reporter where the case is published.
Example 1 CITATION: Roe
v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
Roe is the appellant and
Wade is the appellee in this case. In
other words, the petitioner comes first in most case citations, the respondent
comes second, and signifies versus. Henry
Wade served as the district attorney in the jurisdiction (Dallas County),
where Jane Roe (pseudonym) lived when the case was filed in 1970. U.S. is the abbreviation for United States
Reports, 410 the volume number, and 113 is the page number where the case
is to be found in this official legal reporter.
Cases are found in other publications, and parallel citations may be
used.
The second
element of the brief is the facts of the case. This is the summary given to report the key
elements that led to this particular dispute.
It resembles a journalists report offering only the basic who, what,
where, when, how and why of the trial and case record leading up to the present
appeal.
Example 2 FACTS:
Dallas District Attorney
Henry Wade was petitioned in a class action suit that challenged the constitutional
legality of the state law criminalizing abortion. The Texas statute allowed
removal of a non-viable fetus only to save the life of the mother. Originally,
three separate cases were joined for a federal court ruling but one was dismissed
Doe v. Wade because it was a hypothetical situation. The couple sued even though the wife was not
yet pregnant. Hallford v. Wade also
was dismissed (the petitioner was a physician, Dr. James Hallford, facing
two prosecutions for conducting abortions but was not given standing to sue
based on the reasoning that he could have his say in those pending trials). The accepted petitioner, Jane Roe represented
by Sarah Weddington sought a declaratory judgment saying that the abortion
law was unconstitutional, and also an injunction to stop Texas from enforcing
it. The District Court granted the
first request finding the statute vague and overbroad, but it did not grant
an injunction.
The third
part of the case briefing is called the Issue, and is where you briefly
spell out the principal question that the court is seeking to address. It can be explicitly stated as a question or
described in one or at most two declarative sentences.
Example 3 ISSUE:
Do states have the right to ban abortion
for their residents, or do such laws violate the right to privacy, the Ninth
Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution?
The fourth
part of your case briefing requires a summary of the decision of the court,
and it may begin with a one-word response to the stated or implied question
framed in the issue. This part may
be referred to as a ruling, holding, judgment, or sometimes disposition.
Example 4 DECISION:
AFFIRMED. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts
declaratory judgment by finding the Texas abortion law unconstitutional, and
it granted an injunction to prohibit enforcement of anti-abortion law.
The states would be allowed to place restrictions on abortion and define
accepted medical procedures and physicians. It was a 7-to-2 decision. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion,
while Justices White and Rehnquist filed dissents.
The fifth
part of the case brief is the explanation where we discuss the rationale for
the ruling indicating how the decision relates to earlier case precedents,
statutes, history or philosophy.
Example 5 EXPLANATION:
The right of privacy is never mentioned
by name in the U.S. Constitution, but here the decision alludes to the penumbra
of privacy abstracted from the First, Fourth, Fifth, Nine and Fourteenth Amendments.
Citing the precedent of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), a decision that dealt
with the privacy of sexual intimacy and contraception, the court stated that
in this instance a womans zone of privacy covers her to choose what could
be done to her body.
The sixth
part of the brief summarizes in one or two sentences what the consequences
have been as a result of the case.