define safety valve theory free sample

The Supreme Court has reinforced the theory of the First Amendment as a "safety valve," reasoning that citizens who are free to to express displeasure against government through peaceful protest will be deterred from undertaking violent means. The boundary between what is peaceful and what is violent is not always clear. For example, in this 1965 photo, Alabama State College students participated in a non-violent protest for voter rights when deputies confronted them anyway, breaking up the gathering. (AP Photo/Perry Aycock, used with permission from the Associated Press)

Under the safety valve rationale, citizens are free to make statements concerning controversial societal issues to express their displeasure against government and its policies. In assuming this right, citizens will be deterred from undertaking violent means to draw attention to their causes.

The First Amendment, in safeguarding freedom of speech, religion, peaceable assembly, and a right to petition government, embodies the safety valve theory.

These and other decisions rest on the idea that it is better to allow members of the public to judge ideas for themselves and act accordingly than to have the government act as a censure. The Court has even shown support in cases concerning obscenity or speech that incites violent action. The safety valve theory suggests that such a policy is more likely to lead to civil peace than to civil disruption.

Justice Louis D. Brandeis recognized the potential for the First Amendment to serve as a safety valve in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California (1927) when he wrote: “fear breeds repression; . . . repression breeds hate; . . . hate menaces stable government; . . . the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones.”

The safety valve theory was a theory about how to deal with unemployment which gave rise to the Homestead Act of 1862 in the United States. Given the concentration of immigrants (and population) on the Eastern coast, it was hypothesized that making free land available in the West would relieve the pressure for employment in the East. By analogy with steam pressure (= the need for work), the enactment of a free land law, it was believed, would act as a safety valve. This theory meant that if the East started filling up with immigrants, they could always go West until they reached a point where they could not move any farther.

A distinction has to be made between (1) the safety valve theory as an ideal and (2) the safety valve theory as embodied in the Homestead Act of 1862.

There is a dispute whether and to what extent the Homestead Act did or did not succeed as a safety valve in ameliorating the problem of unemployment in the East.

The self-governance rationale is only one of many reasons why freedom of speech is considered so important. Another reason is that freedom of speech is key to individual fulfillment. Some refer to this as the “liberty theory” of the First Amendment.

Free-speech theorist C. Edwin Baker writes that “speech or other self-expressive conduct is protected not as a means to achieve a collective good but because of its value to the individual.” Justice Thurgood Marshall eloquently advanced the individual fulfillment theory of freedom of speech in his concurring opinion in the prisoner rights case Procunier v. Martinez (1974) when he wrote: “The First Amendment serves not only the needs of the polity, but also those of the human spirit—a spirit that demands self-expression. Such expression is an integral part of the development of ideas and a sense of identity. To suppress expression is to reject the basic human desire for recognition and affront the individual’s worth and dignity.”

The marketplace metaphor is helpful but incomplete. Critics point out that over the course of history, truth may not always prevail over false ideas. For example, Mill warned that truth sometimes doesn’t triumph over “persecution.” Furthermore, more powerful individuals may have greater access to the marketplace and devalue the contributions of others. Another critique comes from those who advocate the informational theory of free speech.

Under this theory, there is great value in learning and appreciating what people believe and how they process information. Lukianoff calls the metaphor for the informational theory of free speech “the lab in the looking glass.” The ultimate goal is “to know as much about us and our world as we can,” because it is vitally “important to know what people really believe, especially when the belief is perplexing or troubling.”

Another reason why freedom of speech is important relates to what has been termed the “safety valve” theory. This perspective advances the idea that it is good to allow individuals to express themselves fully and blow off steam.

If individuals are deprived of the ability to express themselves, they may undertake violent means as a way to draw attention to their causes or protests. Justice Brandeis advanced the safety valve theory of free speech in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California (1927) when he wrote:

Those who won our independence believed . . . that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies.

Lee Bollinger advanced this theory in his 1986 work “The Tolerant Society.” This theory helps explain why we should tolerate even extremist speech. As Justice Holmes wrote in his dissent in United States v. Schwimmer (1929), freedom of speech means “freedom for the thought that we hate.” This means that we often must tolerate extremist speech. As Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. wrote in Snyder v. Phelps (2011), we don’t punish the extremist speaker; instead “we have chosen a different course—to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

Beginning with the unanimous decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), the Supreme Court has held that public officials cannot recover damages for libel without proving that a statement was made with actual malice — defined as “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

Strict scrutiny, however, requires the government to demonstrate that it is using the most narrowly tailored, or least restrictive, means to achieve an interest that is compelling. Although not explicitly defined, “compelling” is obviously intended to be a higher interest than “legitimate” or “important”; some have described it as “necessary” or “crucial,” meaning more than an exercise of discretion or preference. Regulation vital to the protection of public health and safety, including the regulation of violent crime, the requirements of national security and military necessity, and respect for fundamental rights are examples of compelling governmental interests.

The counterspeech doctrine posits that the proper response to negative speech is to counter it with positive expression. It derives from the theory that audiences, or recipients of the expression, can weigh for themselves the values of competing ideas and, hopefully, follow the better approach.

Denying an individual’s civil rights based on his or her membership in a protected class. At the federal level the Civil Rights Act of 1964 defines protected classes as including race, national origin, sex, and religion; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability.

The right to form organizations, to associate with others who are so inclined, and to advance particular viewpoints through those associations. The three types of freedom of association courts have recognized are intimate association, expressive association, and social association–all of which are defined in this glossary. View freedom of association cases.

As defined by the Supreme Court in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999), peer harassment in the education setting refers to conduct that is (1) unwelcome; (2) discriminatory (3) on the basis of a protected status, like gender, race, disability, or age; (4) directed at an individual; and (5) “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and … [that] so undermines and detracts from the victims’ educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.”

Collectively, this bundle of rights, largely developed by U.S. Supreme Court decisions, defines the “freedom of the press” guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The professional speech doctrine is a concept used more frequently by lower courts in recent years to define and often limit the free-speech rights of professionals when rendering advice or counsel. The doctrine has been applied by several federal appeals courts to limit the free-speech rights of doctors or therapists.

As the Department of Education regulations define it, quid pro quo sexual harassment takes place when “a school employee [faculty, staff, or administrator] explicitly or implicitly conditions a student’s participation in an education program or activity or bases an educational decision on the student’s submission to unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” View The First Amendment Encyclopedia’s article on sexual harassment laws.

Under the safety valve rationale, citizens are free to make statements concerning controversial societal issues to express their displeasure against government and its policies. In assuming this right, citizens will be deterred from undertaking violent means to draw attention to their causes.

Broadly defined as expression that includes, but is not limited to, what you wear, read, say, paint, perform, believe, protest, or even silently resist. View freedom of speech and expression cases.

Generally, these restrictions define when, where, and how a speaker may present a message. For example, while it may be permissible to shout “Stop the war!” or “Support our troops!” at noon in the open space in front of a campus administration building, the campus administration has the right to prevent the same speech from being delivered at the same decibel level in the hall of a dormitory at 3:00 AM. View time, place, and manner restrictions cases. View The First Amendment Encyclopedia’s article on time, place, and manner restrictions.

In Virginia v. Black (2003), the Supreme Court defined true threats as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” Further, the Court held that speech loses First Amendment protection and becomes intimidation when it is “a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.”