Alexander Tsesis | College of Law

Alexander Tsesis

Professor and D’Alemberte Chair in Constitutional Law

Florida State University
College of Law
Advocacy Center, Room A202A
Phone: 850.644.3124
atsesis@law.fsu.edu

Alexander Tsesis is the D’Alemberte chair in constitutional law at the Florida State University College of Law. He is also the general editor of the Cambridge Studies on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Oxford Theoretical Foundations in Law. Tsesis’ scholarship and teaching focus on a breadth of subjects, including constitutional law, civil rights, constitutional reconstruction, interpretive methodology, free speech theory, and legal history.

Tsesis’ most recent book is Free Speech in the Balance (Cambridge University Press 2020). His previous books include Constitutional Ethos: Liberal Equality for the Common Good (Oxford University Press 2017) and For Liberty and Equality: The Life and Times of the Declaration of Independence (Oxford University Press 2012), We Shall Overcome: A History of Civil Rights and the Law (Yale University Press 2008), The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom (New York University Press 2004), and Destructive Messages: How Hate Speech Paved the Way for Harmful Social Movements (New York University Press 2002). He also edited a collection of essays in Promises of Liberty (Columbia University Press 2010). The subjects of his articles range from cyber speech, constitutional interpretation, civil rights law, and human rights. They have appeared or will appear in a variety of law reviews across the country, including the Boston University Law Review, Columbia Law Review, Cornell Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Southern California Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Vanderbilt Law Review.

Select Recent and Forthcoming Publications

Monograph:
Free Speech in the Balance (Cambridge University Press 2020)

Edited Volumes:
Student Speech in the Twenty-First Century (Alexander Tsesis & David Han eds., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2026)

Minorities, Free Speech, and the Internet (Alexander Tsesis et al., editors) (Routledge Press 2023)

Book Chapters:
Hate Speech on Campus, in Student Speech in the Twenty-First Century (Alexander Tsesis & David Han eds, Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming 2026)

Short Country Report - Criminalising Hate Speech: United States of America, in Criminalising Hate Speech–A Comparative Investigation (Asser Press (The Hague, Netherlands): Eric Heinze ed.) (forthcoming 2025)

Dignity, Free Speech, and Algorithms, in The Elgar Companion to Freedom of Speech and Expression (Alan Chen & Ashutosh Bhagwat, eds.) (forthcoming 2025)

Aspirational Reliance on the Declaration of Independence, in Cambridge Companion to the Declaration of Independence (Mark Graber & Michael Zuckert, editors) (Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming 2025)

Justice Breyer’s Balanced Reasoning on Free Speech: A Comparative Analysis, 21 First Amendment L. Rev. 395 (2023)

Democratic Values and the Regulation of Hate Speech, in Minorities, Free Speech, and the Internet (Alexander Tsesis et al., editors) (Routledge Press 2023)

Genocide Censorship vs. Genocide Denial Laws, in Responsibility for Negation of International Crimes (Patrycja Grzebyk, editor) (Institute of Justice in Warsaw 2020)

Articles:

Formalistic Reliance on History and Tradition, 173 U. of Penn. L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2025)

The Free Speech Clause as a Deregulatory Tool, 153 Daedalus 208 (2024) (volume edited by Geoffrey Stone and Lee Bollinger) (reprint in Journal of Free Speech Law (2024)

The Establishment of Religion in Schools, 76 Stanford Law Review 1725 (2024)

Levels of Free Speech Scrutiny, 98 Indiana L.J. 1225 (2023)

Incitement to Insurrection and the First Amendment, 57 Wake Forest L. Rev. 971 (2022)

Government Speech and the Establishment Clause, 2022 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1761

Compelled Speech and Proportionality, 97 Indiana L.J. 811 (2022) (reprinted in First Amendment Law Handbook (Rodney Smolla, editor) (Thomson Reuters West 2022)

Enforcement of the Reconstruction Amendments, 78 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 849 (2021)

Birth & Reconstruction of Equality in the United States, 64 Revista Da Faculdade De Direito UFPR 75 (2020)

Confederate Monuments as Badges of Slavery, 108 Ky. L.J. 695 (2020)