Vincent Blasi

Blasi joined the faculty of Columbia Law School in 1983. His scholarship has focused on the history and philosophy of the freedom of speech. He is best known for his "checking value" and "pathological perspective" theories of the free speech and free press clauses of the First Amendment, and for his detailed studies of the free speech theories of John Milton, Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Louis Brandeis."

He was the James Madison Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law from 2004 to 2009 while continuing to serve on the Columbia faculty. He has taught at University of Texas School of Law, University of Michigan Law School, and was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School, UC Berkeley School of Law, and William & Mary Law School. From 1986 to 2008 he co-taught a course in the Columbia Journalism School on freedom of the press with the New York Times reporter and columnist Anthony Lewis. Blasi regularly team-teaches his law school courses and seminars with the renowned First Amendment litigators Floyd Abrams, Jameel Jaffer, and Donald Verrilli.

He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998. He was a 1993–1994 fellow of the National Humanities Center.

Blasi delivered the 1995 Elliot Lecture at the Yale Law School, the 1999 Nimmer Lecture at the UCLA School of Law, and the 2000 Irvine Lecture at Cornell Law School.

Publications

Selected Articles

• Holmes's Understanding of His Clear-and-Present-Danger Test: Why Exactly Did He Require Imminence?, 51 Seton Hall L. Rev. 175 (2020)
• Learned Hand’s Seven Other Ideas About the Freedom of Speech, 50 Ariz. St. L. J. 717 (2018)
• A Reader’s Guide to John Milton’s Areopagitica, the Foundational Essay of the First Amendment Tradition, 2017 Supreme Court Review 273
• Hate Speech, Public Assurance, and the Civic Standing of Speakers and Victims, 32 Const. Comm. 585 (2017)
• Shouting “Fire!” in a Theater and Vilifying Corn Dealers, 39 Cap. L. Rev. 535 (2011)
• Holmes and the Marketplace of Ideas, 2004 Supreme Court Review 1
• School Vouchers and Religious Liberty: Seven Questions from Madison’s Memorial andRemonstrance, 87 Cornell L. Rev. 783 (2002)
• Free Speech and Good Character, 46 UCLA 1567 (1999).
• Free Speech and the Widening Gyre of Fund-raising: Why Campaign Spending Limits May Not Violate the First Amendment After All, 94 Colum. L. Rev. 1281 (1994)
• The First Amendment and the Ideal of Civic Courage: The Brandeis Opinion in Whitney v. California, 29 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 653 (1988)
• The Pathological Perspective and the First Amendment, 85 Colum. L. Rev. 449 (1985)
• Toward a Theory of Prior Restraint: The Central Linkage, 66 Minn. L. Rev., 11 (1981)
• The Checking Value in First Amendment Theory, 1977 Am. Bar Foundation Res. J. 521

Selected Book Chapters

• "The Classic Arguments for Free Speech 1644-1927," in The Oxford Handbook of Freedom of Speech (A. Stone & F. Schauer, eds. 2021)
• “Rights Skepticism and Majority Rule at the Birth of the Modern First Amendment,” in The Free Speech Century (L. Bollinger and G. Stone, eds., 2018)
• “The Story of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette: The Pledge of Allegiance and the Freedom of Thought” (with Seana V. Shiffrin), in Constitutional Law Stories (M. Dorf, ed., 2003)
• “Free Speech and Good Character: From Milton to Brandeis to the Present,” in Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era (Lee Bollinger and G. Stone, eds., 2002)
• “The Rootless Activism of the Burger Court,” in The Burger Court: The Counter-Revolution That Wasn’t (V. Blasi, ed., 1983)
  

Tributes

• The Intellectual Integrity of Ed Baker, 115 W. Va. L. Rev. 7 (2012)
• Three Dimensions of Kent Greenawalt’s Excellence, 115 Colum. L. Rev. 780 (2018)
• Legends of the Legal Academy: Harry Kalven, Jr., 61 J. of Legal Education, No. 2 (2011)
• Anthony Lewis, 160 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 207 (2016)

News and Media

• ‘Abrams’ at 100: 20 Experts Converge on Columbia
• Socratic Zooming: Faculty Weigh in on Teaching Remotely