Amanda Shanor

Amanda Shanor
  • Assistant Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics
  • Wolpow Family Faculty Scholar

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    Department of Legal Studies & Business Ethics
    Jon M. Huntsman Hall, Suite 600

Overview

Amanda Shanor is an Assistant Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania who teaches and writes about constitutional law, particularly the freedom of speech. Shanor’s research explores the changing meaning of the First Amendment and the forces that affect it; democratic theory, illiberalism, and equality; and the intersection of constitutional law and economic life.

Prior to joining the academy, Shanor was a practicing lawyer in the National Legal Department of the American Civil Liberties Union who worked on the organization’s Supreme Court litigation and national strategy. This included Masterpiece Cakeshop, a case involving a bakery that declined to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple. Shanor was previously a fellow at Georgetown University Law Center’s Center on National Security & the Law who litigated constitutional and national security cases including Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder.

Shanor’s scholarship has been published or is forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review, the New York University Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the UCLA Law Review, the Emory Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the Harvard Law Review Forum, and the Yale Law Journal Forum, among others. Shanor is a regular contributor to legal blogs, including SCOTUSBlog, and is the co-author of a textbook on counterterrorism law. Shanor teaches first-year Constitutional Law at Penn Law and has also taught at Yale and Georgetown law schools. While an academic, Shanor has continued to litigate, file amicus briefs, and advise and moot advocates on speech, equality, and other constitutional issues, including in 303 Creative v. Elenis, Bostock v. Clayton County, the SEC’s proposed climate disclosure rule, and social media regulation.

Shanor is a graduate of Yale Law School and Yale College and holds a PhD in law from Yale University. Shanor served as a law clerk to Judges Cornelia T.L. Pillard and Judith W. Rogers on the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Robert W. Sweet in the Southern District of New York.

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Research

  • Amanda Shanor and Sarah E. Light (2022), Greenwashing and the First Amendment, Columbia Law Review, 122 (), pp. 2033-2118. Abstract

    Recent explosive growth in environmental and climate-related marketing claims by business firms has raised concerns about their truthfulness. Critics argue (or at least question whether) such claims constitute greenwashing, which refers to a set of deceptive marketing practices in which an entity publicly misrepresents or exaggerates the positive environmental impact of a product, service, or the entity itself. The extent to which greenwashing can be regulated consistent with the First Amendment raises thorny doctrinal questions that have bedeviled both courts and scholars, the answers to which have implications far beyond environmental marketing claims. This Essay is the first to offer both doctrinal clarity and a normative approach to understanding how the First Amendment should tackle issues at the nexus of science, politics, and markets. It contends that the analysis should be driven by the normative values underlying the protection of speech under the First Amendment in the disparate doctrines that govern these three arenas. When listeners are epistemically dependent for information on commercial speakers, regulation of such speech for truthfulness is consistent with the First Amendment and subject to the laxer review of the commercial speech doctrine. This is because citizens must have accurate information not only to knowledgeably participate at the ballot box but also to have meaningful freedom in economic life itself.

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Teaching

Past Courses

  • LAW5010 - Constitutional Law

  • LAW9990 - Independent Study Project

    Independent Study Project

  • LGST1010 - Law and Social Values

    This course presents law as an evolving social institution, with special emphasis on the legal regulation of business in the context of social values. It considers basic concepts of law and legal process, in the U.S. and other legal systems, and introduces the fundamentals of rigorous legal analysis. An in-depth examination of contract law is included.

  • LGST2210 - Const Law & Free Enterpr

    The course explores the fundamentals of U.S. constitutional doctrine and adjudication, with an emphasis on commercial and business issues and implications of constitutional law. The course starts by considering the Constitution and the structure and relationship of the governmental entities it establishes and upon which it depends. Special attention is given to the role of the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, in interpreting and applying constitutional principles. From this foundation, the course moves on to examine in detail the major economic and business implications of constitutional law in different eras of the nation's history. A core theme is how historical events and changing notions of public policy have affected and been affected by the evolution of constitutional doctrine.

  • PPE3999 - Independent Study

    Student arranges with a faculty member to pursue a research project on a suitable topic. For more information about research and setting up independent studies, visit: https://ppe.sas.upenn.edu/study/curriculum/independent-studies

  • PPE4998 - Directed Honors Research

    Student arranges with a Penn faculty member to do research and write a thesis on a suitable topic. For more information on honors visit: https://ppe.sas.upenn.edu/study/curriculum/honors-theses

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Latest Research

Amanda Shanor and Sarah E. Light (2022), Greenwashing and the First Amendment, Columbia Law Review, 122 (), pp. 2033-2118.
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