Ronald K. L. Collins

Ronald K.L. Collins is the Harold S. Shefelman Scholar at the University of Washington School of Law and was a scholar at the Washington, D.C., office of the First Amendment Center from 2002-09. During his tenure there he wrote and lectured on freedom of expression and oversaw the online library component of the First Amendment Center’s Web site. He also helped to organize conferences at the Newseum and hosted the "Topics of Our Times" lecture series there. He is currently a fellow at the Center.

Biography

Born in Santa Monica, California, Collins grew up in Southern California. He graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a degree in political philosophy and took his law degree from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Afterwards, Collins served as a law clerk to Justice Hans A. Linde on the Oregon Supreme Court and thereafter was a Supreme Court Fellow under Chief Justice Warren Burger at the United States Supreme Court. In 2009, he served as the president of the Supreme Court Fellows Alumni Association, and in 2011 he received the Association's Administration of Justice award "in recognition of his scholarly and professional achievements in advancing the rule of law."

After working with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles and the Legal Aid Society of Orange County, Collins was a teaching fellow at Stanford Law School. Thereafter, he taught constitutional law and commercial law at Temple Law School and The George Washington University Law School, among other schools. Collins has written constitutional briefs that were submitted to the Supreme Court and various other federal and state high courts. He has also published some 50 articles in scholarly journals such as the Supreme Court Review and the Harvard, Stanford, and Michigan law reviews. His writings on the First Amendment have appeared in Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, The New York Times and The Washington Post, among numerous other publications.

Collins is the author, co-author, and editor of several books, listed below, and the co-author of a forthcoming book titled On Dissent (with David Skover), which will be published by Cambridge University Press. Also forthcoming from Cambridge is Hugo Black & the First Amendment: A Free Speech Chronicle and Reader (2013).

In 2003, Collins and David Skover successfully petitioned the governor of New York to posthumously pardon Lenny Bruce. In 2004, they received the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award.

In September 2006 Collins conducted a public interview with Anthony Lewis at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. A transcript of that interview can be found here. On February 11, 2008 he did another interview with Mr. Lewis on C-SPAN's Book TV ("Afterwords"). On September 26, 2008, he co-chaired a workshop held at Seattle University Law School on "The Future of Law School Course Books." Collins is profiled in Congressional Quarterly's Encyclopedia of the First Amendment (2009), vol. I. On April 25, 2011, he was again on Book-TV", this time with Sam Chaltain, to discuss their book We must not be Afraid to be Free.

More recently, Collins was a fellow in residence at the Norman Mailer Writers Colony in Provincetown, MA (Spring, 2010). He is also on the board of editors for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

In 2011, he became a contributor to SCOTUSblog, a blog devoted to news and analysis concerning the US Supreme Court and its cases.

Years ago, in 1967, just before he entered college, Collins appeared on "The Dating Game" and was the bachelor chosen.

Selected publications

Books

• Co-authored with Sam Chaltain, We Must not be Afraid to be Free: Stories of Free Expression in America (Oxford University Press, 2011) (C-SPAN discussion here)
• Editor The Fundamental Holmes: A Free Speech Chronicle and Reader (Cambridge University Press, 2010) (review here)
• Co-authored with David Skover,The Trials of Lenny Bruce (2002)
• Co-authored with David Skover,The Death of Discourse, (2n ed., 2005)
• The Death of Contract, editor of 2nd edition(1995)
• Constitutional Government in America, editor (1980)
• Developments in State Constitutional Law, Bradley D. McGraw, editor (contributor)
• The Legal Rights of Citizens with Mental Retardation, Lawrence A. Kane, Jr., editor (contributor)
• Signs of Life in the USA: Readings in Popular Culture for Writers, Sonia Maasik & Jack Solomon, editors (contributor)
• Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, David M. O'Brien, editor (contributor)
• Simone Weil's Philosophy of Culture" Richard A. Bell, editor (contributor)
• Simone Weil: The Way of Justice as Compassion Richard A. Bell, editor (contributor)
• We the Media, Don Hazen & Julie Winokur, editors (contributor)
• The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law Roger K. Newman, editor (author: Lenny Bruce & Anthony Comstock entries)

Forewords & Digests

• Symposium: "Searching for Truth in the Modern State: Post's Republic & the First Amendment," 87 Washington Law Review ____ (2012) (with David Skover)

• David M. O'Brien, Congress Shall Make No Law Except for Unprotected Expression: Categories and Contexts (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)
• Robert Benson, The Interpretation Game (Carolina Academic Press, 2008)
• Geoffrey R. Stone, Top Secret:When Our Government Keeps Us in the Dark (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)
• Symposium, “Foreword: To America’s Tomorrow -- Commerce, Communication & the Future of Free Speech,” 41 Loyola Los Angeles Law Review 1 (2007)
• Symposium, "Nike v. Kasky and the Modern Commercial Speech Doctrine," 54 Case Western Reserve Law Review 965 (2004) (with David Skover)

