Freedom of Speech and Supreme Court Cases

Well hey there and welcome back to Heimlich History. Now we've been going through Unit 3 of the AP government curriculum, and in this video that means it's time to talk about the protection of the freedom of speech in the First Amendment. So if you're ready to get them brain cows milked time, place, and manner style, well then let's get to it. Okay, here's what we're trying to do in this video. Explain the extent to which the Supreme Court's interpretation of the First Amendment reflects a commitment to individual liberty. Okay, so we're not just talking about the First Amendment in general here. We're going to zero in on the First Amendment's protection of free speech. Now, as with every individual liberty, the right to free speech is not You can't just say anything you want in any place at any volume. Although maybe the volume thing makes my point moot. I mean, I suppose you could say anything you wanted provided it was quiet enough. But whatever, the point is this. For those of us who speak at a normal volume, there are limits to free speech. However, the bar is pretty dang high for the government to get involved in censoring American citizens, so let's have a look at how that bar got set. And to do that, let's get cozy with a couple of required Supreme Court cases. And first, let's consider symbolic speech, and for that we'll look at Tinker vs. Des Moines in 1969. And as with all the required cases I mentioned, I'm only going to talk about the general principles, but if you want to have a deeper dive, I've got whole videos exploring these. So in this case, students in Iowa had planned to wear black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War. And you might think that's a pretty innocuous thing to do. But you would be wrong. Division over the Vietnam War was intense in those days, and protests had broken out on university campuses and all manner of violence had too. Well, the administration got wind of these students' plans and went ahead and put the kibosh on that kind of demonstration on account of it disrupting the learning environment. The students claimed that such a prohibition violated their right to free speech, and in this case, speech was symbolic in the form of protest armbands. As it turned out, the Supreme Court agreed with the students that their First Amendment rights had been violated. Now, the Court acknowledged that school administrators do have an obligation to keep the peace in their schools, but in this case there was no actual disruption, only the fear of disruption. So the right to symbolic speech was upheld in this case. Now since that time, the court has ruled in the opposite way on student speech, and here's what I mean when I say when the right to free speech is not absolute. For this, let me introduce you to the non-required case of Morse v. Frederick in 2007, which is every high school student's favorite Supreme Court case. So at a school-sponsored event, a student held up a sign that said Bong hits for Jesus and the kid got suspended. Now look, I understand that the Bible says that whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. But I just have a hunch that this kid was not trying to glorify Christ with his bong hits. Anyway, the kid appealed his suspension, and long story short, the case wound up before the Supreme Court. And hey, maybe this kid was thinking, you know what? I got this. Tinker vs. Des Moines, man. This is about to put a smackdown on my administration. But here's where I tell you, uh, no, it didn't. The court ruled that the student's suspension was justified since his sign promoted illegal drug use and really had no other redeeming values of any kind. So, sorry kid, ya burned. And one more non-required case that deals with the freedom of speech is West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnett in 1943. That school district made it mandatory for students and teachers to salute the flag during certain school activities. Well, there happened to be a group of Jehovah's Witnesses who claimed that their children would do no such thing because it violated their beliefs and, more to the point, violated their right to free speech. And so the court agreed with the Jehovah's Witnesses in this case and said that compulsory symbolic acts cannot be compelled by the government because it would crush any possibility of dissent in a free society. There are a lot of other cases we could talk about, but what you really need to understand is that when the court is making decisions on these issues, they're attempting to balance individual freedom with social order. The Tinker and West Virginia cases would fall somewhere on the side of individual freedom, while the Morse case would fall on the social order side, along with Schenck versus the United States, which we'll talk about in a moment. Now, the question is, how does the court decide which way to go? go. Like, in any particular case, how do they decide whether to uphold individual liberty or social order? Well, over time, the court has established some rules to guide them. First are time, place, and manner regulations, and these regulations are content neutral. In other words, these regulations don't restrict the actual words being said, only when and where and how. So if that kid with his bong hits for Jesus banner just held it up in his room at home, like, no problem. And even if he held it up at a public function, like a bike race or something, it probably wouldn't have caused any trouble. So it's not the content of the sign that mattered, but it was the time and place that he did it, namely at a school-sponsored event. The second set of rules about speech are concerning defamatory, offensive, and obscene speech or gestures. Defamation, which is using speech to harm someone else, is almost never protected speech. For example, a company called Dominion Voting Systems is involved in many defamation lawsuits right now, two of which are against conservative news outlets OAN and Fox. Now, you might remember that Dominion voting systems were publicly disgraced in the conservative wing of the media during the 2020 presidential election. These news outlets repeatedly claimed that Dominion's machines switched votes from Trump to Biden, thus causing Trump to lose the election. This kind of bashing went on for months. So it's now clear that Dominion's voting systems were just fine, like even Republican auditors have confirmed it. But because of the months of vitriol hurled against Dominion, their reputation was tarnished in the public eye. And that really hurts their business. And so Dominion is suing for... billions on defamation charges, and that kind of speech is not protected. And when it comes to offensive or obscene language, defining that is pretty difficult since it's always kind of a moving target. But in general, there's a very high bar to reach for the government to silence speech deemed offensive. Okay, now the third rule you should know for this topic is the clear and present danger rule. In other words, speech can be silenced if it is deemed dangerous in some way. way. And this rule came from another one of your acquired cases, Schenck vs. the United States in 1919. Charles Schenck was a socialist and no fan, I might say, of American involvement in World War I, and so he made and distributed pamphlets urging young men to avoid the draft. And so they went ahead and arrested him for violation of the Espionage Act, which made it illegal to criticize the government. The court ruled that Schenck's conviction was indeed constitutional and that no violation of his First Amendment right to free speech had occurred. Why? Because his pamphlets that's incited unlawful. action, and that speech created a clear and present danger to American society. Thus, such speech is not protected. And that would be an example of the court upholding social order over against individual liberty of free speech. However, you should know that the clear and present danger test is no longer the standard for protecting First Amendment speech rights. In the 1960s, the court established the Brandenburg Test, which basically made it more difficult for the government to censor the kind of speech for which Schenck was prosecuted. Okay, that's what you need to know about Unit 3, Topic 3 of the AP Government Curriculum. Click right over here to grab a view packet if you want help getting an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. And if you want me to keep making these videos, then by all means subscribe and I shall oblige. Heimler out.

