The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
 By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). Libel, the publication of false statements defamatory to one’s character, is one of the most inscrutable areas of constitutional law. Laws surrounding libel and slander, the spoken form of libel, often provoke some of the judicial system’s most eccentric cases. This article will trace the developments in libel law over the past half-century by focusing on the landmark 1987 Supreme Court case of Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, and discuss a more recent controversy involving comedienne Sarah Silverman and rapper Eminem. Hustler Magazine opened up the floodgates for defamation of public figures through a quite humorous case. After discovering his scandalous portrayal in the magazine, Reverend Jerry Falwell sued Hustler. [1] Falwell was a figurehead of the “moral majority” movement of the 1980’s that aligned the Republican Party with the Christian right. His notoriety made him an easy target for controversial publications like Hustler. In one issue, Hustler ran a parody feature discussing the “first times” of different celebrities, and depicted Falwell’s first time as a “drunken incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse.” [2] This evidently outrageous piece enraged Falwell, who sued Hustler for defamation of character.
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 By Siddarth Sethi
In April 2010, the Australian government released its Human Rights Framework, a formal response to the recommendations proposed by the National Human Rights Consultation chaired by Father Frank Brennan AO. The Framework adopted many of the recommendations put forth by the Brennan Committee’s Report, including increasing efforts to educate Australians about their rights, and about the nature of rights protection in Australia generally. However, the Australian government rejected the Committee’s primary recommendation to adopt a statutory bill of rights, or Human Rights Act, modeled on existing state and territory legislation already operating in the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria. Due to the lack of federal legislation, the judicial statutory interpretation principles, particularly the principle of legality, remain the primary mechanisms of rights protection in Australia. [1] Recent High Court decisions including that of Plaintiff S10/2011 v Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (‘Plaintiff S10’) suggest that the power of these mechanisms to prevent the government from rescinding fundamental common law rights has waned. [2][1]Additionally, the changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 proposed by the Abbott government have highlighted concerns surrounding the balance of federal rights protection mechanisms and the maintenance of satisfactory checks on legislative power. Given the current political climate, whether the current principle of legality provides adequate rights protection or whether something more, such as the statutory bill of rights suggested by the Brennan Committee, is needed has become increasingly more important.  By Michael A. Keshmiri
Michael A. Keshmiri is a student at the University of Pennsylvania and an associate editor of the Penn Undergraduate Law Journal. Last year, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits struck down state bans on same-sex marriage, rapidly increasing the number of states where same-sex marriages are legal. [1] Since the rulings of these lower level courts did not conflict, the U.S. Supreme Court, having long been reticent in definitively ruling whether bans on same-sex marriage violate the U.S. Constitution, chose not to intervene. However, on November 6, 2014, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld bans on same-sex marriage in four states, putting this decision directly at odds with rulings from its sister courts. [2] The 2-1 decision in the Sixth Circuit stressed that it is up to the states to decide on the issue of same-sex marriage, not the federal courts. “Better, in this instance, we think,” wrote Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, “to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.” [3] Senior Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey, however, issued a stern dissent reminding her colleagues that federal courts have a duty to protect the constitutional rights of the minority. [4]  By Natasha Kang
Natasha Kang is a senior at the University of California, Davis. By 1965, Congress had discovered that existing federal anti‐discrimination laws were not nearly enough to prevail over the opposition of state officials. When the Department of Justice tried to eliminate discriminatory electoral practices on a case‐by‐case basis, it found that as soon as a discriminatory practice was proven unconstitutional, another one took its place. [1] Thus, a stronger piece of voting rights legislation, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, was passed to effectively uproot state disenfranchisement. [1] Sadly, the VRA did not bring about the end of disenfranchisement, as seen in the events following the 2010 United States Census. After a national census is taken, state officials use census data to reconsider and redraw the boundaries of congressional and state legislative districts. [2] This formally allows state officials to incorporate shifts in the population and guarantee equal representation for their constituents with respect to the principles of the VRA. However, in reality, equal representation is far from guaranteed—and “redistricting” is becoming more well‐known as “racial gerrymandering” in the state of North Carolina.  By Sebastian Bates
