ABSTRACT
Examination of trends in the protection of freedom of speech by the US Supreme Court in the past decade seems to suggest that the current willingness of the judiciary to force US society to run that risk may be far greater than is either necessary or desirable. It seems so much of a commonplace that courts will grant little or no deference to legislative judgments with regard to laws touching on freedom of speech that it is difficult to recall that it remains true, as Earl Latham wrote over thirty years ago, that "the notion that freedom of speech is the care of the judges is relatively recent." The decision in Bellotti is clearly of a piece with the Burger Court's other new departure in the constitutional law of free speech-the abandonment of the long-standing rule that "commercial speech" is outside the scope of the First Amendment's protection.
