The First Amendment and the Nixon Court

The United States Supreme Court, pushed to the Right by the four appointments of President Nixon, ended its 1971-72 term last June with a flurry of opinions that did not bode well for the freedom of speech and press clause of our Bill of Rights. Further retreat from the expansive interpretations of the First Amendment that have prevailed since the 1930s appear almost inevitable by the end of the Court’s current term.

The decisions and opinions on which these forebodings are based were but straws in the wind. Almost none of them, by themselves, were unqualifiedly regressive. For each, some plausible justification was invoked. Indeed, to be completely fair, there were even two or three decisions handed down by the 1972 Nixon C...