LEM Participants:

Because we are already off schedule, this is a brief heads up regarding our class meeting tomorrow evening. Nothing dramatic, but you will want to read it through.

We will open with the next brief excerpt from the movie "Network."

We will begin our discussion by reviewing, and getting you to restate and refine last week's exploration of the purposes, or reasons for, or consequences of, the First Amendment. Although not a graded "quiz" as such, I may ask you to write these out and hand them in during class.

We will then proceed to questions and your discussion regarding the remainder of last week's First Amendment assigned reading.

This will include a brief video excerpt from a CBS interview of my former boss, Justice Hugo L. Black, explaining in his own words his rationale for interpreting the First Amendment as an absolute.

Finally, I will review the First Amendment material with a PowerPoint presentation.

My guess is that this will take at least an hour of our two-hour class -- and, therefore, substantially cut into the opening of our discussion of defamation.

However, we will begin it.

Assume we may cover pp. 754-784.

That includes New York Times v. Sullivan (pp. 778-784). However, we will in all probability not begin our discussion of the enormous breakthrough it represents in creating a constitutional privilege to engage in defamation. We will, rather, first examine the facts of Sullivan in the context of what we have learned up to that point about the pre-constitutional privilege defamation law. Otherwise put, how would Sullivan have been decided before Sullivan?

Some additional notes:

1. Remember that tomorrow evening you will be designating your seat on a seating chart, so chose your location accordingly.

2. Remember that you will be electing your class ombudsperson. So think ahead of time, or talk over with classmates, whether you are willing to serve, or who you might like to be available, potentially, to represent you.

3. If you are getting this in hard copy it means that you have not yet responded to my request that you get me your e-mail address -- or you have tried to e-mail me at njohnson@inav.net and failed to get through (or, perhaps, that you sent it to me sometime after Monday evening).

4. And, of course, if you have not yet submitted your bio please make our collection complete so that we can run them off and get a booklet back to you.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening for what should be a stimulating discussion.

Nicholas Johnson