I owe him a personal debt for the kindness that he is shown to meet my family at a time of great need. John, we of the law school cant wait to have you back to i look forward to seeing you here as a friend and as a benjamin button professor of law. Dean morrison is the fifth dean ive under whom ive served in the 41 years hit on the nyu faculty i have respected in all and none more than trevor. Ishis enthusiasm, his openness, his commitment and his intellectual energy make me very confident about my next 41 years on the nyu faculty. [laughter] and norman, by different and mentor has guided the inspired worked sidebyside with me for almost 50 years in studying interpreting and seeking to enforce the bill of rights as a wise and thoughtful leader of the aclu the last third of the 20th century and has nyu laws First Citizen for more than 50 years, normans intelligence strategic sense and superb judgment have to be mightily to building for two institutional houses in which ive lived most of my professional career. The aclu and nyu law school. I can attest from experience that when Norman Dorsen builds an institution, that he works and the roof doesnt leak. I remember norman the day in 1969 when you persuaded me to give law teaching a try. You persuaded me by an extraordinary oral argument you present in the Second Circuit in a challenge to the constitutionality of the war in vietnam. Ive been bringing those charges and getting actually know where. I couldnt get anybody to take it quite seriously. So i went to you and i said would you put your reputation on the line by standing up before the Second Circuit and actually taking an argument that this is a possible and important legal proposition . And norman in the source of a 35 minute oral argument before the Second Circuit turned what was a french argument that was giving no intellectual traction anywhere into a real mainstream argument that eventually resulted in an injunction and a trip to the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court several years later the and as well as the building i said no, that was extraordinary. Norman turned to me and he said you can do that, too. You can do that too. Teaching is what you should think about. And i remember as well norman, 1973 persuading a skeptical Personnel Committee headed by peter to give me a chance to be a teacher. And i will never forget the kindness and the help that norman has provided me in my career. To cap mike over at nyu as the Norman Dorsen professor in civil liberties, he is the attainment of a lifelong dream. Its an honor that i accept the recognizing that it carries with it great responsibility. I will try to be worthy of the honor and i know norman based on past experience, that you will be sure to let me know if i fall short. Finally, though said of introductory remarks are possible without acknowledging my remarkable wife, helen whos been my beloved partner my principal supporter, and my chief critic. Since we met as undergraduates at cornell for years ago than more years ago than either of us care to admit or will reveal. Studying teaching and writing about the bill of rights especially the First Amendment has been my principal professional application for one half a century. Ive watched, participated, and for the most part cheered as the modern Supreme Court beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s forged the most robust free speech clause in the nations history. And Norman Dorsen plate and a portal nccic starting the modern free speech clause by writing the aclu brief in brandenburg versus, the case that established that modern analytic parameters for a First Amendment claim. And playing a major role in the aclus victory in cohen versus california that established the privacy of the value of free speech in our legal culture. I applaud those cases and isolate the Supreme Court for making free speech the cornerstone of american law. So why then isnt my talk tonight and unqualified celebration of the emergence of a free speech and a free speech clause far more powerful than the scaled down version and norman and i invoked in the 20th century . It is i believe because the current judge made a version of the First Amendment, powerful and important as it is has been severed from its deep textual and structural roots of madisonian democracy, should remember how judge made the First Amendment really does. The text cant be read literally. The Word Congress tells us that say nothing of the fourth ward law, and the crucial term the freedom of, none of which have been meeting. They cant be read historically, elizabeth want a robust free speech principle. The ink wasnt dry on the First Amendment when john adams locked up most of the newspaper editors who oppose his reelection in 1800. And the truth is for most of our history, until the last third of the 20th century, without a relatively feeble First Amendment. Nor can it be read philosophically, neither the holmesian free market idea metaphor, Justice Brandeis a celebration of Human Dignity, nor the modern mistrust of government, the three usual justifications for the robust First Amendment provides a wholly satisfactory roadmap for how to read the First Amendment in hard cases to the free market ideas metaphor breaks down free markets are never voted for the they require