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Whitney v. California
The Supreme Court, by a 7 to 2 decision, upheld Anita Whitney's conviction of being found guilty under the California’s 1919 Criminal Syndicalism Act for allegedly helping to establish the Communist Labor Party, a group the state argued taught the violent overthrow of government. The Court held that the state, in exercise of its police power, can punish those who abuse their rights to freedom of speech where words with a bad tendency can be punished. -
Edwards v. Aguillard
The Court considered a Louisiana law requiring that where evolutionary science was taught in public schools, creation science must also be taught. The Court ruled that this law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because the law was specifically intended to advance a particular religion. The Supreme Court ruled that the Act constituted an unconstitutional infringement on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. -
Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile
Parents and other citizens brought a lawsuit against the school board, alleging that the school system was teaching the tenets of secular humanism, an anti-theistic religion. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that as long as the school was motivated by a secular purpose, it didn't matter whether the curriculum and texts shared ideas held by one or more religious groups. -
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah
Hialeah Florida. A church of Santeria, an Afro-American religion, where members believe they can fulfill their destiny through the aid of beings known as orishas, who subsist off blood from animal sacrifice leased a property in Hialeah to openly practice the faith. The city then held an emergency public session where it ended in a resolution announcing its commitment to prohibit religious groups that practice animal sacrifice. Because the ordinance suppressed more religious conduct it was DU. -
Madsen v. Women's Health Center
In 1992, in response to anti-abortion protesters, a state court prohibited the protesters from physically abusing those entering or exiting the clinic, or otherwise interfering with access to the clinic. Fellow protesters claimed that these restrictions violated their First Amendment right to free speech, but the Supreme Court disagreed. The state of Florida could only restrict protesters to an extent, the decision of the Supreme Court was affirmed in part and reversed in part. -
United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group
In February 1996, Playboy Entertainment Group filed suit challenging section 505's constitutionality. Section 505 required that cable operators, providing channels dedicated to sexual programming are either to fully scramble or fully block those channels or to broadcast the channels at hours children were less likely to watch. The Court concluded that because of the existence of such alternatives, the overly restrictive Section 505 violated the First Amendment. -
United States v. American Library Association
The American Library Association and others challenged the Children's Internet Protection Act, claiming that it improperly required them to restrict the First Amendment rights of their patrons. The Court held that, because public libraries' use of Internet filtering software does not violate their patrons' First Amendment rights, CIPA does not induce libraries to violate the Constitution and is a valid exercise of Congress's spending power. -
Heffernan v. The City of Paterson
Police officer, Heffernan, was caught by another officer picking up a campaign sign for the mayoral candidate running against the incumbent. When a supervisor confronted him, Heffernan claimed that he was not politically involved. Heffernan claimed that the city had violated his First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and association. two federal courts actually ruled that picking up a political campaign sign doesn’t count as speech under the First Amendment unless you really mean it.
