This is an index page for rulings in First Amendment court cases by category.
By studying court cases by category, we hope you can better understand how real-life issues drove the development of the law around freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, petition and the press in the United States.
The categories include cases in which the Supreme Court made a ruling interpreting the First Amendment. But we also have included some state supreme court rulings, particularly from the early period of U.S. history before the Supreme Court applied the protections of the First Amendment to states. We also have some federal appellate court rulings, particularly on more current issues in which the appellate courts have split on a First Amendment question.
The categories are listed alphabetically from "Academic Freedom" to "Zoning." The number of court rulings in our database for each category appears in parenthesis. Click on a category to see the list of court cases. From there, you can follow links to each case for more comprehensive summaries.
Our encyclopedia has summaries and information on more than 870 court rulings from 1799 to present.
We've grouped these cases by category, but some court cases will appear under multiple categories. (If you are looking for a list of all the Supreme Court rulings in The First Amendment Encyclopedia, use this First Amendment Court Cases by Date.)
Academic freedom involving faculty or student speech has been expounded upon by the Supreme Court as early as 1957.
Local zoning and licensing requirements for adult entertainment businesses must be balanced with freedom of expression. Adult sexual entertainment was first recognized as expression with some First Amendment protection in California v. LaRue in 1972.
From the United States’ earliest days, speakers addressing controversial public questions have sought anonymity. Today, the right to free speech under the First Amendment protects anonymity in speech, but can be balanced against competing interests, such as the government's need for transparency in campaign finance and political activity.
There have been two rights at stake in First Amendment cases related to abortion protests reaching the Supreme Court: the privacy rights of patients and staff members at health care facilities and the rights of speech, assembly, and petition of pro-choice and anti-abortion protesters.
Several lawsuits have arisen challenging anti-discrimination laws. Such laws seek to protect individuals from discrimination based on race, sex, religion and age. But they can run afoul of First Amendment speech and religious freedoms.
Over the years, Congress has adopted legislation to discourage the concentration of business ownership in the United States. Some, for example, have restricted the number of media outlets one owner could have in the same city. The courts have weighed whether such laws violate free press restrictions.
Attorney advertising presents challenging First Amendment issues for the courts. Laws that attempt to protect the public from deceptive or coercive ads must be weighed against the right of attorneys to retain some measure of free speech.
The bad tendency test was an influential standard used by U.S. courts to determine whether criticism of the government during World War I was protected by the First Amendment. Several convictions for seditious speech were upheld because courts found the speech had a tendency to provoke harm to the United States during wartime.
Attorneys have challenged bar admission process and other bar rules under the First Amendment when they have been denied the ability to practice because of political associations or beliefs, or speech.
Regulations of billboards and newsracks have raised First Amendment claims that such laws stifle free press and free speech.
Blasphemy laws have disappeared in the United States, but their remnants led to some early cases involving the First Amendment.
By designating Sunday as a Sabbath and by restricting activities of individuals on that day, states with Sunday blue laws have arguably favored Christianity over religions that celebrate different Sabbaths. Litigation over blue laws were common throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century.
This is a list of significant court cases related to book banning and libraries. The cases arose from disputes such as the authority of local school boards to remove certain books from school libraries and the authority of the state to seize and destroy obscene books.
The Federal Communications Commission regulates radio, television and cable because they are seen as embodying a public interest. Sometimes the regulations implicate the First Amendment freedom of free speech.
The regulation of political campaigns has led to numerous Supreme Court rulings involving free speech rights. Issues have included ballot access, rights of political parties, electioneering and what can be said during a campaign, campaign disclosure requirements and contribution limits.
Almost all states regulate charitable solicitations, but some laws have been ruled unconstitutional under the free speech provisions of the First Amendment.
Courts have ruled that child pornography, a form of sexual expression depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, is not entitled to First Amendment protection.
Courts have sometimes been called upon to consider religious freedom rights under the First Amendment in settling disputes over church property and governance.
The First Amendment proved to be a crucial tool for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The expressive actions of protesters and activists led to the considerable growth of First Amendment precedent, expanding free expression principles. “We may come to see the Negro as winning back for us the freedoms the Communists seemed to have lost for us,” wrote First Amendment scholar Harry Kalven Jr.
