Panel discussion on recent U.S. Supreme Court free speech decisions & the implications of these cases for American society.

• Position: Discussion

MR. BENJAMIN POMERANCE: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back to those of you who are returning from the morning session, returning from lunch. And welcome for the first time to those of you who are joining us for the first time today. We are very glad and very proud to have such a good turnout for an excellent afternoon discussion about free speech issues past and present.

Before we begin the afternoon discussion, it is my pleasure to turn the work of giving the introductions over to someone who is new to our Albany Law School community, but someone who has already established a very positive reputation with the Law Review and with the entire student body. We are thrilled to have her here today: Albany Law School's Dean and President, Penelope Andrews.

(Applause)

INTRODUCTION OF THE PANELISTS

DEAN & PRESIDENT PENELOPE ANDREWS: Good afternoon. I want to start by thanking the people who made this possible, and who certainly contributed to making this the success it has been thus far. I want to start obviously by thanking Benjamin, who has done just an amazing job, as we have seen and heard this morning. Thank you.

And Mary D'Agostino, who is the editor-in-chief--who is back there. And then the people from Technical Services. And all the other people in this building who worked behind the scenes to make this possible.

I came here two-and-a-half months ago. And this morning when I was listening to the debate, I thought about one of the things that people tell you and that we experience as we grow older. It is that we lose the "wow factor"; that we become cynical; we've seen it all; and so on. So this morning I thought no, I have not lost the "wow factor." I was so impressed by the debate, and this is thanks to the students.

The second thing I want to say is that I am constantly amazed at the wonderful group of students that we have at Albany Law School. I don't have children of my own, so I don't know what parental love may feel like, but I think it is something that is unfiltered and completely unconditional love. That's what I felt this morning. Our students are just wonderful, and today's event is a reflection of that. And of course I also want to thank the faculty, who have some part, especially when students come to the second and third year, in becoming what they are.

I was going to spend this time talking about growing up in South Africa and the lack of freedom of speech and the First Amendment. But no, I thought--for another time.

This is one of the values of American society that can be exported. It's one of the good things about the United States. In many societies we still struggle with this idea of really giving a voice to people, a real voice, a genuine voice, and not living in fear of government.

So it is my great joy to introduce the speakers. We could talk about them all afternoon. You have the abbreviated bios in the pamphlets and brochures that were handed out, and you can also go on the Web and Google them. Many of them get five million hits at a time. So there is a lot about them.

So let me start by introducing Ronald Collins, who is the Harold S. Shefelman Scholar at the University of Washington School of Law and a Fellow at the Washington, D.C. office of the First Amendment Center.

He writes and lectures on freedom of expression, and developed the First Amendment Center's online Supreme Court Library.

He has served as a law clerk to Justice Hans Linde on the Oregon Supreme Court, and thereafter was a judicial fellow under Chief Justice Warren Burger of the U.S. Supreme Court.

He has taught constitutional law and commercial law at Temple Law School and George Washington Law School. And he has published some fifty articles, as well as a book on the trials of Lenny Bruce.

This is what I found out about Professor Collins when I trolled the Web: that in 1967, before he entered college, Professor Collins appeared on The Dating Game, which ran on ABC television. And he was the bachelor chosen.

(Applause)

His wife's not here, so I can say it.

(Laughter)

Susan Herman, a friend, was elected president of the American Civil Liberties Union in October 2008, and after having served on the ACLU National Board of Directors for twenty years, was a member of the Executive Committee for sixteen years, and was General Counsel for ten years. And she holds the chair of Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where she currently teaches courses in constitutional law and criminal procedure, and seminars on law and literature, and terrorism and civil liberties.

Her recent books include Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy, and Terrorism, Government and Law: National Authority and Local Autonomy in the War on Terror. She was editor and co-author of the latter work with one of our professors, Professor Paul Finkelman. Professor Herman has appeared on PBS, C-Span, NBC, MSNBC, and a series of appearances on the Today Show and Today in New York, and she has participated in Supreme Court litigation.

Before entering teaching, Professor Herman was pro se law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and associate director of Prisoner's Legal Services of New York.

I'm also pleased to say that I was the person who took Professor Herman to her first trip to South Africa in 2005, when I organized a conference there on law and rights, and she came along. So that, I didn't have to get off the Web. Welcome.

Robert O'Neil was the former director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, and an authority on the First Amendment. He teaches constitutional law, free speech and the press, and church and state at the University of Virginia.

Professor O'Neil was the University of Virginia's sixth president, a position he held from 1985 to 1990. Other posts include provost of the University of Cincinnati, vice president of Indiana University, and president of the statewide University of Wisconsin system.

After law school he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Jr. He is currently Director of the Ford Foundation's Difficult Dialogues Program, and Chair of the American Association of University Professors Special Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in Times of Crisis.

With such an august bio, I didn't think it appropriate to go and do a Google search on him.

Robert Richards is the founding co-Director of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment at Penn State. He has worked as a news writer, anchor, reporter, and talk show host for stations in the Northeast, and for NBC News in New York City.

Professor Richards is the co-author of the 2003 book Mass Communications Law in Pennsylvania, and is also the author of Freedom's Voice: The Perilous Present and Uncertain Future of the First Amendment. At Penn State, he has served as the head of the Journalism Department and Associate Dean of the College of Communications, where he created and currently directs the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in mass communications law, the first amendment, and news media ethics.

But most importantly, he's a wine maker and a certified specialist of wine, and has passed the first level examination of the prestigious Court of Master Sommeliers. So he knows how to make good wine.

MR, RICHARDS: In case this law thing doesn't work out for me.

(Laughter)

DEAN ANDREWS: And our moderator--our very esteemed moderator--Mr. Adam Liptak, who is the Supreme Court correspondent for the New York Times. He joined the Times staff in 2002, and began covering the Supreme Court in the fall of 2008.

Mr. Liptak is a lawyer, and has written a legal column, "Sidebar," since 2007. His series on ways in which the United States legal system differs from those of other developed nations, "American Exception," was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize.

He worked for four years at Cahill Gordon & Reindel as a litigation associate specializing in First Amendment matters. In 1992, he returned to the Times Legal Department for ten years. And during that time he has taught media law at the Columbia University School of Journalism, UCLA Law School, and Yale Law School. I've been trying to persuade him to come to Albany Law School for a few days and teach a course here.

Mr. Liptak first joined the Times after graduation from Yale University with a degree in English.

For those of you who follow him on Twitter, you will see that this summer he told a former colleague how he missed the old days as a copy boy, when they had one deadline a day rather than the four they have now. He doesn't mention in his tweet, as is mentioned in his bio, that the good old days for him included clerical work and fetching coffee.

This week he tweeted a humorous Homer Simpson clip. Homer, who begrudgingly votes for a president, complains, "Why do we have to choose our leaders? Isn't that what we have the Supreme Court for?"

(Laughter)

And then we have Mr. Morrison. Professor Alan Morrison was introduced this morning. He is the Lerner Family Associate Dean for Public Interest and Public Service at George Washington Law School. He is doing double-duty for us, as he was on this morning as well.

He creates pro bono opportunities for students, brings public interest programs to the law school, encourages students to seek careers in the non-profit sectors, and finds ways to fund their legal education to make it possible for them to pursue careers outside of traditional law firms.

For most of his career, Dean Morrison worked for the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which he co-founded with Ralph Nader in 1972 and directed for over twenty-five years.

He has argued twenty cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School, he served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy.

And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. His daughter Nina is a leading attorney at the Innocence...