Right to hear

The right to hear is as fundamental to the First Amendment under the United States Constitution as the right to speak. Both are essential parts of the freedom of speech clause.

In Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 762-65 (1972), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a group of professors possess a First Amendment right to challenge the visa denial of a person they had invited to speak at a conference.

From a widely cited 7-1 Supreme Court decision, Va. State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Va. Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748, 756-57, 96 S. Ct. 1817, 1823 (1976), with only then-Justice William Rehnquist (never much of a free-speech rights justice) dissenting from this:

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Freedom of speech presupposes a willing speaker. But where a speaker exists, as is the case here, the protection afforded is to the communication, to its source and to its recipients both. This is clear from the decided cases. In Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965), the Court upheld the First Amendment rights of citizens to receive political publications sent from abroad. More recently, in Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 762-763 (1972), we acknowledged that this Court has referred to a First Amendment right to "receive information and ideas," and that freedom of speech "'necessarily protects the right to receive.'" And in Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396, 408-409 (1974), where censorship of prison inmates' mail was under examination, we thought it unnecessary to assess the First Amendment rights of the inmates themselves, for it was reasoned that such censorship equally infringed the rights of noninmates to whom the correspondence was addressed. There are numerous other expressions to the same effect in the Court's decisions. See, e.g., Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 390 (1969); Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557, 564 (1969); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 482 (1965); Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501, 505 (1946); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 534 (1945); Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141, 143 (1943). If there is a right to advertise, there is a reciprocal right to receive the advertising, and it may be asserted by these appellees.

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