Speech and Expression
Speech and Expression
Stromberg v. People of the State of California (1931)
283 U.S. 359 (1931)
Vote: 7-2
Majority: Hughes, joined by Holmes, Van Devanter, Brandeis, Sutherland, Stone and Roberts
Concur/dissent: McReynolds
Dissent: Butler
Chief Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellant was convicted in the superior court of San Bernardino county, California, for violation of section 403a of the Penal Code of that State. That section provides:
‘Any person who displays a red flag, banner or badge or any flag, badge, banner, or device of any color or form whatever in any public place or in any meeting place or public assembly, or from or on any house, building or window as a sign, symbol or emblem of opposition to organized government or as an invitation or stimulus to anarchistic action or as an aid to propaganda that is of a seditious character is guilty of a felony.’
The information, in its first count, charged that the appellant and other defendants, at the time and place set forth, ‘did willfully, unlawfully and feloniously display a red flag and banner in a public place and in a meeting place as a sign, symbol and emblem of opposition to organized government and as an invitation and stimulus to anarchistic action and as an aid to propaganda that is and was of a seditious character.’
…
On the argument of a general demurrer to the information, the appellant contended, as was permitted by the practice in California, that the statute was invalid because repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The demurrer was overruled, and the appellant pleaded not guilty. Conviction followed, motions for a new trial and in arrest of judgment were denied, and on appeal to the District Court of Appeal the judgment was affirmed … Petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court of California was denied, and an appeal has been taken to this Court.
… It appears that the appellant, a young woman of nineteen, a citizen of the United States by birth, was one of the supervisors of a summer camp for children, between ten and fifteen years of age, in the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains … Appellant was a member of the Young Communist League, an international organization affiliated with the Communist Party. The charge against her concerned a daily ceremony at the camp, in which the appellant supervised and directed the children in raising a red flag, ‘a camp-made reproduction of the flag of Soviet Russia, which was also the flag of the Communist Party in the United States.’ In connection with the flag-raising, there was a ritual at which the children stood at salute and recited a pledge of allegiance ‘to the workers’ red flag, and to the cause for which it stands, one aim throughout our lives, freedom for the working class.’ …
The charge in the information, as to the purposes for which the flag was raised, was laid conjunctively, uniting the three purposes which the statute condemned. But in the instructions to the jury, the trial court followed the express terms of the statute and treated the described purposes disjunctively, holding that the appellant should be convicted if the flag was displayed for any one of the three purposes named. The instruction was as follows:
‘In this connection you are instructed that if the jury should believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants, or either of them, displayed, or caused to be displayed, a red flag, banner, or badge, or any flag, badge, banner, or device of any color or form whatever in any public place or in any meeting place, as charged in count one of the information, and if you further believe from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that said flag, badge, banner, or device was displayed, or caused to be displayed, as a sign, symbol, or emblem of opposition to organized government, or was an invitation or stimulus to anarchistic action, or was in aid to propaganda that is of a seditious character, you will find such defendants guilty as charged in count one of the information … Proof, beyond a reasonable doubt of any one or more of the three purposes alleged in said information is sufficient to justify a verdict of guilty under count one of said information.’
… The opinions make it clear that the appellant insisted that, under the Fourteenth Amendment, the statute was invalid as being ‘an unwarranted limitation on the right of free speech.’
… We are not left in doubt as to the construction placed by the state court upon each of the clauses of the statute. The first purpose described, that is, relating to the display of a flag or banner ‘as a sign, symbol or emblem of opposition to organized government,’ is discussed by the two concurring justices. After referring, in the language above quoted, to the constitutional question raised by the appellant with respect to this clause, these justices said in their opinion:
‘If opposition to organized government were the only act prohibited by this section, we might be forced to agree with appellant … With respect to the second purpose described in the statute, the display of a flag or banner ‘as an invitation or stimulus to anarchistic action,’ the concurring justices quoted accepted definitions and judicial decisions as to the meaning of ‘anarchistic action.’ These authorities, as set forth and approved in the opinion, show clearly that the term was regarded by the state court as referring to the overthrow by force and violence of the existing law and order, to the use of ‘unlawful, violent and felonious means to destroy property and human life.’ The conclusion was thus stated: ‘It is therefore clear that when section 403a of the Penal Code prohibits a display of a red flag as an invitation or stimulus to anarchistic action it prohibits acts which have a well-defined and well-settled meaning in the law of our land, a teaching which, if allowed to be put into force and effect, would mean revolution in its most dreaded form.’
