Law School’s Boden Lecture on common-carrier internet policies, Sept. 22

Marquette University Law School will host its annual Boden Lecture titled, “The Past’s Lessons for Today: Can Common Carrier Principles Make for Better Internet?” on Thursday, Sept. 22, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Lubar Center in Eckstein Hall. The lecture will be followed by a reception from 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Registration is required and is available online through Sept. 14. 

The lecture features James B. Speta, Elizabeth Froehling Horner Professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law.

Proposals abound to “reform” the internet. Some of these speak directly to concerns that Google, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms engage in bias and discrimination, in choosing among sources, users, news feeds and results. Yet consensus is elusive on defining that bias, and many of the proposed reforms almost certainly would violate the First Amendment. The Boden Lecture examines whether we can look to the law’s past for a path forward.