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Public Discourse and Reasonable Pluralism: Rethinking the Requirements of Neutrality

H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr.

David E. Guinn (ed.)

in Handbook of Bioethics and Religion

This chapter explores the view that religious claims have no legitimate place in the public forum. This exploration involves a critical re-examination of the public versus private distinction that ... More

This chapter explores the view that religious claims have no legitimate place in the public forum. This exploration involves a critical re-examination of the public versus private distinction that would place religious commitments and grounds for action in a sphere isolated from that of public discourse and public choice. In the process, this chapter brings into question John Rawls's defense of a public discourse that seeks to marginalize religious commitments.Less

Christian Hope and Public Reason

Robert Gascoigne

in Religious Voices in Public Places

This chapter is concerned with the relationship between Christian hope and public reason, especially as articulated in John Rawls's essay ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’. With reference to ... More

This chapter is concerned with the relationship between Christian hope and public reason, especially as articulated in John Rawls's essay ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’. With reference to Matthew 25, it argues that Christian hope goes beyond history, but that Christian love is expressed within history and that this tension can be the source of a specifically Christian service to democratic societies. Hope is crucial to the ethical life of democratic societies in three particular ways: it inspires a discernment of human capacities which evokes moral virtue; maintains a conviction of the openness of the future to human striving; and teaches a certain detachment from the fruits of that striving. The chapter considers how Christian hope can serve this public political hope while at the same time maintaining a distinctively Christian identity, focussing on the use of the religious language of hope by Christians in the public political forum.Less

The Public Forum Requirement: Public Spaces, Private Forums, and Parks Recreation

John D. Inazu

in Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving through Deep Difference

Chapter 3 introduces the related concept of the public forum through the popular television show Parks & Recreation. Real-life public forums, like the forums depicted in Parks & Rec, are ... More

Chapter 3 introduces the related concept of the public forum through the popular television show Parks & Recreation. Real-life public forums, like the forums depicted in Parks & Rec, are government-provided spaces where viewpoints become voices. They are an essential part of Confident Pluralism because they allow citizens and the groups that they form to advocate, protest, and witness in common spaces—and they are insufficiently protected under current constitutional doctrine. We have seen these weaknesses exposed in a variety of settings, including the crackdown of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, restrictions against labor activism, and regulations of anti-abortion protesters. Correcting these weaknesses will require greater attention to the shortcomings of time, place, and manner restrictions, and to an emerging doctrine known as government speech. A separate challenge arises because public forums are not the only places where we enact the aspirations of Confident Pluralism—privately owned spaces like coffee shops, parks, and online service providers increasingly serve this function. Ordinary citizens need either spaces provided and facilitated by the government or “private public forums” to come together for purposes of dissent, disagreement, and diversity. Let's call this the Public Forum Requirement.Less

Tradition and Practice

Lackland H. Bloom

in Methods of Interpretation: How the Supreme Court Reads the Constitution

This chapter examines the Court's use of tradition and practice in constitutional interpretation. First, it looks at how the Court has relied on longstanding congressional or executive practice ... More

This chapter examines the Court's use of tradition and practice in constitutional interpretation. First, it looks at how the Court has relied on longstanding congressional or executive practice especially in the area of separation of powers. Next it considers three specific areas of law in which tradition and practice has played a significant role—the First Amendment public forum doctrine, the Establishment Clause, and due process of law. Then, it discusses several issues that arise with respect to tradition and practice including reliance on international practice, the appropriate level of generality to describe a practice, evolving standards, and a living constitution. Finally, it explores the Court's treatment of changing, declining or the absence of traditions and practices as well as the evaluation of them.Less

Ordered Liberty

Rodney A. Smolla

in The Constitution Goes to College: Five Constitutional Ideas That Have Shaped the American University

This chapter examines the ideal of ordered liberty in American constitutional tradition. It begins with an overview of the ideas of Thomas Friedman and Albert Einstein about the universe and relates ... More

