Susan Williams, the William W. Foskett Professor of Law at Indiana Maurer School of Law has published her article, Feminist Theory and Freedom of Speech, 84 Ind. L.J. 999 (2009).
The article was previously published in French as Theorie feministe et liberte d’expression, in La Liberte D’Expression Aux Etats-Unis et en Europe 233 (Elisabeth Zoller ed., 2008). Here is Williams’s conclusion:
Feminism offers a critique of the traditional truth theory of free speech, but it can also offer a foundation for an alternative theory: one that sees truth as fundamentally relational, contextual, and normative. In our philosophical tradition, truth has too often been used to assuage a longing for certainty, and certainty has, in turn, been purchased at the price of hierarchy. But truth is and should be important to us. Truth is the symbol of our commitment to live together in a way that meets our moral standards, to create our destiny and our reality together. A feminist vision of truth offers hope that the First Amendment could become the repository of this commitment.
I haven’t yet found an open-access source for the full text, but the article is available on Westlaw.
-Bridget Crawford
