First Amendment Freedoms

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees

the equal protection of the laws and due process of law.

Tinker v. Des Moines

Students were suspended for wearing black armbands as a symbol of protest against the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court ruled it a violation of the students' First Amendment rights. Heard by Supreme Court in 1969.

Bethel v. Fraser opinion

Student speech may be limited when speech is lewd or sexually explicit and the audience includes children.

First Amendment rights of students are not automatically...

coextensive (the same) with the rights of adults.

Administrators may suppress freedom of expression when

They view student behavior/speech will cause a "material and substantial disruption". The limitations were established in Tinker v. Des Moines.

Morse v. Frederick

Schools can suppress speech that promotes drug use. Student held "Bong Hits for Jesus" banner as class watched Olympic torch parade by. Supreme Court ruled in 2007.

Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier opinion

Administrators can regulate content of school-sponsored publications and plays that students, parents, and the public might reasonably perceive to bear the approval of the school. Iowa passed a state law making "Tinker" the standard

Schools can prohibit students from publishing and distributing material that:

is obscene, contains profanity, is slanderous or libelous, violates the rights of privacy, advocates breaking the law, would cause disruption of the orderly operation of the school.

Bethel v. Fraser background

Matthew Fraser, after being advised not to, gave a speech in front of 600 students at a school assembly during student council elections. The speech contained significant sexual innuendo. He was subsequently suspended.

Brandenburg v. Ohio 1969

Government can only forbid "imminent lawless action" speech. This is the test for what speech can be suppressed in the United States. 1969 case that involved a leader of the KKK. This is the test which is currently used to define what speech is protected.

Anti-Hazelwood laws

Laws passed in Iowa and a five other states in response to the Supreme Court's decision in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. The state laws effectively made "Tinker" the standard for student expression instead of the limits established by the Hazelwood decision.

In Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier case, what were the two offending articles about

Divorce and teen pregnancy

In the Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier case, why weren't the students given a chance to edit or change the articles?

There was no time. The paper had to be published that day or not at all. Consequently, the pages that contained the two articles were removed. The Hazelwood East students claimed their First Amendment rights were violated.

Incorporation

Process in which the Supreme Court has ruled that amendments in the Bill of Rights apply to the state governments also - not just the federal government,

Amendment used to incorporate Bill of Rights

14th Amendment

Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L.

A cheerleader in Mahanoy Area High School in Pennsylvania sent an off-campus snapchat that was deemed to have violated team and school rules, and she was suspended from jv cheer for a year. The 3rd Circuit ruled it violated her 1st Amendment rights. The Supreme Court agreed due to the precedent established in Tinker v. Des Moines

Defamatory Speech

False speech that damages a person's good name, character, or reputation. Slander is verbal defamation, while libel is written defamation

Pure Speech

Most common form of speech, relies only on power of words

Symbolic Speech

Type of speech using actions and symbols in addition to words

4 tests for speech

1. clear and present danger

2. bad tendency doctrine

3. preferred position doctrine

4. imminent lawless action

Preferred position doctrine

First amendment freedoms are more fundamental than other freedoms because they provide a basis of all liberties. Supreme Court case Murdock v. Pennsylvania involving Jehovah's Witnesses going door to door and the town requiring them to register and pay small fee.

Bad Tendency

A Supreme Court test for the freedom of speech developed in the 1920's that allowed the government more leeway to restrict speech

What is not protected?

Fighting words, threats, defamatory speech, speech that will cause imminent, lawless action

Abridging the freedom of speech

Limiting or reducing the freedom of speech

sedition

rebellion or resistance against the government

Yates v. United States

Communists convictions overturned saying speech that advocates for belief in the "idea" is protected speech as long as it doesn't lead to immediate danger.

Schenck v. United States

A socialist's speech urging drafted men to not report during WWI was not protected. Government can limit speech if the speech provokes a "clear and present danger" of substantive evils.

United States v. O'Brien (1968)

Burning a draft card is not protected. Court ruled symbolic speech can be limited if government agency has the power, the ban is narrow and allows for other opportunities to express the speech. Symbolic speech test case

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

speech that does not call for illegal action is protected, and even speech that does call for illegal action is protected if the action is not "imminent" or there is reason to believe that the listeners will not take action

Texas v. Johnson

First Amendment/Freedom of Speech/symbolic speech - flag burning is protected speech

Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942)

The Court ruled that the first amendment did not protect "fighting words."

R.A.V. v. St. Paul (1992)

Reversed the conviction of a teenager burning a cross on the lawn of an African-American family since the ordinance was held to violate the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech.

Gitlow v. New York

a socialist violated a New York criminal anarchy statute. Benjamin Gitlow distributed a pamphlet calling for mass insurrection and overthrow of the U.S. capitalist system. Using the bad tendency test, the Supreme Court upheld the statute and the conviction.

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