“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 First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution First Amendment Timeline Significant historical events, court cases, and ideas that have shaped our current system of constitutional First Amendment jurisprudence, compiled by the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center. 1215 1628 1641 1663 1689 1708 1735 1771 1774 1776 1777 1776 1786 1787-1788 1787 1791 1796 1798 19th century The 19th century witnesses a Supreme Court hostile to many claims of freedom of speech and assembly. Fewer than 12 First Amendment cases come before the court between 1791 and 1889, according to First Amendment scholar Michael Gibson. This is due to the prevailing view among federal judges that the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states. 1801 1836 1859 1863 1864 1868 1873 20th century Free-speech claims form a substantive and integral part of the early 20thcentury First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. This may well be due to the extraordinary social upheavals of the era: massive late-19thcentury immigration movements, World War I and the spread of socialism in the United States. 1907 1917 1917 1918 1919 1919 1919 1920 1921 1925 1925 1926 1927 1928 1931 1931 1933 1933 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1940 1940 1940 1941 1942 1943 1943 1947 1949 1951 1952 1957 1958 1959 1962 1963 1963 1964 1966 1966 1966 1967 1968 1968 1968 1969 1969 1969 1969 1970 1971 1971 1971 1972 1972 1972 1973 1973 1974 1976 1976 1976 1976 1976 1977 1978 1978 1980 1982 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1986 1986 1987 1987 1988 1988 1989 1989 1990 1990 1990 1990 1991 1991 1992 1992 1993 1993 1994 1995 1995 1996 1996 1997 1997 1998 1998 1998 21st century 2000 2000 2000 2001 2002 2002 2003 2003 2003 2003 2004 2005 2005 2005 2007 2010 2011 2011 2012 In United States v. Alvarez, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Stolen Valor Act, a federal law that prohibited lying about receiving military medals, violated the First Amendment. 2014 In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a New York town’s practice of having prayer before town meetings did not violate the establishment clause. The Court majority said the town’s practice was consistent with the legislative prayer upheld by the Court in Marsh v. Chambers (1983). In Lane v. Franks, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the First Amendment protected a public employee who was terminated by his employer after he provided truthful court testimony pursuant to a subpoena. The decision provided an exception to the broad, categorical rule limiting public employee speech in Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006). In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that closely held corporations were exempt from the part of the Affordable Care Act that required them to provide coverage for forms of contraceptives that violated the owners’ beliefs against the use of abortifacients. 2017 In Packingham v. North Carolina, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously invalidated a North Carolina law that prohibited sex offenders from accessing social media websites. The Court said social media users, including sex offenders, access websites covered under the law for a wide range of lawful activities. 2018 In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 7-2 opinion using the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment (as applied to the states through the 14th Amendment) to uphold the right of Jack Phillips, the owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo., to refuse to custom design a cake for a same-sex wedding. Page 2
Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957) stands as the first U.S. Supreme Court case to expound upon the concept of academic freedom though some earlier cases mention it. Most constitutional academic freedom issues today revolve around professors’ speech, students’ speech, faculty’s relations to government speech, and using affirmative action in student admissions. Although academic freedom is regularly invoked as a constitutional right under the First Amendment, the Court has never specifically enumerated it as one, and judicial opinions have not developed a consistent interpretation of constitutional academic freedom or pronounced a consistent framework to analyze such claims. |