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The United States is created
The continental congress adopts the final draft of the Declaration of Independence -
Signing of the U.S constitution
When the U.S. Constitution was signed on Sept. 17, 1787, it did not contain the essential freedoms now outlined in the Bill of Rights, because many of the Framers viewed their inclusion as unnecessary. However, after vigorous debate, the Bill of Rights was adopted. The first freedoms guaranteed in this historic document were articulated in the 45 words written by James Madison that we have come to know as the First Amendment. -
Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments to the Constitution — went into effect on Dec. 15, 1791, when the state of Virginia ratified it, giving the bill the majority of ratifying states required to protect citizens from the power of the federal government. -
19th Century
The 19th century witnesses a Supreme Court hostile to many claims of freedom of speech and assembly. -
14th Amendment 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.” -
West Virginia v. Barnette
The First Amendment ensures that “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,” -
New York Times v Sullivan
And as Justice William Brennan wrote in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan in 1964, the First Amendment provides that “debate on public issues … [should be] … uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” -
Christan Legal Society v Martinez
The Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit, holding that the college’s all-comers policy is a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access to the student organization forum; and, therefore, did not transgress First Amendment limitations. -
Reichle v Howards
The Court held that the petitioners – two Secret Service agents — are entitled to qualified immunity from suit involving a claim that they arrested the respondent in retaliation for remarks he had made about then-Vice President Cheney because, at the time of the arrest, it was not clearly established that an arrest supported by probable cause could give rise to a First Amendment violation. -
McBurney v Young
The Court held that Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act, which grants Virginia citizens access to all public records, but grants no such right to non-Virginians, does not violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause, which protects only those privileges and immunities that are “fundamental.” The Act also does not violate the dormant Commerce Clause: it neither prohibits access to an interstate market nor imposes burdensome regulation on that. -
Burwell v Hobby Lobby
The Court held that regulations promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services, as applied to closely held corporations, requiring employers to provide their female employees with no-cost access to contraception violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. -
Matal v Tam
The Court held that a provision of trademark law that prohibits trademarks that disparage the members of a racial or ethnic group violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment
