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69 Tex. L. Rev. 1 (1990-1991)
Rediscovering the Communal Worth of Individual Rights: The First Amendment in Institutional Contexts

handle is hein.journals/tlr69 and id is 23 raw text is: Texas Law Review Volume 69, Number 1, November 1990 Rediscovering the Communal Worth of Individual Rights: The First Amendment in Institutional Contexts Stanley Ingber* The expansion offree speech protections in the twentieth century reflects our society's commitment to tolerance and individualism. Groups espousing hatred, rebellion, or other notions at odds with community values are able to invoke the protections of the Constitution for their expression, often at the price of some degree of societal harmony. However, our society's pronounced and occasionally costly commitment to free expres- sion on the street corner does not extend to the more mundane government-sponsored settings in which citizens actually spend significant portions of their lives, such as gov- ernment offices, public schools, or military facilities. In these institutional settings, courts typically forego the benefits of communicative liberty in deference to the societal function served by the institution. In this Article, Professor Ingber argues that the grounding offirst-amendment rights solely in a philosophy of individualism, which, he suggests, explains this disparity in free speech protection, is conceptually flawed be- cause it ignores the process of character development that is the essence of an individ- ual's existence Freedom of speech must be valued not merely as an accommodation to individual autonomy, but instead as part of government's broader responsibility to cul- tivate in its citizens the qualities that benefit all of society. Professor Ingber advocates an alternative free speech theory that considers the importance of the interactions be- tween citizens and government in institutional settings in attaining civic virtue. I. Introduction: The Limits of First-Amendment Significance. 3 A. The Development of First-Amendment Doctrine ........ 3 B. Individualism and the First Amendment ............... 5 II. The Limits of Individualism ............................... 9 A. Free Speech Justifications ............................. 11 1. A Questfor Truth ................................. 11 2. A Mandate of Self-Government .................... 15 3. A Requirement for Self-Fulfillment ................ 18 B. The Conceptual Flaw of Individualism ................. 20 C. Two Conflicting Traditions ............................ 24 III. Communal Values of Constitutional Liberties .............. 26 James Madison Endowed Chair in Constitutional Law, Drake University. B.A. 1969, Brooklyn College; J.D. 1972, Yale Law School.

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