Journal of Business & Technology Law Volume 11 | Issue 1 Article 2 The irsF t Amendment and the Corporate Civil Rights Movement Tamara R. Piety Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/jbtl Part of the Business Organizations Law Commons, and the First Amendment Commons Recommended Citation Tamara R. Piety, The First Amendment and the Corporate Civil Rights Movement, 11 J. Bus. & Tech. L. 1 (2016) Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/jbtl/vol11/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Academic Journals at DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Business & Technology Law by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Tamara R. Piety* The First Amendment and the Corporate Civil Rights Movement INTRODUCTION The last 20 years have seen the development of a remarkable expansion of the First Amendment to business enterprises. The First Amendment has become a powerful weapon against regulation of all kinds. Regulations that have been on the books for decades are being challenged.1 And many regulations that have been a thorn in the side of business, and the source of much litigation, are now under a constitutional cloud.2 Moreover, the arguments on which this robust First Amendment rests have given rise to a number of additional claims for constitutional protection for business entities, claims that only a few years ago would have seemed “off the wall,”3 such as, that a corporation has a free exercise of religion claim under the First Amendment.