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Schenck v. United States
Freedom of Speech; you can’t shout “Fire!” in a theatre. Your freedom of speech rights end when your words are used in an attempt to incite a riot or some other insubordinate reason. Defendants were found guilty. -
Zorach v. Clauson
Group of Jewish students request to be excused from taking public school classes on Yom Kippur in order to attend religious services. Ruling: New York City permits its public schools to release students only upon written request of their parents to go to centers for religious instruction or devotional exercise. Also makes attendance compulsory for those not given permission to leave the classroom and churches must report the names of children leaving school for religious instruction who do not a -
The New York Times v. Sullivan
To protect "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open" debate on public issues, the Supreme Court ruled that no public official may recover "damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with 'actual malice'--that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." The Court stated that both the First and Fourteenth Amendments require that all critics of an officials conduct must have the "fa -
Ginsberg v. New York
The Supreme Court upheld a New York State law banning retailers from selling sexually explicit publications to any minors under the age of 17. Stating that the statute did not interfere with the rights of an adult to purchase and view such materials, it found that it was constitutionally permitted for New York to restrict minors’ rights to such publications because of the state's interest in the preservation of the children's well-being. -
Stanley v. Georgia
A man caught possessing pornographic materials in his home for his own private use was found in violation of the state laws of Georgia. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction, ruling that the Constitution protects the right to receive materials, information, and ideas, no matter whether or not they are of social worth, and that it was an intrusion of his privacy and the government "cannot constitutionally premise legislation on the desirability of controlling a person's private thoughts." -
Brandenburg v. Ohio
Supreme Court established that speech that "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and is likely to incite or produce such action" should be limited. -
Gertz v. Robert Welch
When a prominent lawyer claimed that a public brochure defamed him, The Court enforced the rule in the New York Times case to public figures, finding that anyone that has special prominence in society due to their fame or notoriety, even those who are not public officials, must prove "actual malice" when accusing a group or persons of libel. -
Zykan v. Warsaw (Indiana) Community School Coporation
A student filed a suit against an officials' decision to "limit or prohibit the use of certain textbooks, to remove a certain book from the school library, and to delete certain courses from the curriculum." The district court dismissed the case. The case was appealed and the court ruled that the school board has the right to establish a curriculum of its own choice, but they are not allowed to enforce a "pall of orthodoxy." The right of students to file complaints was recognized, but the court -
New York v. Ferber
In July 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court added child pornography as another category of speech that is excluded from the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of speech. The other categories excluded are obscenity, defamation, incitement, and "fighting words." The Supreme Court affirmed a conviction against Ferber for showing a movie depicting two young boys masturbating and stated that the depictions would otherwise not been pornographic if the actors were not children. -
Hustler Magazine Inc. v. Falwell
Hustler Magazine published a parody of a liquor advertisement that depicted Rev. Jerry Falwell describing his "first time" as a drunken encounter with his mother in an outhouse. A unanimous Supreme Court held that a public figure had to show actual malevolence “in order to recover for intentional infliction of emotional distress” from a parody of them in a magazine. The Court ruled that political cartoons and satire like this parody "have played a prominent role in public and political debate. A -
Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District
The Court ruled that a school district that opened its classrooms after hours groups for social and recreational purposes could not deny access to a religious organization to discuss the same issues from a religious point of view. They also ruled that the school district could not deny access based on the speaker's point of view on a topic. -
McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission
The Supreme Court overturned state law banning the distribution of anonymous campaign brochures and information, stressing the institution of anonymous and pseudonymous political and literary speech and identifying the right to exercise all First Amendment rights anonymously as an "honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent." -
American Amusement Machine Association v. Teri Kendrick
AS city ordinance in Indianapolis, IN required arcade owners to limit access to games that feature certain actions, bloodshed, decapitation, dismemberment, or sexual intercourse to children under seventeen years of age that are not accompanied by a parent or guardian. Was later remanded in 2001 and it was stated that “children have first amendment rights.” -
John D. Ashcroft, Attorney General v. Free Speech Coalition
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 was invalid on the grounds that the ban on any portrayal of pornographic images of children, was too broad of a spectrum of possibilities and therefore unconstitutional. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy who presided over the case wrote: "First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning -
United States v. American Library Association Inc.
The Supreme Court upheld the Children's Internet Protection Act, which requires that all libraries that receive federal funds for Internet access must install filters so that both adult and child patrons cannot access obscene materials "harmful to minors." Chief Justice Rehnquist announced that the law was Constitutional but that “over blocking” materials was unconstitutional and that if a library was caught in violation of this law, their internet would be disabled “without delay”.