Freedom Of Association

UNITED STATES

While the United States Constitution's First Amendment identifies the rights to assemble and to petition the Government , the text of the First Amendment itself does not make specific mention of a right to association. The United States Supreme Court jurisprudence names two distinct ways in which the right may be implicated:

: 1. Freedom of association is recognized and may be protected as a fundamental element of Personal Liberty when choices to enter into and maintain certain intimate human relationships are at issue.

: 2. Freedom of association is recognized and may be protected for the purposes of engaging in activities protected by the text of the First Amendment— Speech , Assembly , petitioning government for a redress of grievances, and the free exercise of Religion . Because the role of these relationships is central to ''safeguarding'' individual freedoms, they may receive protection from undue intrusion by the State . Thus, there is a constitutional freedom to associate as a means of ''preserving'' other individual liberties.

Limitation

However, the implicit First Amendment right of association is not a ''general'' right of association. For example, it is illegal in the United States to consider race in the making and enforcement of private contracts other than marriage or taking Affirmative Action . This limitation of freedom of association results from Section 1981 of Title 42 of the Civil Rights Act , as weighed against the First Amendment according to the court decision Runyon V. McCrary , 427 U.S. 160 (1976).

The holding of ''Runyon'' is that the defendant private schools were free to ''express'' and teach their views, such as White Separatism , but could not discriminate on the basis of race in the ''provision'' of services to the general public. So if the plaintiff African-American children wished to attend such Private School s, ''and'' were clearly qualified in all respects (but race) and were able to pay the fees, ''and'' were willing to attend ''despite'' the fact that the schools strongly disliked them, then the schools were required by Section 1981 to admit them. The general rule to be drawn from this is that the First Amendment protects the right to express, including expression of racial discrimination, but people may not practice such ideas even within private associations.

This doctrine rests on the interpretation of a private contract as a "badge" of compensating for the legacy of slavery.

LIBERTARIAN

Freedom of association is a term popular in Libertarian literature. It is used to describe the concept of absolute freedom to live in a community whose Values , Laws , and Culture are closely related to what one wants.

Most libertarians believe that Federally Enforced Laws and difficulty in moving between countries limits peoples' freedom of association, and are in favor of local control.

The libertarian concept of freedom of association is often rebuked from a Moral / Ethical context. Under libertarian laws, businessowners could refuse custom to anyone for whatever reason. Opponents argue that such practices are regressive and would lead to greater Prejudice within Society . Those sympathetic to freedom of association, such as Richard Epstein , in a case of refusing service, a case of the freedom of contract, respond that unjustified discrimination incurs a cost and therefore a competitive disadvantage.

WORKERS' FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION

To most of the world, the freedom of association is a right identified under international labor standards as the right of workers' to organize and Collectively Bargain . The freedom of association is recognized as a fundamental human right by a number of human rights documents, including the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights and International Labor Organization Convention C87 and Convention C98 -- two of the eight fundamental, core international labor standards.

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Freedom Of Association