Free Speech & Religion
20 cases
Schenck v. United States
Charles Schenck, a socialist party official, circulated leaflets urging draftees to resist World War I conscription. Justice Holme...
Abrams v. United States
Jacob Abrams and four co-defendants printed leaflets attacking American intervention in Russia and urging workers to strike. The C...
Gitlow v. New York
Benjamin Gitlow, a socialist assemblyman, was convicted for publishing a manifesto advocating revolutionary socialism. The Court a...
Near v. Minnesota
Minnesota's public nuisance law allowed courts to shut down scandal-mongering newspapers. The Saturday Press, an anti-Semitic week...
Engel v. Vitale
New York's Board of Regents composed a brief nondenominational prayer for recitation in public schools. The Court held that it is ...
School District of Abington Township v. Schempp
Pennsylvania law required ten Bible verses at the start of each school day, and Maryland required the Lord's Prayer, in companion ...
New York Times v. Sullivan
An Alabama official won five hundred thousand dollars over minor inaccuracies in a civil rights fundraising advertisement. Justice...
Tinker v. Des Moines
Mary Beth Tinker and other students wore black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and were suspended. Justice Fortas, for a 7-2 m...
Brandenburg v. Ohio
An Ohio Klan leader was convicted under a criminal syndicalism statute after a rally with racial slurs filmed by television crews....
New York Times v. United States
The New York Times and Washington Post published a classified Defense Department history of the Vietnam War. The Nixon administrat...
Wisconsin v. Yoder
Wisconsin convicted Amish parents of violating compulsory school attendance to age sixteen. Chief Justice Burger, writing for the ...
Miller v. California
Mass-mail advertiser Marvin Miller was convicted under California obscenity law for unsolicited brochures containing adult materia...
Buckley v. Valeo
After Watergate, Congress imposed limits on contributions, spending, and public financing of elections. The Court, in a lengthy de...
Texas v. Johnson
Gregory Lee Johnson burned a flag outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas and was convicted under a Texas law pr...
City of Boerne v. Flores
Congress enacted RFRA in 1993 to restore strict scrutiny for neutral laws burdening religion after Smith rejected such exemptions....
Citizens United v. FEC
Citizens United, a nonprofit corporation, wanted to air a film critical of Hillary Clinton near the 2008 primaries. Justice Kenned...
Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission
Jack Phillips refused to design a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, citing religious conviction, and was found to have violated ...
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
Children of Jehovah's Witness families in West Virginia were expelled for refusing on religious grounds to salute the flag, a requ...
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Pennsylvania and Rhode Island programs reimbursed or supplemented salaries of teachers of secular subjects in church-affiliated, m...
Employment Division v. Smith
Alfred Smith and Galen Black were fired from jobs at a private drug rehabilitation organization in Oregon for ingesting peyote at ...