This chapter examines the ideal of ordered liberty in American constitutional tradition. It begins with an overview of the ideas of Thomas Friedman and Albert Einstein about the universe and relates them to the realm of the modern American university, along with the university's moral and legal jurisdiction to judge expression and opinion. It then explores the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor to describe public universities and goes on to discuss the constitutional struggle to balance liberty and order, First Amendment's “neutrality principle” in relation to freedom of speech, the so-called “carve-outs” of the general marketplace, and the dual character of the university as a microcosm of society when it comes to free speech principles. It also assesses the carve-outs to the “avert your eyes” principle involving the protection of children and of certain sanctuaries of privacy from offensive speech, the body of doctrines known as “public forum law,” hate speech and threats on campus, and free speech rights of faculty and students.Less

5 Ordered Liberty

Rodney A. Smolla

in The Constitution Goes to College: Five Constitutional Ideas That Have Shaped the American University

This chapter examines the ideal of ordered liberty in American constitutional tradition. It begins with an overview of the ideas of Thomas Friedman and Albert Einstein about the universe and relates ... More

This chapter examines the ideal of ordered liberty in American constitutional tradition. It begins with an overview of the ideas of Thomas Friedman and Albert Einstein about the universe and relates them to the realm of the modern American university, along with the university's moral and legal jurisdiction to judge expression and opinion. It then explores the “marketplace of ideas” metaphor to describe public universities and goes on to discuss the constitutional struggle to balance liberty and order, First Amendment's “neutrality principle” in relation to freedom of speech, the so-called “carve-outs” of the general marketplace, and the dual character of the university as a microcosm of society when it comes to free speech principles. It also assesses the carve-outs to the “avert your eyes” principle involving the protection of children and of certain sanctuaries of privacy from offensive speech, the body of doctrines known as “public forum law,” hate speech and threats on campus, and free speech rights of faculty and students. Less

Speakers, Cornered: Weakening the Public Forum

Gregory P. Magarian

in Managed Speech: The Roberts Court's First Amendment

This chapter discusses government properties, which First Amendment law calls “public forums,” that offer underfunded speakers opportunities to reach audiences. The Roberts Court has limited those ... More

This chapter discusses government properties, which First Amendment law calls “public forums,” that offer underfunded speakers opportunities to reach audiences. The Roberts Court has limited those opportunities by holding in two cases that the government may commandeer certain speech in public forums to express its own ideas or values and by holding in a third case that public universities may bar university-sponsored student groups from limiting their membership on moral grounds. A fourth Roberts Court public forum decision holds, in much more speech-protective fashion, that a state “buffer zone” that barred speech around abortion clinics restricted more speech than necessary to achieve the government’s permissible objectives. That decision, however, may limit its value for future speakers by emphasizing the distinctive character of the antiabortion “counsellors” who won the case.Less

Organizing Deliberation

in Talking Together: Public Deliberation and Political Participation in America

Discursive participation about issues of public concern can take many forms—from an exchange over the phone or via e-mail to an informal conversation at work or home to participation in more public ... More

Discursive participation about issues of public concern can take many forms—from an exchange over the phone or via e-mail to an informal conversation at work or home to participation in more public or semipublic forums. While any form of public talk requires some degree of individual interest, ability, and opportunity, participation in public forums can be particularly costly, requiring individuals who are willing and able to talk collectively with each other in public and to devote time and effort to interacting with others who may not understand their views or who might even oppose them. Several disparate forms of deliberative organizations that have emerged in the United States can be differentiated by whether they are temporary or permanent, by who initiates them, and by who participates in them. An important variation among these organizations is their degree of coordination (independent or linked) and whether they are local or national. This chapter explores the organizational infrastructure that facilitates public deliberation, identifying and analyzing which helps to explain the surprisingly wide scope and public nature of discursive participation.Less

The Public Forum

Timothy Zick

in The First Amendment in the Trump Era

This chapter examines concerns relating to preserving access to public properties for the purpose of facilitating freedom of expression. Historically, speakers and groups have fought to obtain and ... More

