Law professor Martin H. Redish (1945– ) is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on constitutional law and the First Amendment. He was perhaps the first scholar to argue that the Supreme Court should extend substantial First Amendment protection to commercial speech.
A native of New York City, Redish earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1967 and a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1970. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Judge J. Joseph Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then worked with a New York–based law firm for two years. In 1973 he began his academic career at Northwestern University as an assistant professor. He became a full professor in 1978. In 1990, he was named the Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy, a position he still holds.
Redish has written many First Amendment law articles and books
Redish has written law review articles on such First Amendment topics as campaign finance reform, content discrimination, scientific expression, hate crimes, tobacco advertising, and the prior restraint doctrine. His First Amendment–related books include The Adversary First Amendment: Free Expression and the Foundations of American Democracy (2013), The Logic of Persecution: Free Speech and the McCarthy Era (2005); Money Talks: Speech, Economic Power, and the Values of Democracy (2001); and Freedom of Expression: A Critical Analysis (1984).
He is currently working on a book for Cambridge University Press titled Commercial Speech and the First Amendment in the Twenty First Century.
David L. Hudson, Jr. is a law professor at Belmont who publishes widely on First Amendment topics. He is the author of a 12-lecture audio course on the First Amendment entitled Freedom of Speech: Understanding the First Amendment (Now You Know Media, 2018). He also is the author of many First Amendment books, including The First Amendment: Freedom of Speech (Thomson Reuters, 2012) and Freedom of Speech: Documents Decoded (ABC-CLIO, 2017). This article was originally published in 2009.