Clay Calvert
Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication - Department of Journalism
Director - Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project
Office: 2060 Weimer
Phone: 352-273-1096
Email:
Biography
Clay Calvert is the Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communication and Director of the Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at the University of Florida. He formerly served as the John and Ann Curley Professor of First Amendment Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, where he also co-directed the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment and served as interim dean of the Schreyer Honors College.
In Spring 2011, Professor Calvert served as Visiting Professor of Law at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, where he taught two sections of Constitutional Law II, covering equal protection, substantive due process and freedom of expression.
Professor Calvert has authored or co-authored more than 115 law journal articles on freedom of expression-related topics – more than anyone else in the history of the AEJMC Law Division – and in 2010 he garnered the Top Faculty Paper award for the Law Division at the AEJMC’s annual convention in Denver. In March 2011, he followed up by winning Top Faculty Paper award for the Law Division at the AEJMC’s Southeast Colloquium in Columbia, SC.
In August 2011, Professor Calvert won the Second Place Faculty Paper for the Law Division at the annual AEJMC conference in St. Louis. He also earned the Distinguished Mentor of Undergraduate Research award in October 2011 as part of the University of Florida's Education Celebration. In March 2013, Professor Calvert won the Top Faculty Paper award for the Law Division at the AEJMC Southeast Colloquium in Tampa, FL.
Professor Calvert is co-author, along with Don R. Pember, of the market-leading undergraduate media law textbook, Mass Media Law, 18th ed. (McGraw-Hill), and is author of the book Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture (Westview Press, 2000).
He received his J.D. with Great Distinction in 1991 from the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law and then earned a Ph.D. in 1996 in Communication from Stanford University, where he also completed his undergraduate work with a B.A. in Communication in 1987. He is a member of both the State Bar of California and the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Research
Summary
Clay Calvert's research focuses on contemporary issues of free expression such as: free speech in public schools; the FCC's regulation of indecent content and ownership; laws targeting violent video games; censorship of adult entertainment content; regulation of advertising; and invasions of privacy by the news media.
Recent publications
• Calvert, C. (2009). "Tinker’s Midlife Crisis: Tattered and Transgressed But Still Standing." American University Law Review, 58, 1167-1191. Available at: https://www.wcl.american.edu/journal/lawrev/58/calvert.pdf?rd=1
• Calvert, C. (2009). "Punishing Public School Students For Bashing Principals, Teachers & Classmates In Cyberspace: The Speech Issue The Supreme Court Must Now Resolve." First Amendment Law Review (Univ. of North Carolina School of Law), 7, 210-252.
•Calvert, C. (2009). "Bailing Out the Print Newspaper Industry: A Not-So-Joking Public Policy & First Amendment Analysis." McGeorge Law Review, 40, 661-686.
Keywords
Communications Law, First Amendment Law, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Speech, Mass Media Law