Early in the 20th century, the Supreme Court established the clear and present danger test as the predominant standard for determining when speech is protected by the First Amendment. The Court crafted the test — and the bad tendency test, with which it is often conflated or contrasted — in cases involving seditious libels, that is, criticisms of the government, its officials, or its policies. It was used to convict people who criticized the government about World War I.
Commercial speech is a form of protected communication under the First Amendment, but it does not receive as much free speech protection as forms of noncommercial speech, such as political speech.
Congress adopted several statutes aimed at communists, including the Alien Registration Act, or Smith Act, of 1940; the Internal Security Act, or McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act; and the Communist Control Act of 1954. Many of those laws were challenged as infringing upon free speech rights and rights of association.
The compelled speech doctrine sets out the principle that the government cannot force an individual or group to support certain speech or expression. Government cannot punish a person for refusing to articulate, advocate, or adhere to the government’s approved messages.
The Confederate flag continues to generate controversy and impassioned debates with implications for the First Amendment. Some cases have reached federal appellate courts, but not the Supreme Court.
Individuals who oppose participation in war based on their religious beliefs have sometimes refused government requirements to serve in combat, register for the draft, pay taxes tied to war allocations, or make any type of contribution to a war effort. Government prosecution for such refusals has led to several First Amendment cases that have considered religious freedom in conscientious objection disputes.
A judge may find a person in contempt of court and mete our punishment when a person refuses to follow a court order or for trespassing against the dignity of the court itself. Punishment by the court has raised First Amendment issues when the contempt ruling involves a person's speech.
A content-based law or regulation discriminates against speech based on the substance of what it communicates. In contrast, a content-neutral law applies to expression without regard to its substance. The Supreme Court is likely to strike down regulations that discriminate on the basis of what is said or expressed. This is a sampling of cases in which the court has examined what counts as a content-based law.
Tension arises between copyright laws and the First Amendment, as copyright owners often seek to assert their property rights and thereby limit the dissemination of information. Copyright law attempts to reduce this tension in part through fair use.
Corporate speech refers to the rights of corporations to advertise their products and to speak to matters of public concern. This can be commercial speech, such as through advertising, and political speech in the form of contributions and expenditures on behalf of candidates and political issues. The Supreme Court has found through a series of cases that regulation of commercial speech must survive intermediate scrutiny to pass constitutional muster under the First Amendment, but political speech of a corporation must survive strict scrutiny.
Counterpseech is a doctrine developed by the Supreme Court that posits that the proper solution to negative and even untrue speech is positive speech, not shutting down the negative speech. The theory is that recipients of speech can weigh for themselves competing ideas and follow the better approach. The counterspeech doctrine is one of the most important free-expression principles in First Amendment jurisprudence.
Creationism and intelligent design are religious beliefs that have sometimes resulted in questions about what can be taught in public schools about the origin of life without violating the First Amendment's "establishment" clause, or separation of church and state.
Numerous states and U.S. territories enacted criminal syndicalism laws in the late 1910s and early 1920s with the purpose of making it illegal for individuals or groups to advocate radical political and economic changes by criminal or violent means. The laws led to a series of First Amendment rulings.
Since the 1950s, a number of states have passed laws banning cross burnings. Is burning a cross expressive speech or a threat? The constitutionality of these laws did not reach the Supreme Court until the early 1990s.
The Supreme Court has looked at decisions to deny passports to individuals sometimes based on their political and religious beliefs, raising First Amendment questions on freedom of speech and religion.
Dress codes are typically implemented by school districts and employers to promote learning, safety, and image. Although such regulations have faced First Amendment challenges by students, parents, and employees, the courts have generally supported the schools and employers.
The Supreme Court has weighed free speech and association rights in considering state and federal laws that regulate elections and a candidate's ability to be on the ballot.
Congress enacted the Espionage Act of 1917 on June 15, two months after the United States entered World War I. Several cases involving the Espionage Act (and the 1918 Sedition Act) made it to the Supreme Court in the years following World War I, with the court upholding several convictions under the law. The rulings during this period established early concepts such as allowing the government more latitude during wartime to punish speech that creates a "clear and present danger."
