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Cohen v. California
A 19-year-old department store worker expressed his opposition to the Vietnam War by wearing a jacket emblazoned with "FUCK THE DRAFT. STOP THE WAR". The young man was charged and found guilty and sentenced to 30 days in jail. The Court reasoned that the while provocative, was not directed toward anyone and there was no evidence that people in numbers would be provoked into some kind of physical action by the words on his jacket. The court protected the emotive and cognitive forms of speech. -
Miller v. California
Miller was convicted of violating a California statute prohibiting the distribution of obscene material. Some unwilling recipients of Miller's brochures complained to the police, initiating the legal proceedings. The Court held that obscene materials did not enjoy First Amendment protection. The Court modified the test for obscenity established that the basic guidelines and they rejected the "utterly without redeeming social value" test of the Memoirs decision. -
Bethal School District No. 403 v. Fraser
At a high school assembly, Matthew Fraser made a speech nominating a student for elective office. In his speech, he used a sexual metaphor to promote the candidacy of his friend. Fraser was suspended from school for two days. The Court found that it was appropriate for the school to ban the use of inappropriate and offensive language. And Burger concluded that the First Amendment did not prohibit schools from inappropriate speech since there were fundamental values of public school education. -
Texas v. Johnson
In front of the Dallas City Hall, Gregory Lee Johnson burned an American flag as a means of protest against Reagan administration policies. He was sentenced to one year in jail and assessed a $2,000 fine. The Court held that Johnson's burning of a flag was protected expression under the First Amendment. The Court found that Johnson's actions fell into the category of expressive conduct and had a distinctively political nature. -
R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul
Several teenagers burned a crudely fashioned cross on a black family's lawn. The police charged one of the teens under a local bias-motivated criminal ordinance which prohibits the display of any arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender. The justices held the ordinance invalid on its face because it prohibits speech that the subject addresses. The First Amendment prevents the government from punishing speech and expressive conduct -
Reno v. ACLU
This Act criminalized the intentional transmission of "obscene or indecent" messages as well as the transmission of information that depicts or describes "sexual or excretory activities or organs" in a manner deemed "offensive" by community standards. General Janet Reno appealed directly to the Supreme Court as provided for by the Act's special review provisions. This case violated the First Amendment because its regulations amounted to a content-based blanket restriction of free speech. -
Virginia v. Hicks
The Richmond City Council conveyed Whitcomb Court's streets to the RRHA. The RRHA enacted a policy authorizing the Richmond police to serve notice on any person lacking "a legitimate business or social purpose" for being on the premises and to arrest for trespassing. At trial, Hicks claimed that RRHA's policy was unconstitutionally overbroad and void for vagueness, So the Virginia Supreme Court found the policy unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. -
United States v. American Library Assn., Inc.
Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act in 2000, requiring public libraries to install internet software on the computers in order to qualify for federal funding. People were claiming that it went against the First Amendment rights of their patrons. The court agreed that public libraries' use of Internet filtering software does not violate the First Amendment rights, CIPA does not induce libraries to violate the Constitution and is a valid exercise of Congress's spending power. -
Ashcroft v. ACLU
Congress passed the Child Online Protection Act to prevent minors from accessing pornography online. Online publishers sued in federal court to prevent enforcement of the act, arguing that it violated the First Amendment. the Court found that Congress had not yet met its burden to show that the COPA requirements were more effective than other methods of preventing minors. The court thought that by passing the law it would be likely to prevent online publishers from publishing certain material. -
Morse v. Frederick
At a school event, Joseph Frederick held up a banner with the message "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." The Principal took away the banner and suspended him for ten days. The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit, ruling that the school can prohibit students from displaying messages that promote illegal drug use. the court agreed that even though students do have some right to political speech it doesn't give them the right to display messages about drugs that go against the school's mission to avoid drug use.
