Emerson, Haber, and Dorsen's Political and Civil Rights in the United States
Files
Volume Number
I
Description
This is the fourth edition of legal and other materials that are designed to be a comprehensive source book for lawyers facing civil liberties issues in their practice and a teaching text for students who are taking courses and seminars in the subject or doing research in it. The book traces its lineage to mimeographed teaching materials prepared at the Yale Law School by Professors Thomas Emerson and David Haber during the late 1940s and to a first edition they published in 1952. A second edition appeared in 1958 and a third, which Professor Norman Dorsen co-authored, in 1967. On the theory that three generations of a book were enough for them, Professors Emerson and Haber (the latter now at Rutgers Law School at Newark) have handed over the responsibility for producing the fourth edition to us. In accepting the responsibility we salute the able and dedicated work of our predecessors. Since the third edition appeared, the scope and volume of cases and secondary material in the field of political and civil rights have increased enormously. A major concession this has drawn from us is the decision to prepare the two volumes of the book consecutively rather than simultaneously, as in earlier editions. Volume II, which will cover all aspects of discrimination and equal protection of the laws, is scheduled for publication in 1977. As with the third edition, there will be biennial supplements to each volume which can be obtained from the publisher or at law school bookstores. The extensive recent developments have also required a fundamental reworking of the book. There are six completely new chapters. Chapter XVII, The Constitutional Litigation Process, is designed to be a uniquely valuable set of materials for the practicing civil liberties lawyer as well as the inquiring student. Also new are Chapter III (Government Secrecy and the Public’s Right to Know); Chapter V (Administration of Justice); Chapter VIII (Commercial Speech); Chapter IX (Access to and Regulation of the Media): and Chapter XVI (The Rights of Special Groups). In addition, a number of other chapters have been substantially rewritten to reflect major changes in the law. These are Chapter II (National Security); Chapter VI (Obscenity); Chapter VII (Defamation); Chapter XII (Privacy); Chapter XIII (The Right of Franchise); and Chapter XV (Rights Within Private Associations). There are also new sections within each of the other chapters. As in the third edition, two different versions of the book are being published—a lawyer’s edition and a law school edition. The latter omits parts of chapters that are of importance to practicing lawyers but which seem to us less likely to relate to course or seminar material. Materials are again organized, except for Chapter XVII, more in terms of specific subject-matter areas than theoretical legal doctrine. Thus, concepts such as clear and present danger and the right of privacy run though a number of chapters. We use this organization to emphasize the concrete issues at stake and to bring to bear on those issues all relevant considerations, whether from legal or other sources. In order to facilitate use of the book along doctrinal lines, however, we have included in Chapter I a section, entitled Judicial Standards and Techniques in the Resolution of First Amendment Cases, which outlines the Supreme Court’s main lines of analysis and keys in to the remainder of the book. We have also tried to make the index and table of contents as complete as possible, and to employ cross-references generously throughout the text. Although we have retained some footnotes attached to extracts that are reprinted, we have omitted many others. Except where we have wished to call an omitted footnote to the reader’s attention, we have not indicated the omissions. Footnotes added by the editors are designated by letters rather than numbers. The book include all relevant Supreme Court opinions through the end of the 1974-1975 Term, which ended on June 30, 1975. In a few places, particularly in Chapter II, there are citations to Notes and References contained in the third edition of this book that are no longer topical but may be of interest to certain lawyers, scholars, and students. The references contained in the lawyer’s edition are intended to be comprehensive, but the burgeoning materials have required some selectivity. Extensive bibliographical references are omitted from the law school edition. While this is a joint enterprise that has benefited from much discussion among us on all aspects of the book, primary responsibility for chapters was allotted as follows: Dorsen: Chapters II, III, V, IX, XIV, and XV; Bender: Chapter VI, VII, VIII, XI, XII, and XVI; Neuborne: Chapters IV, XIII, and XVII. Dorsen and Neuborne shared the responsibility for Chapters I and X.
Publication Date
1976
Edition
4 Law School
Recommended Citation
Dorsen, Norman; Bender, Paul; and Neuborne, Burt, "Emerson, Haber, and Dorsen's Political and Civil Rights in the United States" (1976). Faculty Books & Edited Works. 550.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-books-edited-works/550
