
"So many thoughts ... For obvious reasons, I've been reflecting a lot lately on my old constitutional law coursework. As long as the Supreme Court holds that money is speech-and the Supreme Court retains enough legitimacy to be taken seriously-I foresee major free speech issues around restricting advertising. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the court's legitimacy will have a shorter shelf life than its view on the "marketplace of ideas," given how aggressively it's shedding any pretense of respect for precedent."
"And advertising generally isn't what it used to be. Growing up, in the age of the media monoculture, ads tended to be corny. The best ones were either disarmingly sweet (Mean Joe Greene's Coke ad, for example) or funny. They had to be, because they were expensive to air and the three networks had broad audiences. That led to inanity-anyone else remember the talking loaves of bread?-but the range of things that got advertised was relatively narrow and mostly inoffensive."
"Now it's normal to see medicines advertised with machine-gun fire recitations of alarming side effects ("may cause fatal events") and legal or legal-ish sports betting apps during games. In that context, ads for colleges are almost a relief, even if they sometimes seem excessive. At the last minor league baseball game I attended, three of the outfield billboards were for local colleges. I don't remember that from earlier years."
The Supreme Court's continued view that money is speech creates significant constitutional obstacles to restricting advertising, especially while the Court remains at least partly credible. The Court's public legitimacy may deteriorate more quickly than its ideological or doctrinal positions, affecting how decisions are perceived. Judicial behavior often reflects outcome-driven reasoning, as suggested by the attitudinal model describing justices finding justifications for preferred outcomes. Advertising has shifted from broad, corny network spots to targeted, sometimes alarming commercials, including drug warnings and sports-betting ads. College advertising has become prominent in local sports venues, complicating the separation of institutional marketing from athletic budgets.
Read at Inside Higher Ed | Higher Education News, Events and Jobs
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