1.
Visualizing the First Amendment
Debbie Rabina & Chris Sula
Pratt SILS, ASIST Speakeasy series
April 8, 2013

2.
• “Congress Shall Make No Law Respecting an
Establishment of Religion, or Prohibiting the Free
Exercise Thereof; or Abridging the Freedom of
Speech, or of the Press; or the Right of the People
Peaceably to Assemble, and To Petition the
Government for a Redress of Grievances.”

3.
First Amendment scholarship
• One of the most studied area of constitutional
law
• Legal studies are traditionally based on
detailed qualitative analysis of legislation and
case law

4.
Our project
• Applies empirical methods and visualization
techniques to gain new insights of trends and
patterns regarding 1st Amd. ruling by the
Supreme Court
• Project goals
– Provide a visual history of the First Amendment
– Assess the impact of these events on the
freedoms protected by the First Amendment.

5.
Questions
• Once done, we will be able to answer
question like:
– Which of the 1st Amd. rights were addressed in a
particular case
– How did a particular Justice vote
– What was the ‘test” (justification) for the ruling

6.
Patterns
• With the hope of being able to reveal patterns
such as:
• Do judges vote along party lines
• Do Justices change their views over time

7.
Phases
•
•
•
•
Collecting and analyzing data
conducting analysis
presenting results in a visual graphic interface
publishing research study

8.
Data collection
• Case law from the First Amendment Center
timeline
• Identify variables:
– Right asserted/denied
– Votes by court
– Writer of majority/minority opinions
– Chief Justice/nominating president
– Legal provision
– Number of subsequent citation the case received

9.
Data sources
• First Amendment Center timeline
– 103 cases with narrative descriptions
• Supreme Court Database
– maintained by Washington University, St. Louis
– 8,407 cases coded with nearly 40 variables
– 655 classified as First Amendment cases
• Supreme Court Citation Network Data
– James H. Fowler (UCSD) and Sangick Jeon (Stanford)
– 202,167 citations to/from majority opinions

10.
Data sources coverage
First Amendment Center
Timeline
Supreme Court
Database
Supreme Court Citation Network Data
1754
1800
1900
1946
2000