Luke Sheahan is an assistant professor of political science at Duquesne University and non-resident scholar at the program for research on religion and urban civil society at the University of Pennsylvania. He joins John to discuss his new book, Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism. Luke argues that there has been a fundamental understanding of what associations are and that this has affected the court’s ability to protect them. Luke talks about why we need to stop ignoring the assembly clause, social alienation in the modern world, and the relationship between sociology, philosophy, and political science.

• Freedom of association

• Membership

• Expressive groups

• Assembly clause versus the free speech clause

• The work of John Inazu and Robert Nesbit

• Freedom of association and civil rights

• Textualism and dialectic

Links:
Why Associations Matter by Luke Sheahan
John Inazu
The Social Philosophers by Robert Nisbet
The Sociological Tradition by Robert Nisbet
NAACP v. Alabama
Christian Legal Society versus Martinez
Roberts v. Jaycees
Buck v. Bell
Bob Jones University v. United States
Holt v. Hobbes
Richard Garnett
Steven Smith
First Amendment Situations by Paul Horwitz