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USA is created
Declaration of independence is signed. -
19th Century
Supreme court claims freedom of speech in the 19th century -
Constitution adds 14th amendment
14th amendment:no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. -
Supreme court decides that“fighting words” are not protected by the First Amendment.
In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the Court defines “fighting words” as “those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of peace.” will not be protected by the first amendment. -
Tinker v. Des Moines
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District was that Iowa public school violated the First Amendment rights of students by suspending them for wearing black armbands for protesting . -
Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner
In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that owners of a shopping center may bar anti-war activists from distributing leaflets at the center. -
Miller v. California
The U.S. Supreme Court in Miller v. California defines the test for determining if speech is obscene: (1) whether the “average person applying contemporary community standards” would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. -
Reno v. ACLU
The U.S. Supreme Court in Reno v. ACLU rules that some provisions in the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 are unconstitutional. -
Board of Education v. Pico
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Board of Education v. Pico that school officials may not remove books from school libraries because they disagree with the ideas contained in the books. -
Bethel School District v. Fraser
he U.S. Supreme Court case Bethel School District v. Fraser curtailed the protections established in the Tinker case. Bethel School District in Spanaway, Wash., suspended 17-year-old Matthew Fraser, an honors student, for two days after what was considered a lewd spring election campaign speech at a school assembly with 600 students present. -
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier
In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that school officials may exercise editorial control over content of school-sponsored student publications if they do so in a way that is reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns. -
United States v. American Library Association,
United States v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194, was a decision in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that the United States Congress has the authority to require public schools
