Empowering Anonymous Speech

This chapter explores the empowerment of anonymous speech. It starts with the work of Manuel Talley when he founded the Los Angeles chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality to fight against discrimination. The California appellate court issued its opinion in Talley's case, and it refused to back away from its conclusion that the Los Angeles ordinance prohibiting all anonymous pamphleteering had been constitutional. Moreover, Justice Hugo Black's opinion on the Los Angeles ordinance restricting the freedom to distribute information and freedom of expression gave rise to the monumental development of the right to anonymity. The chapter elaborates on the Supreme Court adopting a flexible balancing test that weighed the competing benefits and harms of anonymity following McIntyre's doctrinal framework.