Minority Television Project, Inc. v. FCC, No. 13-1124, Brief for Amici Curiae Law Professors in Support of Petitioner

Minority Television Project, Inc. v. FCC, No. 13-1124, Brief for Amici Curiae Law Professors in Support of Petitioner, available at http://bit.ly/MinorityTelevisionAmicus:

This brief amicus curiae in support of petitioner Minority Television Project in Minority Television Project, Inc. v. FCC, 736 F.3d 1192 (9th Cir. 2013), petition filed, No. 13-1124 (March 17, 2014), urges the Supreme Court of the United States to overrule Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969). The brief presents three reasons why the Court should overrule Red Lion. First, overwhelming technological change compels reexamination of Red Lion. The proliferation of electronic media for distributing multichannel audio and video programming has undermined Red Lion’s scarcity rationale. Second, Red Lion has been so thoroughly discredited in all branches of government that further adherence to that precedent would undermine rather than promote respect for the Court’s decisionmaking process and for the rule of law. Finally, this case demonstrates how the continued isolation of broadcast media from First Amendment norms that govern all other media and conduits inflicts serious harm to the constitutional interest in free speech.

The academic signatories of this brief were:

• Ashutosh A. Bhagwat (UC Davis)
• Dale Carpenter (Minnesota)
• James Ming Chen (Michigan State)
• Eric M. Freedman (Hofstra)
• Patrick Garry (South Dakota)
• Mehmet K. Konar-Steenberg (William Mitchell)
• Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky (Florida)
• Kevin Francis O'Neil (Cleveland State)
• Michael Stokes Paulsen (St. Thomas, Minnesota)
• Daniel D. Polsby (George Mason)
• Lucas A. Powe, Jr. (Texas)
• Matthew L. Spitzer (Northwestern)
• Eugene Volokh (UCLA)