50 Fun Facts About First Amendment

What did Mary Beth Tinker and other Des Moines students wear to school to protest the Vietnam War?

Black armbands got 13-year-old Mary Beth Tinker suspended, and the Supreme Court sided with the students 7–2 in 1969. The ruling said the First Amendment applies inside public schools.

Citizens United v. FEC began with a documentary film attacking which 2008 presidential candidate?

Hillary Clinton was the target of Hillary: The Movie, which the nonprofit wanted to air on DirecTV. The Supreme Court used the case to strike down curbs on independent political spending by corporations.

Which comedian's monologue about words unfit for broadcast led to FCC v. Pacifica Foundation in 1978?

George Carlin's routine aired on a New York station one afternoon in 1973, and a father who heard it in the car with his young son complained. The Court let the FCC regulate indecent material on the airwaves.

Which televangelist lost a unanimous Supreme Court case against Hustler magazine over a crude parody ad?

Jerry Falwell had won damages from a jury for emotional distress before the justices ruled 8–0 against him in 1988. They held that a public figure cannot collect for an obvious parody.

Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association struck down a California ban on selling what to minors?

Violent video games were ruled protected speech like other media in a 7–2 decision in 2011. Justice Antonin Scalia wondered whether the law's vague idea of violence could also cover Grimms' Fairy Tales.

Which religious community won the right to end schooling after eighth grade in Wisconsin v. Yoder?

The Amish parents had each been fined a nominal $5 for keeping their teenagers out of high school. The Court ruled that their religious freedom outweighed the state's interest in educating the children.

Which scientific theory did Arkansas ban from public schools until Epperson v. Arkansas in 1968?

Evolution had been kept out of Arkansas classrooms by a 1928 statute. Susan Epperson, a 10th-grade biology teacher at Little Rock Central High School, brought the case, and the justices were unanimous.

Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. protected a cheerleader's profane off-campus post on which app?

Snapchat was where Brandi Levy vented after missing the varsity squad, and her school suspended her from cheerleading for a year. The Supreme Court sided with her 8–1 in 2021.

Which president's 1802 letter described a wall of separation between church and state?

Thomas Jefferson used the image to reassure a religious minority in Danbury, Connecticut, worried about the state's dominant Congregational church. The phrase itself appears nowhere in the Constitution.

Cohen v. California protected a man who wore which item bearing a profane antiwar message in a courthouse?

A jacket bearing a four-letter word about the Vietnam-era call-up earned 19-year-old Paul Cohen 30 days in jail. He had worn it in a corridor of the Los Angeles Hall of Justice in 1968.

The First Amendment's opening words bar which body from making laws on religion, speech and the press?

Congress is the only body the text names, so the First Amendment long restrained just the federal government. The Supreme Court began applying it to the states in 1925.

Which 1962 Supreme Court case barred public schools from leading a prayer written by state officials?

Engel v. Vitale struck down the Regents' Prayer, which New York's Board of Regents had written to open the school day. The vote was 6–1, with two justices sitting out.

Stone v. Graham struck down a Kentucky law requiring which text on every public school classroom wall?

The Ten Commandments copies were bought with private money, but the Court ruled in 1980 that hanging them in public classrooms still violated the First Amendment.

Children of which faith won the 1943 Barnette ruling that public schools cannot force a flag salute?

Jehovah's Witnesses regard saluting a flag as idolatry, and their children had been expelled for refusing. The decision overruled a case the Court had decided the other way just three years earlier.

Which practice did the Supreme Court refuse to excuse as a religious duty in the 1870s Reynolds case?

Polygamy was a religious duty to George Reynolds, a secretary to Brigham Young who offered himself as a test case. The Court held that belief is no defense to a criminal charge.

Which substance, used in Native American Church rites, was at issue in Employment Division v. Smith?

Peyote was illegal in Oregon, so in 1990 the Court let the state deny unemployment benefits to two drug counselors fired for taking it. Lawmakers answered three years later with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Which religion's followers won a 1993 Supreme Court case over a Florida city's ban on animal sacrifice?

