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The famous Virginia Ordinance for Religious Freedom is created
Thomas Jefferson completes his first draft of a Virginia state bill for religious freedom, which states: “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever.” -
Congress lets the Sedition Act of 1798 expire
President Thomas Jefferson pardons everyone who was convicted under the Act. The act had punished those who uttered or published “false, scandalous, and malicious” writings against the government. -
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified.
This stated 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,” which amplified the power of the First Amendment by ensuring that nobody was to be arrested for speaking their minds without due process of law. -
The ACLU is founded to protect civil liberties
Roger Baldwin and others start up a new organization dedicated to preserving civil liberties (which includes the First Amendment) called the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). -
Congress repeals the Sedition Act of 1918
The Sedition Act of 1918 was passed to stop people from even talking about the World War 1 in a way that was disparaging to the US government. It was an expansion to a previous law that stopped people from interfering with military recruitment in times of war. -
Stromberg v. California is decided
In Stromberg v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses the state court conviction of Yetta Stromberg, 19-year-old female member of the Young Communist League, who violated a state law prohibiting the display of a red flag as “an emblem of opposition to the United States government.” Legal commentators cite this case as the first in which the Court recognizes that protected speech may be nonverbal, or a form of symbolic expression. -
Cantwell v. Connecticut is decided
In Cantwell v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court holds for the first time that the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment makes the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment applicable to states. -
Schools can no longer require daily Bible readings
The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the practices of requiring daily Bible readings in public schools in the companion cases Abington School District v. Schempp and Murray v. Curlett. “They are religious exercises, required by the States in violation of the command of the First Amendment that the Government maintain strict neutrality, neither aiding nor opposing religion,” Justice Tom Clark writes for the Court. -
Students are also protected by the First Amendment
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District that Iowa public school officials violated the FirstAmendment rights of several students by suspending them for wearing black armbands to protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The Court determines that school officials may not censor student expression unless they can reasonably forecast that the expression will cause a substantial disruption of school activities -
Offensive/profane speech is protected by the First Amendment
In Cohen v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses the breach-of-peace conviction of an individual who wore a jacket with the words “F— the Draft” into a courthouse. The Court concludes that offensive and profane speech are protected by the First Amendment. -
Actions on private property aren't protected by the First Amendment
In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that owners of a shopping center may bar anti-war activists from distributing leaflets at the center. The Court finds that citizens do not have a First Amendment right to express themselves on privately owned property. -
Even Nazis deserve free speech, apparently.
The Illinois Supreme Court rules in NSPA v. Skokie that the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA), a neo-Nazi group, can march through Skokie, Ill., a community inhabited by a number of Holocaust survivors. -
Schools cannot ban books because they don't like them.
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.”