resources and the rich always have more power than the poor. And also that decency doesnt always win out in a struggle of ideas. The perennial curse of antisemitism, the family to be able to deal with gender inequality the continued existence of racism, the religious intolerance that plagues us throughout the world. These stand as mute testament to the fact that reasoned argument doesnt always cause good things to happen. Sometimes the free market ideas will fail, and often because its not a free market at all. The dignitaries and justification for free speech cant explain corporate speech to corporations are addicted to that lots of other things but not dignity. They can pray but they cant pray. [laughter] and the dignitary justification overlooks the fact that speakers are not the only folks with Human Dignity who live in mr. Madisons free speech neighborhood. What about the roast and targets and the other folks in the neighborhood . Said invoking the principle of dignity doesnt say which person should have how much dignity. And fear of government while important leads to a dead end. It leads to an end of kind of nihilistic sense that nothing can be done. And not only that they cant explain the miracle of Public Education did if we really mistrust government so much that we dont dare ever allow to interfere in a speech market how can we explain the fact that weve maintained a Public Education system run by the government for many years that is reduce generation after generation of citizens that are been taught to think freely and democracy . I want to see intellectual carbon copy if you want to see xerox machines in action, go to private schools and thats where you see youve got exclusive domination of a particular ideal. Public education has been much more successful as education and democracy, and the stance as the reputation of the fact that government always fails, where government will always censor whenever it gets a chance. So how does the modern Supreme Court read the First Amendment . Unfortunately instead of seeking to read the 45 words James MadisonsFirst Amendment, the six actual clauses punctuation and all as a coherent whole that should function as democracys best frame, a majority of the Current Court cares tim morse, Congress Shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech from the First Amendment full 45 were text discards three untidy words, the freedom of, as inconvenient manmade legal concept that requires as to think a little too hard about what should be inside or outside the freedom of speech. And reads the remaining seven were text fragment as though the entire First Amendment red Congress Shall make no law abridging speech. The resulting judge made constitutional command is immensely powerful but ultimately rootless First Amendment that mandates the deregulation of virtually all efforts to do with the processes of communication without accepting any judicial responsibility for the consequences of wholly unregulated speech markets. Today, we live under an imperial seven were to free speech clause that doubles its efforts long after it has lost sight of its madisonian goals. For example, in a series of First Amendment opinions beginning in 1976 with buckley v. Valeo, i have to confess to you here, i signed the brief and buckley v. Valeo that beginning in 1976 with buckley v. Valeo which held that spending an unlimited amount of cash, to influence an election is a form of pure speech immune from government regulation and accelerating since 2000 with decisions like Citizens United ramping granting free speech protection to huge operation seeking to leverage massive economic power into electoral control, and mccutcheon versus the fcc holding that the free speech clause assures the ultrarich the power to contribute as much money as they want to sway the outcome of a National Election as long as they spread the contributions around. The Supreme Court is construed the seven words, truncated seven words of the free speech clause as rendering it impossible to deal effectively with the corrosive role of big money on american democracy. The court has even gone so far as to invalidate Public Financing schemes like arizonas figures matching funds to seek to a poorly funded candidates to match the Campaign Spending of wellheeled candidates up to a point. Matching campaign subsidies the court ruled unconstitutionally penalizes the First Amendment right of the rich to spend as much money as they wish to win an election. As a result instead of the madisonian dream of a well functioning the egalitarian democracy, when it today and the judgment plutocracy, 1. 