Essay on Reflections On The First Amendment

The jury in Alabama agreed with Sullivan and found that the libelous action was in breach of Constitutional protections of speech and press. The jury in the circuit court awarded Sullivan five hundred thousand dollars in damages. This was the initial ruling against the New York Times who had lost. Sullivan had claimed he was libeled in the advertisement called Heed Their Rising Voices. In the libel action claim Sullivan the third paragraph in the advertisement read as follows “In Montgomery, Alabama, after students sang “My country tis of thee” on state capitol steps, their leaders were expelled from school and, truckloads of police armed with shotguns and tear gas ringed the Alabama State College Campus. When the entire student body protested by

On April 26, 1968, nineteen year-old Paul Cohen was sentenced to 30 days in jail for wearing a jacket with “F--K THE DRAFT. STOP THE WAR” outside of a municipal courthouse during the Vietnam War. Cohen was found guilty by a California court and was charged under the California statute that prohibits “maliciously and willfully disturbing the peace and quiet of any neighborhood or person by offensive conduct.” The case was argued by the Supreme Court on February 22, 1971 and was decided on June 7, 1971.

3. The Facts of the Case: The Espionage Act was passed in 1917 as a result of the United States ' involvement in World War I. In the name of national security, the American government passed different statutes that restricted provisions of the First Amendment. During this time Congress also passed the War Revenue Act, which increased income taxes to help fund the war. The Selective Service Act of 1917 also made it mandatory for men ages 21 to 30 (18 to 45 by 1918) to enlist in the war. In response to these laws and regulations, Schenck, a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party, mailed leaflets to draftees urging resistance of the draft. Schenck, however did not actually get in the way of the military draft, although Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes claims that he

In 1965, John Tinker, his sister Mary Beth, and a partner were sent home from school for wearing dull armbands to challenge the Vietnam War. The school had set up a methodology permitting understudies to wear a couple of political pictures, however had disallowed the wearing of armbands disagreeing the Vietnam War. Their fathers sued, yet the District Court chose that the school had not dismissed the Constitution. The Court of Appeals agreed with the lower court, and the Tinkers addressed the Supreme Court.

Justice William J. Brennan, who wrote the Opinion of the Court for New York Times v. Sullivan, demonstrated that he strongly supported civil rights around the time of the case. In 1962, Brennan openly expressed that he admired NAACP leader Thurgood Marshall, and congratulated him in a personal letter on his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Just after the Freedom Summer Murders in 1964, Brennan referred to the deaths of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney as “full cause for national mourning”, but wrote that the event was “cause for satisfaction in the thousands of other students who worked for civil rights… even if not without fear and anxiety at times.” These two expressions of sympathy and encouragement for the Civil Rights Movement demonstrate that Brennan thought of context predominantly as he wrote his Opinion. He even confirmed his perspective in his writing, as he stated, “The present advertisement, as an expression of grievance and protest on one of the major public issues of our time…” Evidently, Brennan’s history of supporting blacks in their journey towards school desegregation, voting rights, and freedom of speech rang true in this case as well.

Johnson” court opinion by William J. Brennan, Johnson has burned the American flag which spark conflict amount people. Lots of people didn’t like the flag burning while other protected the flag burning the text supports, ‘’ The way to preserve the flags special role is not to punish those who feel differently about those matter, It is to persuade them that they are wrong(T vs. J)”. Although some people saw that as an unspeakable crime other were willing to understand him. Everybody has a freedom of legal conscience and no one shouldn’t be able to control it. Even if they didn’t agree with the flag burning they accepted

It was hard for the prosecutor to argue after the Tinker’s lawyer, Dan Johnston, pointed out that the school allowed other students to wear iron crosses a sign of the Nazi party as well as political buttons according to. None of those items were banned except black arm bands according to ‘The Law of Journalism and Mass Communication”. “The struggle for student rights: Tinker v. Des Moines and the 1960s” The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of the students overturning the decision of the lower courts. The decision upheld the first amendment of the constitution. According to “Tinker v. Des Moines: The Right to Protest in Schools” Justice Marshall expressed his disbelief that the school thought that 7 students would cause a substantial disruption. Overall in 1969 the Supreme Court overturned the Tinkers suspension because “It can hardly be argued that students shed their constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression at the schoolhouse

Randolph called for a demonstration on the campus of USD in attempt to “stamp out Stalinist oppression.” In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the court established a two-pronged test to evaluate speech acts: (1) speech can be prohibited if it is “directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and (2) it is “likely to incite or produce such action.” During the demonstration, which was attended by dozens of students, Randolph called for resistance against University policies. In his confession to Vermillion Police, Randolph admitted that his speech was intended to “stir up” fellow students. Although Randolph did not personally destroy campus property or intend for the vandalism occur, nevertheless, his speech incited others to do so.

Today I will be writing about the New York Times v. Sullivan case. The background of this case included the New York Times writing about Martin Luther King Jr who was in Montgomery, Alabama at the time. On March 29, 2016, The New York Times wrote an article titled “Heed Their Rising Voices” which petitioned funds to protect Martin Luther King Jr. The New York Times stated that Mr. Martin Luther King Jr had been in jail seven times, when he actually had only been in jail four times (Wikipedia, 2016). Incorrect blame of movements by the police were considered defamatory (meaning- damaging the good reputation of somebody) to Sullivan, the Montgomery Public Safety Commissioner, due to his duty to supervise the police department during this time (Wikipedia, 2016). Sullivan decided to file a libel suit (meaning- the New York Times published a false statement that is damaging to a Sullivan's reputation) a few days later. This case has been appointed one of the most legal cases in the history of American constitutional Law (Trager, R., Ross, S., Reynolds, A., 2016, p.175). I will continue to go through the rest of the case, and end with the actual malice rule which was the end result of this hearing.

New York Times v. Sullivan was a landmark case which dictated the outcomes of many subsequent cases. However, after the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in favor of the New York Times in 1964, Justice Brennan’s opinion raised just as many—if not more—questions than it had answered. In fact, many justices struggled with how to make sense of the ruling and how it could be applied in both similar and different contexts. While this case was a crucial turning point in the application of First Amendment protection in libel cases, this ruling was by no means an end-all to our understanding of free expression and the protection of it. This was demonstrated in cases concerning private versus public figures, through self-censorship and in the operation

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

One Very Commodious Umbrella is a collection of short essays by award winning legal scholars about landmark United States Supreme Court cases that based their ruling on the New York Times v. Sullivan case. The Sullivan case changed American life in 1964 and continues to affect us today because of the precedent it set. The New York Times ran an advertisement that criticized the Montgomery Alabama police department. The police commissioner took offense claiming the advertisement hurt his reputation and had libeled him. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times, reasoning that the First Amendment protects the right to publish statements. This case also established that in order to prove libel, a public official must show that the statements made against him was made with actual malice, “that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth.”

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (National Archives, 2017)

The first amendment states "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." () The literal First Amendment