“Are You Free to Read, See, and Hear?”: Creating Consumer Rights out of the First Amendment

Leigh Ann Wheeler (Professor of History, State University of New York at Binghamton)

September 12, 2019

Do you have the right to read any book you want? See any movie you want? Listen to any radio program you want? Do your students? Yes! (with a very few exceptions) These rights to consume are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But during the Amendment’s two-hundred-twenty-eight unchanging years at the top of our Bill of Rights, it has only protected consumers for the past sixty years. This webinar will help you think, teach, and argue about how, when, and why the First Amendment came to protect consumers’ rights and also what has been lost and what has been gained through that transformation.

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Subjects

Political Science / History / American History / First Amendment to the United States Constitution / United States Constitution / United States Bill of Rights / Consumerism /