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Schenck v. United States (1919)
Charles Schenck was general security for the U.S. Socialist Party, which had opposed the idea of a military draft. The party had printed and handed out more than 15,000 pamphlets that called for men who were drafted to not go to the military. Schenck was then arrested for having violated the Espionage Act. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment could be stopped if the words spoken or printed represented to society a “clear and present danger.” -
Gitlow v. New York (1925)
Gitlow and Larkin were both Communist Party members and publishers of The Revolutionary Age, a radical newspaper in which they printed “The Left Wing Manifesto” which talked about the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. The court upheld Gitlow’s conviction but expanded free speech protections for individuals since the court held that the First Amendment was to state governments through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
West Virginia v. Barnette (1943)
West Virginia made a rule in 1942 that required students to salute the U.S. flag. Walter Barnette, a Jehovah’s Witness in West Virginia, sued in U.S. district court and won an injunction against state enforcement of the rule. The state school board appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. U.S. Supreme Court ruled that making children in public schools to salute the U.S. flag was an unconstitutional violation of their freedom of speech and religion. -
Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)
13-year-old Mary Beth Tinker, and a 16-year-old, Christopher Eckhardt, wore black armbands to school in protest against the Vietnam War. Tinker v. Des Moines stands out as the first and one of the most-important cases dealing with the free-speech rights of students in American public schools. The Court ruled that students wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War was symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment. -
Cohen v. California (1971)
A 19-year-old department store worker Paul Cohen expressed his dislike of the Vietnam War by wearing a jacket emblazoned with "F THE DRAFT. STOP THE WAR" Cohen was charged under a California statute that prohibits "maliciously and willfully disturbing the peace and quiet of any neighborhood or person offensive conduct." The Court reasoned that the jacket was not directed toward anyone. The Court protected two areas of speech the emotive and the cognitive. -
Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982)
A group of parents and school staff ordered that certain books be removed from its district's junior high and high school libraries The Board said such books were "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy." The Supreme Court ruled that officials could not remove books from school libraries because they disagreed with the content of the messages of the book. School libraries have the right of free speech and press. -
Texas v. Johnson (1989)
In 1984 Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag to protest against Reagan administration policies. Johnson was tried and convicted under a Texas law outlawing flag damage. He was sentenced to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. After the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction, the case went to the Supreme Court. The Court held that Johnson's burning of a flag was protected expression under the First Amendment. Johnson's actions fell into the category of expressive conduct -
Reno v. ACLU (1997)
Intended to protect minors from inappropriate internet material, the Act criminalized the intentional transmission. The 1996 Communications Decency Act was ruled unconstitutional since it was overly broad in its regulation of speech on the Internet, and since it attempted to regulate indecent speech, which the First Amendment protects. -
United States v. American Library Association (2003)
Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in 2000, requiring public libraries to install internet filtering software on their computers in order to qualify for federal funding. The American Library Association and others challenged the law, claiming that it required them to restrict their First Amendment rights. The court ruled that the federal government could require public libraries to use Internet-filtering software to prevent viewing of inappropriate things to minors. -
Morse v. Frederick (2007)
At a school-supervised event, Joseph Frederick held up a banner with the message "B**g Hits 4 Jesus," a slang reference to marijuana smoking. The court ruling stated that school officials can prohibit students from displaying messages that promote illegal drugs. Chief Justice John Roberts's held that students do have some right to political speech even while in school, this right does not extend to pro-drug use