Okay, so we're not just talking about the First Amendment in general here. We're going to zero in on the First Amendment's protection of free speech. Now, as with every individual liberty, the right to free speech is not You can't just say anything you want in any place at any volume.

Although maybe the volume thing makes my point moot. I mean, I suppose you could say anything you wanted provided it was quiet enough. But whatever, the point is this.

For those of us who speak at a normal volume, there are limits to free speech. However, the bar is pretty dang high for the government to get involved in censoring American citizens, so let's have a look at how that bar got set. And to do that, let's get cozy with a couple of required Supreme Court cases. And first, let's consider symbolic speech, and for that we'll look at Tinker vs. Des Moines in 1969. And as with all the required cases I mentioned, I'm only going to talk about the general principles, but if you want to have a deeper dive, I've got whole videos exploring these.

So in this case, students in Iowa had planned to wear black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War. And you might think that's a pretty innocuous thing to do. But you would be wrong.

Division over the Vietnam War was intense in those days, and protests had broken out on university campuses and all manner of violence had too. Well, the administration got wind of these students' plans and went ahead and put the kibosh on that kind of demonstration on account of it disrupting the learning environment. The students claimed that such a prohibition violated their right to free speech, and in this case, speech was symbolic in the form of protest armbands. As it turned out, the Supreme Court agreed with the students that their First Amendment rights had been violated. Now, the Court acknowledged that school administrators do have an obligation to keep the peace in their schools, but in this case there was no actual disruption, only the fear of disruption.

So the right to symbolic speech was upheld in this case. Now since that time, the court has ruled in the opposite way on student speech, and here's what I mean when I say when the right to free speech is not absolute. For this, let me introduce you to the non-required case of Morse v. Frederick in 2007, which is every high school student's favorite Supreme Court case.