Sebastian Bates is a first-year law student at Keble College, Oxford University. As the month of March drew to a close, the eyes of the world turned towards Lausanne, Switzerland, where negotiations to draft an accord that would limit the Iranian nuclear program were extended. Reports claimed that the atmosphere of the talks had been tense – France had been become increasingly hawkish and the Iranian representatives ever-more intransigent as the March 31st deadline came and went. However, the talks were not without an element of collegiality. Both the American Secretary of Energy, Ernest J. Moniz, and the senior Iranian nuclear scientist, Ali Akbar Salehi, spent time teaching or studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and apparently developed a good rapport. No such warmth existed the last time the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America met for such widely‐publicized diplomatic talks. In 1980, then‐Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher led a delegation to Algiers to “resolve the crisis in relations” between the two countries “arising out of the November 1979 hostage crisis.” [1] On January 19, 1981, this delegation and its Iranian counterpart signed the Algiers Accords, which established the Iran‐United States Claims Tribunal. [2] The Accords assigned the Tribunal “the enormous task of adjudicating disputes involving billions of dollars in commercial debts, breached contracts, nationalizations, expropriations and other measures affecting property rights.” [3]  By Sandeep Suresh
Sandeep Suresh is a fifth-year law student at the National Law University in Jodhpur, India. Most major democracies have, at one point or another, had extensive debates regarding their electoral systems due to elections’ integral role in the formation of the skeletal system of a democratic nation. One such aspect of electoral politics that has assumed center stage for debate in the recent past is compulsory voting. The proponents and opponents of compulsory voting have argued from two fronts: the legal front and the logistical front. There have been more arguments against compulsory voting than for it. From a legal and philosophical angle, I would like to argue that compulsory voting would be in the best interests of the society as a whole. The basic essence of my argument is that in a democracy with a well-defined constitution in place, there can never be a situation where only individual rights can be given an upper hand. There has to be a harmonious balance within the constitution with respect to the rights and duties of every citizen. To quote President Barack Obama:  By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). From 1958 to 1970, Philadelphia’s professional football team, the Eagles, played its games at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. The stadium, which could hold a maximum capacity of 60,658 fans at the time, hosted legendary games, including the 1960 NFL Championship (the precursor to the Super Bowl), in which the underdog Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers, coached by the legendary Vince Lombardi. So how much did this NFL team pay Penn to use their facilities? Well...they didn’t.  By Rebecca Heilweil Rebecca Heilweil is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. Surrogacy, an age‐old process that has helped created unique and vibrant families, has improved the lives of many. Surrogates have enabled single, same‐sex, and infertile parents to have the children they’ve always wanted, thus contributing, in their own small way, to America’s unique culture. But even successful surrogate stories can bring up questions regarding custody and parental rights, and unenforced surrogacy contracts become even more complicated. When money becomes involved and courts refuse to enforce surrogacy contracts, people feel personally victimized. Not only are thousands of dollars lost, but potential parents have also been denied the family that had been promised to them.  By Tanner Bowen
Tanner Bowen is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying business. The First Amendment is often cited as one of the most controversial yet most sacredly guarded rights of the United States Constitution. Even today, after numerous cases of litigation that have redefined our understanding of this fundamental right, the government’s ability to possibly restrict it is still hotly debated, as the Seattle Midwest Awareness Campaign (SeaMAC) discovered. SeaMAC is a non-profit organization based in Washington State that is opposed to US support of Israel. In late 2010, SeaMAC applied for an advertisement spot on the Metro City Buses in Seattle for four weeks. The ad simply stated: “ISRAELI WAR CRIMES/YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK/www.Stop30Billion-Seattle.org.” Although this ad was unequivocally controversial, it did not initially violate any of the Metro’s restrictions against profanity or any other defamatory or inappropriate content. Thus, King County approved the ad and intended to let it run until a local television broadcast picked up the story.  By Taryn MacKinney
Taryn MacKinney is an Executive Editor of the Penn Undergraduate Law Journal and a student at the University of Pennsylvania. A recent Colorado lawsuit has sparked controversy over religious expression in public schools. Chase Windebank, a Colorado Springs high school student, is suing his school district for what he deemed a violation of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Though the lawsuit – still in its infancy – has already generated intense debate, the topic isn’t new; the issue of free speech in schools has been battled out for decades in courts. Since the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines (1965) case, which ruled in favor of student rights when it claimed that neither “students [nor] teachers shed their constitutional rights…at the schoolhouse gate,” the Supreme Court and circuit courts have ruled erratically. [1] In Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986), Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988), and Morse v. Frederick (2007), the Supreme Court refined Tinker by adding parameters to student free speech. In B.H. v. Easton Area School District (2014), however, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed this decades-long trend by upholding the rights of students to wear controversial breast cancer bracelets; the Supreme Court rejected the School District’s appeal, solidifying the stance taken by the lower court. [2] Now, only a little more than a year after B.H. v. Easton, the Windebank lawsuit promises to stir things up again. |
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