"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The Center
CFAS provides programs designed to educate students about their First Amendment heritage, its impact on new technologies, and to encourage faculty members to do original research on freedom of expression.
Perhaps at no time in our history have First Amendment issues so dominated national attention:
- Campuses struggle with rules to guide "politically correct" speech
- The Supreme Court opens political campaigns to spending by corporations and unions
- In the name of national security, the Administration issues regulations based on Congressional legislation that may infringe on First Amendment freedoms
- Freedom assembly allows private groups to exclude members but does not protect political donors from being identified
Unless the public clearly understands how the First Amendment has functioned to protect us in the past, our liberties may be eroded in the future. The Center's goal is to inform the public, the courts, administrative agencies and Congress about the proper application of the First Amendment.
Our Mission
The Center stimulates interdisciplinary study of First Amendment issues. Specifically, the Center seeks to publish research into and understanding of the origins, evolution, and interpretation of the First Amendment. The Center also produces research on such issues as freedom of information, copyright law, academic freedom, and the application of the First Amendment to such new technologies as cable, computer, telephone, television, and satellite transmission.
The Center was established on October 24, 1988 and has initiated two courses in the University's curriculum: Communication Studies 441, Freedom of Expression and Conscience, and Communication Studies 442, Campaign Persuasion. Both courses are interdisciplinary "capstone" classes on the campus.
Our Director
The Director of CFAS is Dr. Craig Smith, Professor of Communication Studies, who serves as the Director of the Center and Professor of Communication Studies.
He has also served as Chair of the Journalism Department, the Department of Comparative Literatureand Classics, and the Communication Studies Department. In 2000, he was named the outstanding professor on the campus to go along with his Distinguished Teaching (1997) and Distinguished Scholar (1994) Awards. In 1997 the National Speakers Association named him the Outstanding Professor in the nation.
Dr. Smith is the author of more than a dozen books and over 60 scholarly articles and book chapters. His most recent studies on the First Amendment include A First Amendment Profile of the Supreme Court (John Cabot University Press, 2011), Freedom of Expression and Partisan Politics (University of South Carolina Press), Silencing the Opposition: Government Strategies of Suppression (State University of New York Press, 2nd ed. 2011), The Four Freedoms of the First Amendment (Waveland, 2004), and Daniel Webster, An Oratorical Biography (University of Missouri Press, 2005). His scholarly study of commercial speech was selected as the lead article in the prestigious Free Speech Yearbook. He regularly publishes editorials on the subject of freedom of expression in such prestigious newspapers as the Miami Herald , the Los Angeles Times , and the Washington Post.
Dr. Smith has served as a consultant to CBS News for convention, election night, and inaugural coverage. He served as a full-time speechwriter for President Gerald Ford and Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca. He has served as a consultant to President George Bush and Governor Pete Wilson among others. Dr. Smith served as Director of Senate Services for the Republican Conference of the U.S. Senate in 1979-80, and as Deputy Director of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1981-82. In 1983 he founded the Freedom of Expression Foundation and remains its president to this time. Dr. Smith taught at San Diego State University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham before coming to Long Beach State. From 1996 to 1998 Dr. Smith served on the California Commission for Teacher Credentialing. He has served on the Statewide Academic Senate and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the California State University system.