This chapter examines concerns relating to preserving access to public properties for the purpose of facilitating freedom of expression. Historically, speakers and groups have fought to obtain and preserve First Amendment rights to access and use what are referred to as “public forums”—places that the government owns or controls, but that are held in trust for the people for the purpose of exercising First Amendment rights. The “law and order” mantra of the Trump Era has revived concerns, dating in particular from the 1960s and 1970s, about preserving speakers’ access to public places including streets and parks. Government “law and order” policies and actions, along with various other access limits, raise concerns about the continued viability of the public forum. In addition, during the Trump Era, issues have arisen with regard to speakers’ access to places in the “modern public square,” including official social media sites. President Trump’s decision to block several critics from the comment portion of his Twitter page is only the most prominent example of this new access concern, which will affect dissenters’ ability to communicate with an increasing number of public officials. Preserving access to traditional and digital forums will be critical to maintaining a culture of dissent.Less

A Case Study of Deliberation In Action: Americans Discuss Social Security

in Talking Together: Public Deliberation and Political Participation in America

This chapter discusses the findings of an in-depth case study of a national effort to foster public deliberation about Social Security in the United States: a deliberative forum entitled Americans ... More

This chapter discusses the findings of an in-depth case study of a national effort to foster public deliberation about Social Security in the United States: a deliberative forum entitled Americans Discuss Social Security (ADSS). It examines in detail who deliberates, how, and to what effect. The premise of ADSS was that public talk matters and would affect deliberators and public policy. During 1998, ADSS hosted public forums in five cities (Austin, Texas; Buffalo, New York; Seattle, Washington; Des Moines, Iowa; and Phoenix, Arizona). The forums were held on Saturdays in large convention centers to facilitate broad participation and lasted about four to five hours. The chapter looks at the deliberative dynamics of the five ADSS forums, and then discusses the impacts of one of them: the session held on May 30, 1998, with 408 residents of the Phoenix metropolitan area. It shows that going to the ADSS forum did little to affect political participation, mostly because of the already high level of engagement of the attendees.Less

Conclusion: Toward Progressive Women's Communities

Elizabeth Hayes Turner

in Women, Culture, and Community: Religion and Reform in Galveston, 1880–1920

This chapter shows how the progressive women's communities emerged during the Progressive Era. Galveston supplied an environment conducive to middle and upper-class women's advancement from ... More

This chapter shows how the progressive women's communities emerged during the Progressive Era. Galveston supplied an environment conducive to middle and upper-class women's advancement from congregational life into community activism. It helped extend women's issues to public forums. Three progressive communities emerged: African American Women's Hospital Aid Society, the Women's Progressive Club, and the Negro Women Voters' League. They all had nurtured ameliorative and reforming sentiments. These associations were separated by race but their goals advanced women to positions of leadership. Thus, the first two decades became women's decades as they organized to protect the health, seek equal rights and opportunities for women and combat discrimination. It worked for a healthier, safer urban environment for the women.Less

Three the multidisciplinary public health movement of the 1990s

Jenny Wright, Fiona Sim, and Katie Ferguson

in Multidisciplinary public health: Understanding the development of the modern workforce

This chapter charts the start of the quest for recognition of public health practitioners from backgrounds other than medicine. It sets out national processes leading to the establishment of the ... More

This chapter charts the start of the quest for recognition of public health practitioners from backgrounds other than medicine. It sets out national processes leading to the establishment of the Tripartite Group and the progress made by lobbying groups such as the Multidisciplinary Public Health Forum in the context of changing government policies which started to favour a move to multidisciplinary public health at senior levels. It includes the initial reaction of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine including creating honorary membership for non-medics, but voting not to admit non-medics as full members through to the 1998 vote for first stage admittance of non-medics via sitting Part I of Faculty examinations. The 1990s also saw the formal start of development opportunities for senior practitioners working in non-medical public health such as opening up Masters in Public Health courses.Less

Space (Center for Social Development and the Public Sphere)

Alexander Laban Hinton

in The Justice Facade: Trials of Transition in Cambodia

Chapter 3 “Space,” continues to focus on interstitiality, lived experience, and the combustive acts of creativity and imagination that take place behind the justice face. It examines another NGO ... More

