Constitutional Dimensions of the Corporate Person: Corporate Free Speech

Abstract

The term “corporation” does not appear anywhere in the United States Constitution, yet the United States Supreme Court has held that corporations are entitled to claim an extensive array of constitutional rights. The justifications for these rights have developed from the many different conceptions of the corporation as a legal, moral, economic, social, and political actor. In particular, the constitutional dimension of the corporation’s personhood is an extension of its legal personhood. Therefore, the fundamental legal theories of the corporate person, i.e., the artificial person, aggregate, and real entity theories, have had a role in supporting the extension of constitutional rights to corporations. The moral and sociological dimensions of the corporate person have also been important. In determining the scope of corporate constitutional rights, the Supreme Court has considered the actual and normative roles and purposes of corporations in our pluralistic and democratic society. Considerations of corporate power, both economic and political, have contributed as well to the debate over which constitutional rights appropriately apply to corporations.