Chapter 14

Section 3

Freedom of Speech

• What is speech?– Pure Speech

• Verbal expression before an audience that has chosen to listen. Opinions/thoughts

• Power of words• Examples?

– Symbolic Speech• Using actions or symbols to express views• Examples?

Freedom of Speech

• Evaluated by U.S. vs. O’Brien-1968• Burned draft cards

• The govt. can forbid speech if– Falls into the Constitutional Power of the

government– It pertains to enhancing a govt. interest

outside of the issue of free speech

• Limit expressive Conduct

Regulating Speech

• Seditious Speech (Outlawed)– Any speech that resists lawful authority or to

overthrow the government

• How?– Clear and Present Danger

• When speech presents immediate danger– Schenck vs. United States

Regulating Speech

• “The question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of a nature to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has the right to prevent…”

• Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1919

Regulating Speech

• Bad Tendency Doctrine (1925) – Speech that has the tendency to lead to illegal

action (Overturned by Brandenburg Case)

• Preferred Position Doctrine (1940s)– fundamental freedoms overall constitutional

freedoms (1st Amendment)– (Murdock vs. PA)

Regulating Speech

• Examples

• Yates v. United States– Difference between people believing in an

action and urging them to take action

• Brandburg vs. Ohio– Speech that intends to create immediate acts

of violence.

Unprotected Speech

• Defamatory Speech– Slander….Libel

• Allowed for criticism of govt…fear that “The people” would be silenced

• “Fighting Words” 1942– “Any defensive, derisive, or annoying word to

any other person who is lawfully in street or public place.”

– “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breech of peace”

Unprotected Speech

• Bethel School District vs. Fraser (1986)– School officials decide “what manner of

speech in the classroom or in school assembly is appropriate.”

• Hazelwood School District Case (1988)– Student newspapers/extracurricular – Activities are “part of school curriculum”