The first clause in the Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” For approximately the first 150 years of the country’s existence, there was little debate over the meaning of this clause in the Constitution. As the citizenry became more diverse, however, challenges arose to existing laws and practices, and eventually, the Supreme Court was called upon to determine the meaning of the establishment clause. Though not explicitly stated in the First Amendment, the clause is often interpreted to mean that the Constitution requires the separation of church and state.
Expressive conduct is behavior designed to convey a message. It can be in the form of symbolic speech, like wearing an anti-war armband in school, or speech-plus-behavior. When faced with laws that infringe on expressive conduct, the Supreme Court generally asks whether the regulation is aimed at the expressive or the nonexpressive aspects of the conduct.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1942 that "fighting words" are not protected by free speech. Several court cases since have used this concept to determine when speech crosses the line into the type of speech that can be regulated.
Several challenges have arisen to federal laws that seek to control the display and treatment of the U.S. flag. While initially upholding laws against flag desecration, the court later considered flag-burning as a form of symbolic speech that is protected by the First Amendment.
Can the government force people, including schoolchildren to salute the U.S. flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance? The court has considered challenges to such requirements in public schools.
The "free exercise" of religion clause in the First Amendment allows us to worship as we wish. But the precise meaning of these words has been a matter of dispute from the beginning. For example, what if the exercise of one's religion violates laws, such as polygamy or the use of drugs? The Supreme Court has weighed in on a variety of cases involving the "free exercise" clause.
The First Amendment guarantees “the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” The notion that the act of gathering is pivotal to a functioning democracy relates to the belief that individuals espousing ideas will tend to coalesce around their commonalities. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court weighed in on the right of assembly, recognizing in a landmark case that the right to gather collectively as one voice advanced benefits warranting constitutional protection.
The right to expressive association refers to the right of people to associate together for expressive purposes – often for political purposes. Another line of freedom of association cases concern the rights of political parties to set their own rules and govern their internal affairs.
Freedom of the press remains a precious and vital liberty, ensuring that people can criticize public officials, expose government corruption, and distribute material on virtually any subject imaginable, free from most prior restraints and other forms of censorship. Several cases have reached the Supreme Court regarding freedom of the press.
Gag orders must be carefully scrutinized because they involve two of the most disfavored types of speech limitations: prior restraints and content-based limits on speech. Generally, such gag orders have to survive strict scrutiny to be constitutional under the First Amendment.
Governments sometimes attempt to limit or control the speech of those that they are funding. The Supreme Court has generally upheld such conditions on government funding, even when those restrictions may have a chilling effect on the free speech rights of government employees or contractors.
The government's investigative power is broad, but the Supreme Court has over the years sought to restrain investigations by Congress that interfered with First Amendment rights.
Under the government speech doctrine, the government has its own rights as speaker, immune from free speech challenges. The Supreme Court through various cases has upheld the government's right to assert its own ideas and messages against challenges of viewpoint discrimination.
Can a judge restrict speech of jurors after their service has expired?
The First Amendment protects “hate speech,” which is generally agreed to mean abusive language specifically attacking a person or persons because of their race, color, religion, ethnic group, gender, or sexual orientation. Hate speech has been distinguished from threats, which can be illegal.
Although the First Amendment makes no distinction between citizens and noncitizens, Supreme Court precedents interpreting the amendment do not always treat these groups the same.
Many Supreme Court cases upholding restrictions on speech believed to be subversive have relied on the idea that such speech is forbidden because it incites, or is likely to lead to, violence or illegal actions.
The application of First Amendment rights to the states has taken place in a case-by-case process. This incorporation of rights in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights to states has expanded protections for citizens against states seeking to restrain First Amendment rights.
Judges must balance freedom of the press with defendants' right to a fair trial, but the advent of radio and eventually television forced nuanced decisions on the trial's fairness.
The government has broadly taken an anti-regulatory approach to speech on the internet and on social media on the basis that most of content is protected by the free speech clause in the First Amendment.
Prison inmates retain some rights when incarcerated, such as the First Amendment freedom to petition the courts and to legal representation.
The Supreme court has upheld the First Amendment rights of Jehovah's Witnesses since as far back as 1940, but has had to navigate challenges such as local ordinances criminalizing door knocking or selling books door to door.
Plaintiffs must prove that they have a right to bring a certain case to court, and courts must understand the limits of their jurisdiction, especially in First Amendment cases.