Santería blends Roman Catholicism with Yoruba religion carried to Cuba by enslaved people. The Court found Hialeah's ordinances suppressed more religious conduct than their stated aims required.

Kennedy v. Bremerton School District backed a coach of which sport who prayed on the field after games?

Football assistant Joseph Kennedy knelt at the 50-yard line of Bremerton High School in Washington state after each game. The Court ruled 6–3 in 2022 that the district could not suppress his personal prayer.

Which three-part standard, named for a 1971 school-aid case, long guided Establishment Clause rulings?

The Lemon test took its name from Alton Lemon, the lead plaintiff in the case. In 2022 the Supreme Court told lower courts to stop relying on it.

Which Virginian wrote the First Amendment's first version to keep a campaign pledge for a bill of rights?

James Madison had beaten James Monroe for his House seat after making that pledge. He introduced his proposed amendments in the House in 1789.

Which justice wrote the 1919 Schenck opinion that introduced the clear and present danger standard?

Oliver Wendell Holmes also wrote there that free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre. Retellings add the word crowded, which he never used.

Which 1989 Supreme Court case held that burning the American flag in protest is protected expression?

Texas v. Johnson wiped out flag-desecration laws then enforced in 48 states. Gregory Lee Johnson had been fined $2,000 and sentenced to a year in jail for his protest outside the 1984 Republican convention.

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) overturned the conviction of a rural leader of which group over a filmed rally?

The Ku Klux Klan leader, Clarence Brandenburg, had invited a Cincinnati TV reporter to film the rally. The Court said speech can be punished only when it is meant and likely to spark imminent lawless action.

New York Times v. Sullivan said public officials must prove which standard to win a libel suit?

Actual malice means knowing a statement is false or recklessly ignoring whether it is. The 1964 case began with a full-page ad by supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. criticizing police in Montgomery, Alabama.

Which secret Vietnam War study did the Supreme Court let newspapers keep publishing in 1971?

The Pentagon Papers ran to 47 volumes and some 7,000 pages, and analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who had helped produce them, let a New York Times reporter read 43. The Washington Post published them too.

Which Kansas congregation's picketing at a Marine's funeral was ruled protected speech in Snyder v. Phelps?

Westboro Baptist Church, led by founder Fred Phelps, sent seven members to picket the funeral of Matthew Snyder in 2006. The Court ruled 8–1 in 2011 that speech on a matter of public concern was shielded from liability.

Morse v. Frederick involved a student's pro-drug banner unfurled as which event passed through Juneau?

The Olympic torch relay was passing Juneau-Douglas High School when Joseph Frederick raised the banner across the street. The Court ruled in 2007 that schools may punish student speech seen as promoting illegal drug use.

United States v. O'Brien upheld a conviction for burning which document on Boston courthouse steps?

A draft card went up in flames in front of a crowd that happened to include several FBI agents. David Paul O'Brien lost 7–1 in 1968, and the O'Brien test is still applied to laws that restrict expressive conduct.

The Miller test, from a 1973 case about a mail-order brochure, decides whether material is what?

Obscene material can be banned outright, which is why the line matters so much. Marvin Miller ran a California business selling pornographic films and books, and the three-part standard still bears his name.

In which Chicago suburb, home to many Holocaust survivors, did neo-Nazis win the right to march?

Skokie's lawyers argued that for survivors, seeing a swastika was like being physically attacked. The neo-Nazis won in court in the late 1970s, then never marched there and rallied in Chicago instead.

How many freedoms does the First Amendment protect, starting with religion and ending with petition?

Five freedoms fit into just 45 words: religion, speech, the press, assembly and petition.

Reno v. ACLU (1997) was the Supreme Court's first major ruling on speech in which medium?

The internet won the full protection given to the printed press when the Court struck down anti-indecency rules passed a year earlier to shield minors online.

Why can a private social media company delete a user's post without violating the First Amendment?

It binds only government, so a private business that moderates content is not a censor in the constitutional sense. In 2019 the Supreme Court said the same of a private cable-access operator.

Which amendment's Due Process Clause lets courts apply the First Amendment to state governments?

