The Conscience of Corporations and the Right Not to Speak

The right to refrain from speaking is part of a broader concept the Supreme Court describes as “individual freedom of mind.”1 But do corporations have protection from compelled speech under the freedom of mind concept? It is bizarre to ascribe human characteristics to corporations, yet the Court has held that newspaper publishing corporations are protected by the freedom of mind concept from state-imposed requirements that interfere with their ability “to decide what to print or omit.”2 In reaching this conclusion, the Court ignored the corporate identity of the publishing company and instead emphasized the burden on editors.3 Later cases rejecting a First Amendment distinction between press and non-press corporations, such as Citizens United v. FEC,4 raise the question whether the Court should also ignore the corporate form of non-press entities and instead assess a law’s burden on management, employees, and shareholders. Stated differently, do non-press corporations have standing to assert that compelled speech vio-