Ronald J. Colombo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199335671
- eISBN:
- 9780199361915
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199335671.003.0009
- Subject:
- Law, Constitutional and Administrative Law, Company and Commercial Law
Freedom of association is not explicitly mentioned in the First Amendment. This freedom makes its first Supreme Court appearance in the 1927 case Whitney v. California. Over time, culminating in the ...
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Freedom of association is not explicitly mentioned in the First Amendment. This freedom makes its first Supreme Court appearance in the 1927 case Whitney v. California. Over time, culminating in the case Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the freedom has come to permit organizations both privacy of their membership rosters and control over who can be admitted as members. Although at one time, freedom of association was arguably limited to only intimate associations and expressive associations, after Dale it appears invocable by any association that happens to engage in expression, regardless of whether it was organized as an explicitly expressive association or not. For reasons discussed previously, the postmodern corporation has expressive potential, whereas the modern corporation does not. Consequently, freedom of association ought to be a right recognized by postmodern corporations but not by modern corporations.Less
Freedom of association is not explicitly mentioned in the First Amendment. This freedom makes its first Supreme Court appearance in the 1927 case Whitney v. California. Over time, culminating in the case Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the freedom has come to permit organizations both privacy of their membership rosters and control over who can be admitted as members. Although at one time, freedom of association was arguably limited to only intimate associations and expressive associations, after Dale it appears invocable by any association that happens to engage in expression, regardless of whether it was organized as an explicitly expressive association or not. For reasons discussed previously, the postmodern corporation has expressive potential, whereas the modern corporation does not. Consequently, freedom of association ought to be a right recognized by postmodern corporations but not by modern corporations.
