Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1989

Abstract

It is my honor and pleasure to deliver this year's Sullivan Lecture. I have an especially warm feeling toward this Law School. Two years ago, at the invitation of your Professor Distelhorst, I participated in the Capital Law School program for teaching American law to Japanese lawyers. For five stimulating weeks I enjoyed the intellectual and social company· of Japanese attorneys, while teaching them the outlines of American constitutional law. Twice a week, in the evening, for three continuous hours, and after a full work day, these dedicated lawyers would willingly become students again and suffer patiently through my highly condensed course. And in the humid warmth of the Tokyo summer night, members of my tired and beleaguered audience would occasionally, and to me quite appropriately, fall fast asleep. I say this out of fondness and understanding for them, who perhaps will someday read this lecture, and out of respect and understanding for you, should you find it necessary this afternoon to follow their example.

The goal of my lecture today is to peer into the future, to look at the horizon of our constitutional principle of freedom of the press. But I cannot, and do not, want to leave behind the present. What I propose is to look at several ways in which our present thinking about the First Amendment and the press needs to be, in my judgment, substantially changed.

Disciplines

Constitutional Law | First Amendment | Law

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