Journal of Free Speech Law pre-Call For Papers: Student Speech and Associational Privacy,

This Term, the Court is considering two important First Amendment issues—K-12 student speech (in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.) and associational privacy (Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra).

The Journal of Free Speech Law, a new peer-reviewed, faculty-edited journal, will quickly publish two to four articles on each of these subjects, as a symposium issue. We seek not case notes as such, but rather articles on the broader subjects in light of the new decisions. And given our publication speed, these will likely be the first such articles to be published in a full-fledged law journal.

Our plan:

1. Since the cases will likely come down July 1, we’d need to see submissions by Aug. 1. But given the short timeline, we’ll be open for rougher submissions than usual. What we want to see, to make our decision, is a clear explanation of the key novel, interesting, and useful contributions that the article would make.
2. We require exclusive submissions (via Scholastica, https://freespeechlaw.scholasticahq.com/), but we will give an answer within two weeks (our average response time so far is under a week). Thus, if we say no, there will be plenty of time to submit to other journals in the August submission cycle.
3. We plan on publishing the articles online and on Westlaw as soon as the author provides a publishable version, which could be as quickly as early September (or longer, if the author so requires).
4. Our journal also publishes in print. We expect the print edition to come out towards the end of the year, depending on the timeline for the articles; but we expect that these days the important thing is getting the article out quickly online.
5. We will set up online symposia on the drafts, so that authors can get feedback from the other authors and from other First Amendment scholars.
6. All this would of course be contingent on the Court saying something interesting, rather than just dismissing the case on unrelated procedural grounds (such as what the Court did in U.S. v. Sineneng-Smith, for instance).
7. We will resend this announcement when the cases come down, but we wanted to alert prospective authors in advance.

Our journal was just founded this year, and will publish its inaugural symposium issue (on regulation of social media platforms) this Summer; the issue we discuss here will be our second. Our robe-and-gown editorial board consists of:

If you have any questions, please e-mail [email protected]; and please pass this along to others who are interested.

Jane Bambauer
Ashutosh Bhagwat
Eugene Volokh
Executive Editors