So at a school-sponsored event, a student held up a sign that said Bong hits for Jesus and the kid got suspended. Now look, I understand that the Bible says that whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. But I just have a hunch that this kid was not trying to glorify Christ with his bong hits. Anyway, the kid appealed his suspension, and long story short, the case wound up before the Supreme Court. And hey, maybe this kid was thinking, you know what?

I got this. Tinker vs. Des Moines, man. This is about to put a smackdown on my administration.

But here's where I tell you, uh, no, it didn't. The court ruled that the student's suspension was justified since his sign promoted illegal drug use and really had no other redeeming values of any kind. So, sorry kid, ya burned. And one more non-required case that deals with the freedom of speech is West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnett in 1943. That school district made it mandatory for students and teachers to salute the flag during certain school activities.

Well, there happened to be a group of Jehovah's Witnesses who claimed that their children would do no such thing because it violated their beliefs and, more to the point, violated their right to free speech. And so the court agreed with the Jehovah's Witnesses in this case and said that compulsory symbolic acts cannot be compelled by the government because it would crush any possibility of dissent in a free society. There are a lot of other cases we could talk about, but what you really need to understand is that when the court is making decisions on these issues, they're attempting to balance individual freedom with social order.

The Tinker and West Virginia cases would fall somewhere on the side of individual freedom, while the Morse case would fall on the social order side, along with Schenck versus the United States, which we'll talk about in a moment. Now, the question is, how does the court decide which way to go? go.

Like, in any particular case, how do they decide whether to uphold individual liberty or social order? Well, over time, the court has established some rules to guide them. First are time, place, and manner regulations, and these regulations are content neutral.

In other words, these regulations don't restrict the actual words being said, only when and where and how. So if that kid with his bong hits for Jesus banner just held it up in his room at home, like, no problem. And even if he held it up at a public function, like a bike race or something, it probably wouldn't have caused any trouble. So it's not the content of the sign that mattered, but it was the time and place that he did it, namely at a school-sponsored event.

The second set of rules about speech are concerning defamatory, offensive, and obscene speech or gestures. Defamation, which is using speech to harm someone else, is almost never protected speech. For example, a company called Dominion Voting Systems is involved in many defamation lawsuits right now, two of which are against conservative news outlets OAN and Fox.

Now, you might remember that Dominion voting systems were publicly disgraced in the conservative wing of the media during the 2020 presidential election. These news outlets repeatedly claimed that Dominion's machines switched votes from Trump to Biden, thus causing Trump to lose the election. This kind of bashing went on for months. So it's now clear that Dominion's voting systems were just fine, like even Republican auditors have confirmed it. But because of the months of vitriol hurled against Dominion, their reputation was tarnished in the public eye.

And that really hurts their business. And so Dominion is suing for... billions on defamation charges, and that kind of speech is not protected. And when it comes to offensive or obscene language, defining that is pretty difficult since it's always kind of a moving target.

But in general, there's a very high bar to reach for the government to silence speech deemed offensive. Okay, now the third rule you should know for this topic is the clear and present danger rule. In other words, speech can be silenced if it is deemed dangerous in some way.

way. And this rule came from another one of your acquired cases, Schenck vs. the United States in 1919. Charles Schenck was a socialist and no fan, I might say, of American involvement in World War I, and so he made and distributed pamphlets urging young men to avoid the draft. And so they went ahead and arrested him for violation of the Espionage Act, which made it illegal to criticize the government. The court ruled that Schenck's conviction was indeed constitutional and that no violation of his First Amendment right to free speech had occurred. Why?

Because his pamphlets that's incited unlawful. action, and that speech created a clear and present danger to American society. Thus, such speech is not protected. And that would be an example of the court upholding social order over against individual liberty of free speech. However, you should know that the clear and present danger test is no longer the standard for protecting First Amendment speech rights.

In the 1960s, the court established the Brandenburg Test, which basically made it more difficult for the government to censor the kind of speech for which Schenck was prosecuted. Okay, that's what you need to know about Unit 3, Topic 3 of the AP Government Curriculum. Click right over here to grab a view packet if you want help getting an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. And if you want me to keep making these videos, then by all means subscribe and I shall oblige.

Heimler out.

Transcript for:Freedom of Speech and Supreme Court Cases

Transcript for:
Freedom of Speech and Supreme Court Cases