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Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance. Though primarily a law establishing government guidelines for colonization of new territory, it also provides that “religion, morality and knowledge being necessary also to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” The U.S. Constitution is adopted into law on Sept. 17 by the Federal Constitutional Convention and later ratified by the states on June 21, 1788.
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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. The amendment, in part, requires that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
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Congress passes the Espionage Act, making it a crime “to willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States,” or to “willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States.”
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The “Scopes Monkey Trial” occurs in Dayton, Tenn. School-teacher John Thomas Scopes is found guilty of violating a Tennessee law which prohibits teaching the theory of evolution in public schools. The case pits famed orator William Jennings Bryan against defense attorney Clarence Darrow.
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Life magazine is banned in the U.S. for publishing pictures from the public health film “The Birth of a Baby.”
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The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Board of Education v. Pico that school officials may not remove books from school libraries because they disagree with the ideas contained in the books. The Court states that “the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient’s meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom,” and makes clear that “students too are beneficiaries of this principle.”
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Congress passes the Flag Protection Act. The act punishes anyone who “knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any U.S. flag …”
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Congress passes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
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President Clinton orders the Department of Education to send guidelines on religious expression to every public school district in the United States.
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In Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that application of a public-accommodation law to force the Boy Scouts to accept a gay scoutmaster is a violation of the private organization’s freedom of association guaranteed by the First Amendment.
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The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Children’s Internet Protection Act in United States v. American Library Association, Inc. The law requires public libraries and public schools to install filtering software on computers to receive federal funding.
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In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that video games are a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. The Court holds California’s law restricting the sale or rental of violent video games to minors is unconstitutional.
