ABSTRACT
Just a decision was New York Times Co. v. Sullivan in which the Court unanimously held that a libel judgment rendered under Alabama law was violative of First Amendment principles and, therefore, of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Negro movement is making significant constitutional law not only in the area of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause but in unexpected sectors of First Amendment theory. There are two readings that may be given the Court's opinion by Mr. Justice Brennan which are, perhaps, only subtly different. But in that small margin of difference is to be found the possibility of a major shift in First Amendment theory. Several issues are intertwined. At the simplest level, it is, of course, correct that the Court cannot permit the concepts of state law to control constitutional scrutiny. The majority opinion survives the concurring opinions in good shape. There can be something demeaning in carping about the illiberality of so distinctively liberal an opinion.
