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With Roe gone, some states are rushing to criminalize not only abortion, but talking about abortion. Read more
In Barr, the Court ruled that the government-debt exception to the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s automated-call restriction violated the First Amendment, and severed the exception from the remainder of the statute. Read more about Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants (2020). Read more
The pandemic caused by the pervasive spread of the virus known as COVID-19 has placed significant pressures on government officials to act quickly to try to save lives and to slow the spread of the virus. Many officials have responded with significant restrictions in the form of emergency stay-at-home orders, executive orders closing all but... Read more Read more
In Iancu v. Brunetti the owner of the clothing brand “FUCT” was granted the right to register his brand name, invalidating the Lanham Act’s ban on the registration of “immoral” trademarks. The federal ban “distinguishes between two opposed sets of ideas: those aligned with conventional moral standards and those hostile to them; those inducing societal... Read more Read more
In Masterpiece, after a religious baker refused to bake a cake for a wedding between two men, the couple filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission alleging discrimination. The commission found that the cake shop had violated the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. The baker believed this violated his First Amendment rights of freedom of... Read more Read more
In Matal v. Tam, The Slants were denied a trademark for their band’s name by the Patent and Trademark Office, citing the Disparagement Clause of the Lanham Act of 1946 and the rationale that the name may be disparaging towards “persons of Asian descent.” Simon Tam appealed the decision. The Supreme Court ruled that the... Read more Read more
Federal contractor Reality Leigh Winner is arrested in Augusta, Georgia for allegedly leaking a classified National Security Agency memo detailing Russian cyberattacks on U.S. voting software to The Intercept. Read more
By David L. Hudson, Jr. The First Amendment protects much more than the spoken or printed word. It also protects various forms of symbolic speech and expressive conduct. The Supreme Court has ruled that the display of a red flag, the wearing of a black armband, the burning of the American flag and yes, even... Read more Read more
Public school students “do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Read more
By David L. Hudson, Jr. The First Amendment demands that government officials generally should not discriminate against speech based on content or viewpoint. Under free speech jurisprudence, content-based laws are viewed with greater suspicion than content-neutral laws. The fear is that government officials may censor speech because they dislike the message. The designation of a... Read more Read more