Mapping the Forms of Expressive Association

Freedom of expressive association is a relatively new right under the First Amendment, and as a result, its key definitional aspects are continually in flux. Scholarship to- date focuses on the Supreme Court’s treatment of expressive associations, but because the Court has never truly defined what an expressive association is, the Scholarship also fails to really define the boundaries and characteristics of an expressive association. This Article begins to fill this gap in the literature and takes on the task of “mapping” the forms of expressive association. Our goal is to begin the organizing, defining, and classifying task by identifying the essential forms of expressive associations and the boundaries that should attach to the various and often overlapping forms of collective First Amendment activity.

By doing so, the First Amendment values associated with each typology begin to emerge and key patterns and characteristics are identified. With this map, we begin to see the landscape of expressive associations.