This is an extremely difficult question, because it assumes that corporations are living entities outside of their employees, and are therefore entitled to the same rights as a human being. When I think about the possible positives and negatives in advocating or opposing this concept I find myself thinking about the “what if’s”. If a corporation is entitled to the same rights as a human being, then the first amendment would definitely apply. However, this potentially blanket protects corporate liabilities to statements that are made in “off the cuff” mannerisms, such as the NIKE example for this case study, and would essentially allow corporations to say anything that they wanted to say, so long as they were within any other legal bounds …show more content…
While this concept sounds innocuous enough, it could easily be abused, and would be used extensively to the extent that as our text suggests, corporations would literally become political powerhouses, much more so than they currently are. However, if a corporation is not entitled to the same rights as a human being, then the first amendment would be extremely restricted for corporations. There would never be a press release, speech, or any other type of public statements ever made, unless they had been prepared by legal experts and rehearsed, and some people might argue that this is how it stands in the corporate world today. For me, I believe that this falls back to, what was the “intent” of the statement. If the statement was made in good faith, as something that the corporation or corporate representative honestly felt to be a true statement, then the company should have some protection of the freedom of speech. Yet, if statements are being made that aren’t in good faith that the statement is honest, then freedom of speech should not apply nearly as