The Fourteenth Amendment bars states from taking liberty without due process, and in Gitlow v. New York (1925) the Court counted free speech as part of that liberty. Benjamin Gitlow still lost his appeal.

Which Socialist ran for president from prison in 1920 after the Supreme Court upheld his speech conviction?

Eugene V. Debs was serving ten years for a 1918 speech in Canton, Ohio, against American involvement in World War I. President Warren Harding commuted the sentence in December 1921.

Which 1798 law made it a crime to print false, scandalous and malicious writing against the government?

The Sedition Act's first trial put Matthew Lyon, a Vermont representative and Revolutionary War veteran, in the dock for publishing criticism of the president.

Sherbert v. Verner backed a mill worker fired for refusing to work on which day, her faith's Sabbath?

Saturday is the Sabbath for Seventh-day Adventists, and the textile mill where Adell Sherbert worked added Saturday shifts two years after she joined. She was fired, then denied unemployment pay until the Court ruled for her in 1963.

Lee v. Weisman barred clergy-led prayers at which public school event after a Rhode Island rabbi spoke?

Graduation ceremonies put subtle peer pressure on students to join in, Justice Kennedy reasoned. The case began when a Providence middle school principal invited a rabbi to pray in 1989.

Wooley v. Maynard let a New Hampshire couple cover up the state motto on which everyday item?

A license plate with the motto was required on New Hampshire cars, and George Maynard spent 15 days in jail rather than pay fines for covering his. The Court ruled in 1977 that states cannot force citizens to display a message they reject.

United States v. Alvarez voided the Stolen Valor Act after an official falsely claimed which decoration?

The Medal of Honor claim came from Xavier Alvarez, a new California water board member who also posed as a retired Marine of 25 years. The Court ruled 6–3 in 2012 that the law punishing such lies violated free speech.

Which 1988 Supreme Court case let principals censor articles in a school-sponsored student newspaper?

Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier began when a Missouri principal pulled stories on divorce and teen pregnancy before the issue went to print. The Court said schools may edit such work for legitimate teaching reasons.

Near v. Minnesota (1931) set a presumption against which form of censorship, tested again by a 1971 leak?

Prior restraint was how Minnesota silenced Jay Near's Minneapolis scandal sheet, using a 1925 law that let judges permanently enjoin newspapers deemed a public nuisance.

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire created which category of unprotected speech after a man insulted a marshal?

Fighting words, the Court said, are insults that by their very utterance tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. Walter Chaplinsky had been preaching on a Rochester sidewalk in 1940.

Which single adverb does the First Amendment's text attach to the people's right to assemble?

Peaceably gathering is a right the Supreme Court, in De Jonge v. Oregon (1937), ranked alongside free speech and a free press.

Which word does the First Amendment use for what no law may do to freedom of speech or the press?

Abridging covers speech and the press, while the same sentence picks a different verb for religion: no law may prohibit its free exercise.

The First Amendment held which position among the twelve amendments sent to the states in 1789?

Third in line, it moved up only because the states failed to ratify the two articles ahead of it. One of those, on lawmakers' pay, finally passed in 1992 as the 27th Amendment.

Which former president led the fight to repeal the House gag rule on antislavery petitions?

John Quincy Adams, by then a Massachusetts representative, wrote the resolution that ended it and built the coalition that passed it in 1844. The rule had kept such petitions from being heard since 1836.

Which New York printer's 1735 acquittal for libeling the governor became a symbol of press freedom?

John Peter Zenger spent more than eight months in prison before trial. His lawyer Andrew Hamilton persuaded the jury that truth should be a defense against a charge of libel.

NAACP v. Alabama (1958) protected the civil rights group from a state demand to hand over which records?

Its membership lists were subpoenaed while Alabama was trying to shut the group's operations down. A unanimous Court saw forced disclosure as a threat to freedom of association.

Which atheist, dubbed the most hated woman in America, won a 1963 case against Baltimore school prayer?

Madalyn Murray O'Hair filed the suit in the name of her son William, challenging mandatory prayers and Bible reading. Life magazine gave her the unflattering label in 1964.