1 vote. A badly weakened democracy where the Supreme Courts ruthless meeting of the seven words in the free speech clause assures the ultrarich the power to dominate our electoral politics. Where legislators are expected to favor their large contributors, were rampant partisan gerrymandering distorts the fairness of our system of Representative Government while virtually eliminating genuinely contestable legislative elections from american political life. Where fewer than half the eligible electorate actually votes to 38 voted in the most recent 2014 elections, the lowest turnout since 1942 when millions of men were away fighting world war ii. And it reached new york state with 19 turnout in the gubernatorial election. And were cynics seek partisan advantage by placing hurdles in the path of the week in support when they tried to vote and that large numbers of black and hispanic voters into socalled safe minority districts designed to waste their votes in an election that never was in doubt. The sad truth is that forced to operate under the harsh tutelage of a ruthless free speech clause, american democracy functions today with the aeros First Amendment box where the top onetenth of 1 of the economic treaty, 5000 american oligarchs exercise massively disproportionate power over our elected laws and the rest of us in do or what we must. It doesnt have to be that way. The music of a functioning madisonian democracy, madisons music than is present in the fulltext of madisons First Amendment if only we will take the trouble to recover the ability to hear it. Today we hear only scraps of madisons music. The Supreme Court reads the First Amendment, indeed the entire bill of rights a set of isolated words and phrases as though the founders threw a pot of ink at the wall and allowed the splatter to dictate the order or structure of a most important political text. The court never asks why madison begins the bill of rights with the First Amendment. Or why he begins the First Amendment with two religion clauses, establishment and free exercise that appear to point in different directions. The court does not ask whether crucial free speech clause is in third place and why press assembly and petition following that order to the relationship of the judgment on textual First Amendment right to freedom of association, to the sixth conceptual ideas is never even considered nor is the question of whether other nonfiction First Amendment rights like the right to vote are hiding in plain sight in the wide spaces of the client will just waiting to be discovered. Similarly the court doesnt ask why the Second Amendment right to bear on the immediately follows after the iconic First Amendment. Or why the criminal procedure amendment, are ordered as they are. Why is the Fourth Amendment fourth . And immediately before the fifth . Why does the sixth followed the fifth and why does the eighth amendment and the criminal procedure arrayed . Finally we do not ask why madison closes the bill of rights his great poem to freedom and democracy with a tantalizing ninth amendment that holds out the promise of recognizing new nontextual rights and an austere tenth amendment that freezes government powers at the level of text in short in 21st century america, despite our newfound preoccupation with the importance of legal text and despite the emergence of an immensely powerful free speech clause, i fear weve lost the ability to the deep harmony that emerges from the order, structure and organization of the bill of rights all 462 words with not an idea or a clause out of place. Briefly the First Amendment has a careful vertical the bill of rights has a careful vertical organization that begins with the First Amendment was a discipline blueprint of the ideal democrat city on the hill that the founders hoped to establish, moves into second to eighth amendments to the careful enumeration of the threats to the First Amendment sitting on health or good by chronology and closes in the ninth and 10th and the mets with madisons instructions on how to read the ambiguous text to the second and third deal with what madison did as the most dangerous threat to the First Amendment sitting on the hill. Military subversion and overthrow, the actual fate of large in many democracies. Madisonian structural solution was to build a temporary shadow army of the entire people with no regulated arms militia to deter wrongdoing by the unrepresentative standing army. Sadly a majority of this room Supreme Court has ignored structural between first and Second Amendments ruling that the second and emmitt right to bear arms has no link to the preservation of the First Amendment sitting on the. Instead the court reads the second and emmett as mandating a freestanding right to own a weapon, even when possession may actually impede democratic order. If you come back next year we will discuss the truvada sony meeting of the Second Amendment as a guarantee that the armed coercion will always look just like the people. They are pledge to defend the madison knew that we any is excluded from armed exclusion weatherbee from the militia in 18th century virginia or the police force in 21st century ferguson, missouri, the First Amendment city on the hill is at substantial risk. The fourth two the eighth amendments are carefully organized, brilliantly organized as a chronological recapitulation of the civilian Law Enforcement process. The Fourth Amendment dealing with investigation and arrest the fifth amendment with interrogation in charge, the six with the adjudication and the eighth amendment with sentencing. Once again next year we will tackle the implications of such a unique and remarkably disciplined recapitulation of the criminal justice process but tonight lets concentrate on the structural harmony in madisons First Amendment. Consider the music in madisons First Amendment. The full 45 words of the First Amendment are organized horizontally at six textual ideas. Freedom from religion, the establishment clau