This talk will explore the prominent role of CSR (corporate social responsibility) in today’s society. Many for-profit corporations identify themselves with particular causes (breast cancer) or advertise aspects of their products or business practices ("cruelty free") which have ethical components in order to promote their companies as ethically distinct from the normal for-profit model. Many consumers likewise attempt to align their purchases to express their political and ethical commitments. The idea is that is possible to effect social change through consumption. Drawing on my recent book Brandishing the First Amendment: Commercial Expression in America I will discuss why most of these efforts are futile and how they serve instead as a basis for corporations to lay claim to the expressive rights previously thought to belong only to human beings with detrimental consequences to our welfare. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Professor Piety teaches at the University of Tulsa College of Law and is the author of "Brandishing the First Amendment" which discusses the threat posed by corporate and commercial speech to public safety, health and welfare. She is also the author of several articles including, "Citizens United and the Threat to the Regulatory State" and "A Necessary Cost of Freedom? The Incoherence of Sorrell v. IMS Health." She is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Miami School of Law. Prior to Tulsa she was a Teaching Fellow at Stanford Law School and has been a visiting professor at the University of Missouri and Florida State law schools.