Jurors serving the courts have First Amendment protections, but not if they disobey orders from a judge or break the law.
The First Amendment does not protect libel and slander which are lies meant to harm a person's reputation. However, the court has made exceptions for public figures.
The Supreme Court has ruled that license plates are government speech and protected from First Amendment challenges, but ] have also ruled that the government cannot compel individuals to subscribe to certain beliefs that may be on those government plates.
Individuals do not have to obtain a license from the government to conduct protected free speech, unless doing so in a public space.
The Supreme Court has ruled that alcohol labels and advertisements are commercial speech and are protected under the First Amendment.
Court upheld the Federal Lobbying Act of 1946, which enabled Congress to know who was lobbying on capital hill, for who and for how much—despite First Amendment challenges.
Loitering laws, which make it an offense for an individual to be in a public place for no apparent reason, have been challenged on the grounds of vagueness, and have generally been determined to be unconstitutional.
States may run a lottery, but advertising regulations for those lotteries, specifically in states where gambling is illegal, has been challenged in the courts.
Loyalty oaths to the government have historically been viewed as unprotected forms of coerced speech, specifically during the Red Scare and Cold War.
Rulings on the United States Postal System range from the mailing of non-stamped postage to propaganda and pornography. The court has tightened and loosened its scope of protection for the way speech is prohibited.
Upheld convictions of individuals for distributing leaflets opposed to U.S. intervention in the Russian civil, under the Sedition Act of 1918.
The courts have struggled to define First Amendment protections in the military like the extent of freedom of expression on military bases.
Supreme Court rulings on movies and, eventually, video games are dominated by obscenity and censorship laws which often challenge the very foundation of the First Amendment—free expression.
The First Amendment was used as a sword to slice through Native American land and treaties.
Religious protections are codified in the First Amendment; however, that does not mean the courts have not seen challenges on the neutrality of religion in cases like Murphy v. Collier, a case about “denominational discrimination” against a death row inmate and Lemon v. Kurtzman which prohibited government funds to church-run schools.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote that noise regulation ordinances “must be narrowly tailored to serve the government’s legitimate, content-neutral interests but that it need not be the least restrictive or least intrusive means of doing so” in the majority opinion in Ward v. Rock Against Racism (1989).
The court’s definition of obscenity has waxed and waned since Commonwealth v. Sharpless (Pa. (1815) first brought the issue into the American legal zeitgeist, starting an ongoing fight for First Amendment protections and who can say if the material is obscene.
Overbreadth is when a law's language is too vague, which could lead to First Amendment infringements.
The Supreme Court historically rules in favor of public and private schools sharing resources like buildings and textbooks. Yet, the court has split over whether public funding and tax breaks for private schools is constitutional.
With roots in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the right to petition has enjoyed protection, yet those protections change for military personnel and private businesses.
The Supreme Court has a long history of protecting peoples' right to peaceably picket to address grievances, citing the First Amendment and, eventually, the National Labor Relations Act.
Despite its association with religion, polygamy has not always enjoyed First Amendment protection. The most significant victory for pro-polygamy sects was in 1948 with the ruling in Musser v. Utah (1948), which vacated three convictions of men advocating for polygamy.
The Supreme Court rules that some rights named in the Bill of Rights are prioritized over others.
State days of prayer are legal, but cannot have a legal requirement to observe.
Evolving technology and the popularity of flashy trials forced the court to strike a balance between press freedom and protecting suspected criminals' privacy and their right to a fair trial.
Prior restraint, a form of censorship that allows the government to review content and prevent publication, is ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court—in most cases.
Prisoners convicted of crimes in the United States lose many rights, yet the First Amendment protects some forms of expression.
Press freedom and individual privacy are not absolute rights and must be balanced according to the “proper public interest.”
The Supreme Court rules that First Amendment protections do not apply to members of the public on private property.
In Vidal v. Girard’s Executors (1844), the Supreme Court implicated some issues regarding the implementation of a will which left money to establish a school but the teachers could not be clergymen. A similar case, if presented to the Court today, would be decided in the context of the First Amendment.
Profane and indecent speech are protected under the First Amendment however "fighting words" do not enjoy these same protections.