Chapter 3 “Space,” continues to focus on interstitiality, lived experience, and the combustive acts of creativity and imagination that take place behind the justice face. It examines another NGO “vortex,” the Center for Social Development,” which was led by two Cambodian-Americans, Chea Vannath and Theary Seng and known for high-profile Khmer Rouge Tribunal outreach “Public Forums.” The chapter traces the origins of the non-governmental organization and the public forum project, noting how the forums changed in accordance with the historical moment and the vision of these leaders, including Chea Vannath’s deep Buddhist belief and Theary Seng’s Christianity even as both were also influenced by time spent in the United States. The chapter concludes with a return to the International Center for Transitional Justice outreach project and a discussion of the public forums as an imagined “public spheres,” alleged “spaces” of liberal democratic being asserted by transitional justice imaginary discourses.Less

Conclusion

John D. Inazu

in Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving through Deep Difference

Confident Pluralism argues that we can, and we must, learn to live with each other in spite of our deep differences. It requires a tolerance for dissent, a skepticism of government orthodoxy, and a ... More

Confident Pluralism argues that we can, and we must, learn to live with each other in spite of our deep differences. It requires a tolerance for dissent, a skepticism of government orthodoxy, and a willingness to endure strange and even offensive ways of life. Confident Pluralism asks that those charged with enforcing our laws do better in preserving and strengthening our constitutional commitments to voluntary groups, public forums, and certain kinds of generally available funding. It also challenges each of us to live out the aspirations of tolerance, humility, and patience in our civic practices. The Conclusion sketches a vision for how we might go about pursuing that possibility. It focuses on the possibility of civic engagement over hashtag activism. It also includes a story of finding common ground in a commitment to the public forum in the recent Supreme Court decision, McCullen v. Coakley, involving protesters outside of an abortion clinic.Less

The Debate Within: White Backlash, the New Thing, and Economics

INGRID MONSON

in Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call Out to Jazz and Africa

One of the most notable differences between the Down Beat of the 1950s and that of the 1960s is the amount of space devoted to public forums which aired intense and racially polarized debates on ... More

One of the most notable differences between the Down Beat of the 1950s and that of the 1960s is the amount of space devoted to public forums which aired intense and racially polarized debates on these themes. Although these events frequently climaxed with deep divides between black and white participants, secondary splits often occurred as well — between older and younger musicians, between white advocates of color blindness and white leftists sympathetic to black nationalism, and between those for whom merit was measured in relationship to musical standards of mainstream jazz, and those who advocated the unbounded experimentalism of the New Thing. This chapter analyzes two of these panel discussions — “Racial Prejudice in Jazz” (Down Beat, March 1962) and “Point of Contact” (Down Beat Music 1966) — not only for what they reveal about the racial discourse of the 1960s, but also for their ongoing relevance to debates about music and race in the 21st century.Less

Who Deliberates?

in Talking Together: Public Deliberation and Political Participation in America

Consistent and strong evidence that public talk was systematically unrepresentative would confirm the strong criticisms of deliberation for reproducing and even exacerbating economic and social ... More

Consistent and strong evidence that public talk was systematically unrepresentative would confirm the strong criticisms of deliberation for reproducing and even exacerbating economic and social inequalities in American society, and would also deepen the sobering reality of American democracy. Some past studies on public deliberation have indicated that people with the most time, resources, expertise, and information appear to participate most extensively in public forums. This chapter investigates who deliberates, especially in face-to-face forums. The findings indicate notable differences regarding which Americans engage in public deliberation. What is striking is that these differences do not support the dire conclusion that citizen deliberation replicates entrenched social and economic status. Indeed, the analysis suggests that the discursive participation of Americans is less directly tied to the traditional social and economic correlates of political behavior than are other forms of political participation.Less

Coming to a City near You

Josh Lerner

in Everyone Counts: Could "Participatory Budgeting" Change Democracy?

This chapter illustrates the PB group's desire to communicate with local community organizations in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, and elsewhere to organize public forums. At each event, core ... More

This chapter illustrates the PB group's desire to communicate with local community organizations in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, and elsewhere to organize public forums. At each event, core community groups brought in allies and local elected officials to hear about Chicago. Diverging from their approach in Chicago, the group launched Participatory Budgeting in New York City (PBNYC) as a multidistrict process. Community Voices Heard—a group that organizes low-income women of color around public housing and welfare programs—played a lead role in securing broad community support and foundation funding. The ongoing public presentations thus led to new PB processes. Foundations began to take notice, investing more money in the group's work and in local PB procedures.Less