Saving Our Children from the First Amendment (Critical America Series)

320 Pages·2003·0.79 MB·English

by  Kevin Saunders

Saving Our Children
from the First Amendment
CRITICAL AMERICA
General Editors: Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
White by Law:
To Be an American: Cultural Pluralism
The Legal Construction of Race
and the Rhetoric of Assimilation
Ian F. Haney López Bill Ong Hing
Cultivating Intelligence:
Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism:

Power, Law, and the Politics of Teaching
The Hidden Costs of Being

Louise Harmon and Deborah W. Post Black in America

Jody David Armour
Privilege Revealed:

How Invisible Preference
Black and Brown in America:
Undermines America
The Case for Cooperation
Stephanie M. Wildmand with Margalynne Bill Piatt
Armstrong, Adrienne D. Davis, and Trina
Black Rage Confronts the Law
Grillo
Paul Harris
Does the Law Morally Bind the Poor?
Selling Words:

or What Good’s the Constitution When
Free Speech in a Commercial Culture

You Can’t Afford a Loaf of Bread?
R. George Wright
R. George Wright
Hybrid: Bisexuals, Multiracials, and The Color of Crime: Racial Hoaxes,

Other Misfits under American Law White Fear, Black Protectionism,

Police Harassment, and

Ruth Colker
Other Macroaggressions

Critical Race Feminism: A Reader
Katheryn K. Russell
Edited by Adrien Katherine Wing
The Smart Culture:

Immigrants Out!
Society, Intelligence, and Law

The New Nativism and the

Robert L. Hayman, Jr.
Anti-Immigrant Impulse

in the United States
Was Blind, But Now I See:

Edited by Juan F. Perea White Race Consciousness and the Law

Barbara J. Flagg
Taxing America
Edited by Karen B. Brown and Mary The Gender Line:

Louise Fellows Men, Women, and the Law

Nancy Levit
Notes of a Racial Caste Baby:
Color Blindness and the Heretics in the Temple:
End of Affirmative Action Americans Who Reject
Bryan K. Fair the Nation’s Legal Faith
David Ray Papke
Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry
Christmas: A Critical History of the The Empire Strikes Back: Outsiders and
Separation of Church and State the Struggle over Legal Education
Stephen M. Feldman Arthur Austin
Interracial Justice: Conflict and
Why Lawsuits Are Good for America:
Reconciliation in
Disciplined Democracy, Big Business,
Post–Civil Rights America
and the Common Law
Eric K. Yamamoto Carl T. Bogus
Black Men on Race, Gender, and How the Left Can Win Arguments and
Sexuality: A Critical Reader Influence People: A Tactical Manual for
Edited by Devon Carbado Pragmatic Progressives
John K. Wilson
When Sorry Isn’t Enough:

The Controversy over Apologies and
Aftermath:

Reparations for Human Injustice
The Clinton Impeachment and the Presi­

Edited by Roy L. Brooks dency in the Age of Political Spectacle

Edited by Leonard V. Kaplan
Disoriented: Asian Americans, Law,
and Beverly I. Moran
and the Nation State
Robert S. Chang Getting over Equality: A Critical Diag­
nosis of Religious Freedom in America
Rape and the Culture of the Courtroom
Steven D. Smith
Andrew E. Taslitz
Critical Race Narratives: A Study of
The Passions of Law
Race, Rhetoric, and Injury
Edited by Susan A. Bandes
Carl Gutiérrez-Jones
Global Critical Race Feminism:
An International Reader Social Scientists for Social Justice:
Making the Case against Segregation
Edited by Adrien Katherine Wing
John P. Jackson, Jr.
Law and Religion: Critical Essays
Victims in the War on Crime:

Edited by Stephen M. Feldman
The Use and Abuse of Victims’ Rights

Changing Race: Latinos, the Census, Markus Dirk Dubber
and the History of Ethnicity
Original Sin:

Clara E. Rodríguez
Clarence Thomas and the Failure

From the Ground Up: Environmental of the Constitutional Conservatives

Racism and the Rise of the Samuel A. Marcosson
Environmental Justice Movement
Policing Hatred: Law Enforcement,
Luke Cole and Sheila Foster
Civil Rights, and Hate Crime
Nothing but the Truth: Why Trial Jeannine Bell
Lawyers Don’t, Can’t, and Shouldn’t
Destructive Messages:

Have to Tell the Whole Truth
How Hate Speech Paves the Way for

Steven Lubet
Harmful Social Movements

Critical Race Theory: An Introduction Alexander Tsesis
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic
Moral Imperialism:
Playing It Safe: How the Supreme Court A Critical Anthology
Sidesteps Hard Cases Edited by Berta Esperanza
Lisa A. Kloppenberg Hernández-Truyol
In the Silicon Valley of Dreams: Murder and the Reasonable Man:

Environmental Injustice, Passion and Fear in the

Immigrant Workers, Criminal Courtroom

and theHigh-Tech Cynthia K. Lee
Global Economy
Success without Victory:

David N. Pellow and
Lost Legal Battles and the

Lisa Sun-Hee Park
Long Road to Justice in America

Jules Lobel
Mixed Race America and the Law:
A Reader Greasers and Gringos: Latinos, Law,
and the American Imagination
Kevin R. Johnson
Steven W. Bender
Critical Race Feminism: Saving Our Children
A Reader, Second Edition from the First Amendment
Edited by Adrien Katherine Wing Kevin W. Saunders
Saving Our
Children from the
First Amendment
Kevin W. Saunders
a

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London

www.nyupress.org

© 2003 by New York University

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data

Saunders, Kevin W.

Saving our children from the First Amendment / Kevin W. Saunders

p. cm. — (Critical America)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0–8147–9835–7 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. Freedom of speech—United States. 2. Obscenity (Law)—

United States. 3. Internet and children—United States.

I. Title. II. Series.

KF4772.S28 2003

342.73'0853—dc21 2003014383

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper,
and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of my parents,
Morton (1916–98) and
Eleanor (1920–2003) Saunders.

Contents
Acknowledgments xi/
Introduction 1

1 The Most Important Freedom 19

2 The Costs of Free Expression 43

3 Relieving the Strain on the First Amendment 67

4 Inculcating Values 86

5 Children and Other Constitutional Rights 104

6 Obscenity 124

7 Violence 146

8 The Internet 164

9 Hate Speech 179

10 The Coarsening of Society 202

11 Advertising 213

12 Speech in the Schools 228

Conclusion 256

ix