Public employees cannot be fired because of political affiliation or activities protected by the First Amendment. However, this protection was not always in place.
Public forums can range from school board meetings to Twitter or Threads, and attempts to restrict them are historically rejected by the Supreme Court.
Pubic displays of prayer, like a sports team praying before a game, on public property is protected by the First Amendment, given participation is voluntary.
The press does not have unlimited access to information but public records must be accessible.
The First Amendment forbids public schools from having devotional time because it elevates one religion above the others.
This protects people in public service from prosecution from breaking certain laws, but the courts do not always grant it.
Religious higher education institutions have the same rights as public institutions, given they obey the United State's Constitution.
The first amendment allows for public religious displays, but not in places of government business—like courthouses.
Oaths affirming belief in “the existence of God” in order to hold public office violate the First Amendment and are not protected. Moreover, the state may not consider religious affiliation when hiring public servants.
40 states have so-called shield laws in place to protect reporters' privilege to not disclose information on confidential sources to the courts.
Those holding office may not arrest individuals for expressing views those in power find distasteful but, if they do and are challenged in court, the plaintiff must prove there was no probable cause for the retaliation.
The First Amendment does not shield the press from publicity laws, which protects individuals from unauthorized use of their image or likeness.
A Florida law granting a right to reply to political candidates who had been attacked by newspapers was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1974.
Receiving information is an unalienable right protected by the First Amendment but privacy and national security are always considered.
The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 outlawed closed shops, places of employment that only hired members of a labor union, but allowed for union-shops that required new employees to join a union in a set timeframe.
The First Amendment's religious protections are ruled to extend to private, as well as government, employers to prevent religious discrimination.
In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled tuition and tax break programs for parochial school parents violated the First Amendment, but state funds can be used for parochial schools as of a 2002 ruling.
Use of this doctrine permits normally unconstitutional content-based regulation to be treated as if it were content-neutral.
This speech is not protected and convictions for seditious speech have held up in court.
In 1985, the Supreme Court upheld prosecution methods for not registering for the draft against a due process and First Amendment challenge. The United States has not drafted any soldiers since 1973 but still uses the selective service system.
This kind of advertising falls under commercial speech, which is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.
Paying social security or being issued a social security number by the federal government does not violate the First Amendment.
Many local and state ordinances that try to limit or outlaw solicitation and pamphleteering fail.
Laws designed to stop criminals from profiting off their crimes through book or movie deals, are struck down in the Supreme Court, citing First Amendment protections.
The courts uphold the right to peaceably assemble in public, depending on the public space's purpose.
State secrets, which may be harmful to national security, do no fall under public information nor is sharing them protected by the First Amendment.
Students have the right to free expression however, the rulings by Federal Circuit courts and the Supreme Court give much discretion to local school systems.
Rejected a First Amendment challenge against wiretapping calls between the United States and foreign states—led to the "chilling effect" concept.
Taxation and the First Amendment together have created an impressive suite of case law, ranging from taxing newspapers a lawsuit against the Secretary of Labor in 1985.
Teachers' freedom of expression may not be impeded unless it is a "true threat" to students or others.
The Ten Commandments may not be publicly displayed in a government office, but the courts have allowed public displays in parks.
United States citizens may not be stopped from traveling abroad based on their speech or ideology, unless national security is at stake
The 1960's saw several First Amendment challenges to sit-in laws, with the Supreme Court ruling on the side of protestors, saying it was protected symbolic speech and different than trespassing, which is illegally occupying a private area.
True threats, where a person directs a threat to a person or group of people with the intent of placing them in fear of bodily harm or death, are not protected by the First Amendment, similar to fighting words.
The government may not inquire into the truth or falsity of religions under the Religion Clause in the First Amendment.
Unions may not restrict First Amendment activities for either union or non-union workers.
The “Pentagon Papers,” an unfavorable history compiled by the Department of Defense on the United States’ political and military involvement in Vietnam, lead to New York Times Co. v. United States, in which the Supreme Court ruled for the right of a free press against prior restraint by the government.
The Supreme Court upholds whistleblower protections for Federal and private employees and strictly following whistleblower laws.
Zoning laws must conform to the First Amendment; most cases dealing with zoning laws and the First Amendment are brought by adult establishment proprietors.