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Schenck v. United States
Charles Schenck was the Secretary of the Socialist Party of America and was responsible for printing, distributing, and mailing to prospective military draftees during World War I leaflets that advocated opposition to the draft. Supreme Court decision that upheld the Espionage Act of 1917 and concluded that a defendant did not have a First Amendment right to freedom of speech against the draft during World War I -
Whitney v. California
Since Anita Whitney did not base her defense on the First Amendment, the Supreme Court, by a 7 to 2 decision, upheld her conviction of being found guilty under the California’s 1919 Criminal Syndicalism Act for allegedly helping to establish the Communist Labor Party, a group the state argued taught the violent overthrow of government. -
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
Decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protected students from being forced to salute the American flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance in school. -
Butler v. Michigan
A man convicted of selling "a book containing obscene, immoral, lewd, lascivious language, or descriptions, tending to incite minors to violent or depraved or immoral acts, manifestly tending to the corruption of the morals of youth" to a police officer appealed his conviction to the Supreme Court -
Stanley v. Georgia
A man found to possess obscene materials in his home for his private use was convicted of possessing obscene materials in violation of the state laws of Georgia. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, holding that Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas, regardless of their social worth. -
Brandenburg v. Ohio
The Supreme Court established the modern version of the "clear and present danger" doctrine, holding that states only could restrict speech that "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and is likely to incite or produce such action." -
New York Times Company v. United States
In the "Pentagon Papers" case, the U.S. government attempted to enjoin the New York Times and the Washington Post from publishing classified documents concerning the Vietnam War. -
Loewen v. Turnipseed
The Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board did not approve the textbook for use in the state school system -
Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education
Some parents protested the Holt Literature books their children were reading from in school. Some of the short stories in the book contained materials that went against the plaintiff’s religious beliefs -
Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile (Ala.) County
Parents and other citizens brought a lawsuit against the school board, alleging that the school system was teaching the tenets of an anti-religious religion called "secular humanism -
Texas v. Johnson
In this case the Supreme Court held that burning the United States flag was a protected form of symbolic political speech. -
Romano v. Harrington
The U.S. District Court found in favor of a faculty adviser to a high-school newspaper who claimed a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments when fired following the newspaper's publication of a student's article opposing the federal holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr -
Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of New York State Crime Victims Board
The Supreme Court struck down New York's "Son of Sam Law," which required book publishers to turn over to the state, any proceeds from a book written by any person convicted of a crime, related to or about that crime -
McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission
The Supreme Court struck down a state law banning distribution of anonymous campaign literature, emphasizing the long tradition of anonymous and pseudonymous political and literary speech and recognizing the right to exercise First Amendment rights anonymously as an "honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent -
Interactive Digital Software Association, et al. v. St. Louis County, Missouri, et al
The ordinance, in relevant part, makes it unlawful for any person knowingly to sell, rent, or make available graphically violent video games to minors, or to “permit the free play of” graphically violent video games by minors, without a parent or guardian's consent.