• State Constitutional Bills and Declarations of Rights Digest

Articles: scholarly & online (partial listing)

• "Floyd Abrams and the Virtues of Nuanced Absolutism" (forthcoming, 2012)
• "The Digital Path of the Law" (with David Skover) in Legal Education in a Digital Age (Cambridge University Press, 2012), edited by Edward Rubin
• "Comedy & Liberty," 78 Social Research ___ (2012)
• “Thoughts on the Text of the Speech & Press Clauses of the First Amendment,” 29 Delaware Lawyer ____ (2012)
• co-authored, “Paratexts as Praxis,” 37 Neohelicon 33 (June 2010)
• co-authored, "Curious Concurrence: Justice Brandeis's Vote in Whitney v. California," 2005 Supreme Court Review 333
• co-authored, "New 'Truths' and the Old First Amendment," the Afterword to "Noble Lies & The First Amendment: A Symposium on The Death of Discourse," 64 University of Cincinnati Law Review 1315 (1996)
• co-authored, "The Pornographic State," 107 Harvard Law Review 1374 (1994)
• co-authored, "Commerce & Communication," 40 Texas Law Review 697 (1993)
• co-authored, "A Cultural Approach to the First Amendment," 45 Stanford Law Review 783 (1993)
• co-authored, "Paratexts," 44 Stanford Law Review 509 (1992)
• co-authored, "The First Amendment in an Age of Paratroopers," 68 Texas Law Review 1087 (1990)
• co-authored, "The First Amendment in Bold Relief: A Reply," 48 Texas Law Review 1087(1990)
• co-authored, "The Future of Liberal Legal Scholarship," 87 Michigan Law Review 601 (1988)
• Rehnquist & First Amendment: end of an era
• Recent trends go against free speech
• Campaign finance: Reform trumps rights
• Pardoning Lenny Bruce's language
• Press Release: Petition to Pardon Lenny Bruce
• Pardon Lenny Bruce
• Books-on-Law
• Judge Alito & the new First Amendment defenders
• Judge Alito: fairly strong on free expression
• Alito as government lawyer: '84 broadcast-regulation case
• Wartime riskiest for free speech, scholar says: An Interview with Geoffrey Stone
• New York Times, Inc. v. Sullivan: The Case That Changed History
• Let Nike Talk (scroll down to article)
• Repeal Colorado's Food Sedition Law
• Congress Must Address Food-Disparagement Laws
• Win or Lose, Dissing Food Can be Costly
• Book Publishing & Food Libel Laws
• "Veggie-Libel" Law Still Poses a Threat
• Speech on food safety is on trial
• A Funeral for Free Speech: Protests at Funerals
• "Famed First Amendment scholar Leonard W. Levy dies"
• "AIPAC, Espionage Act & First Amendment"
• "Trial of 'Angelheaded Hipsters'"
• "It's time to let public tune in the voices of the Supreme Court"
• "Really, You Might Not Know Jack Kerouac," Chicago Tribune, September 5, 2007.
• "New e-book may 'kindle' fires of regulation — or of freedom"
• "FCC's puritanical actions should be reined in"
• "About that word ‘abridging’ in the First Amendment …"
• "What to make of ‘make’ in the First Amendment"
• "Remembering 2 forgotten women in free-speech history"
• "Benjamin Bache & the fight for a free press, Pts. 1 & 2"
• "Picking nits: Justice Scalia, Heller & the First Amendment"
• "Carlin: comic who buzz-sawed hypocrisy"
• "The Universal First Amendment – Bold Ideas for Press Freedom in a Global Era"
• "Holmes’ idea marketplace – its origins & legacy"
• "Nina Simone's Song of Protest"
• "Freedom and its Excesses"
• "Freedom’s risks: the danger of safety"
• "The First Amendment as a Way of Life"
• "David Mamet's Theatre of Freedom'
• "A cacophony of sedition – poetry & the French Revolution"
• "The Sedition Act & the Trial of Thomas Cooper"
• co-authored "The Roberts Court and the Fight for First Amendment Freedoms"
• "Bong Hits 4 Jesus: The Full & Final Story"
• Review Essay of Machiavelli: A Biography, Washington Independent Review of Books
• "Viewing justices, First Amendment through rhetorical lens"
• "Book preview: Upcoming Linda Greenhouse book on the Court"
• "Book Preview: Finally, A Biography of Judge Henry J. Friendly"
• "Book Review: Eye on the Court"