The state court further gave its interpretation of the third clause of the statute, that is, in relation to the display of a flag or banner ‘as an aid to propaganda that is of a seditious character.’ Both opinions dealt with the meaning of this clause. Thus in one opinion it is said: ‘Appellants’ counsel concedes that sedition laws which ‘interdict against the use of force or violence’ are consistently upheld by the courts, and all of the authorities cited by him support that proposition … ‘Sedition’ is defined as the stirring up of disorder in the state, tending toward treason, but lacking an overt act. Certainly the ‘advocacy of force or violence’ in overturning the government of a state falls within that definition.’ The other opinion takes a similar view …
Having reached these conclusions as to the meaning of the three clauses of the statute, and doubting the constitutionality of the first clause, the state court rested its decision upon the remaining clauses. The basis of the decision, as more fully stated in the opinion of the two concurring justices, was this: ‘The constitutionality of the phrase of this section, ‘of opposition to organized government,’ is questionable. This phrase can be eliminated from the section without materially changing its purposes. The section is complete without it and with it eliminated it can be upheld as a constitutional enactment by the Legislature of the State of California.’ Accordingly, disregarding the first clause of the statute, and upholding the other clauses, the conviction of the appellant was sustained.
We are unable to agree with this disposition of the case. The verdict against the appellant was a general one. It did not specify the ground upon which it rested. As there were three purposes set forth in the statute, and the jury was instructed that their verdict might be given with respect to any one of them, independently considered, it is impossible to say under which clause of the statute the conviction was obtained. If any one of these clauses, which the state court has held to be separable, was invalid, it cannot be determined upon this record that the appellant was not convicted under that clause. It may be added that this is far from being a merely academic proposition, as it appears, upon an examination of the original record filed with this Court, that the State’s attorney upon the trial emphatically urged upon the jury that they could convict the appellant under the first clause alone, without regard to the other clauses. It follows that instead of its being permissible to hold, with the state court, that the verdict could be sustained if any one of the clauses of the statute were found to be valid, the necessary conclusion from the manner in which the case was sent to the jury is that, if any of the clauses in question is invalid under the Federal Constitution, the conviction cannot be upheld.
We are thus brought to the question whether any one of the three clauses, as construed by the state court, is upon its face repugnant to the Federal Constitution so that it could not constitute a lawful foundation for a criminal prosecution. The principles to be applied have been clearly set forth in our former decisions. It has been determined that the conception of liberty under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment embraces the right of free speech. Gitlow v. New York, (1925). The right is not an absolute one, and the State in the exercise of its police power may punish the abuse of this freedom. There is no question but that the State may thus provide for the punishment of those who indulge in utterances which incite to violence and crime and threaten the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means. There is no constitutional immunity for such conduct abhorrent to our institutions. Gitlow v. New York. We have no reason to doubt the validity of the second and third clauses of the statute as construed by the state court to relate to such incitements to violence.
The question is thus narrowed to that of the validity of the first clause, that is, with respect to the display of the flag ‘as a sign, symbol or emblem of opposition to organized government,’ and the construction which the state court has placed upon this clause removes every element of doubt. The state court recognized the indefiniteness and ambiguity of the clause. The court considered that it might be construed as embracing conduct which the State could not constitutionally prohibit. Thus it was said that the clause ‘might be construed to include the peaceful and orderly opposition to a government as organized and controlled by one political party by those of another political party equally high minded and patriotic, which did not agree with the one in power. It might also be construed to include peaceful and orderly opposition to government by legal means and within constitutional limitations.’ The maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes may be obtained by lawful means, an opportunity essential to the security of the Republic is a fundamental principle of our constitutional system. A statute which upon its face, and as authoritatively construed, is so vague and indefinite as to permit the punishment of the fair use of this opportunity is repugnant to the guarantee of liberty contained in the Fourteenth Amendment. The first clause of the statute being invalid upon its face, the conviction of the appellant, which so far as the record discloses may have rested upon that clause exclusively, must be set aside.
As for this reason the case must be remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion, and other facts may be adduced in such proceedings … Judgment reversed.
Minersville School Dist. et al. v. Gobitis et al. (1940)
310 U.S. 586 (1940)
Vote: 8-1
Majority: Frankfurter, joined by Hughes, McReynolds, Roberts, Black, Reed, Douglas and Murphy
Dissent: Stone
Justice Frankfurter delivered the opinion of the Court
A grave responsibility confronts this Court whenever in course of litigation it must reconcile the conflicting claims of liberty and authority. But when the liberty invoked is liberty of conscience, and the authority is authority to safeguard the nation’s fellowship, judicial conscience is put to its severest test. Of such a nature is the present controversy.
Lillian Gobitis, aged twelve, and her brother William, aged ten, were expelled from the public schools … for refusing to salute the national flag as part of a daily school exercise … The Gobitis family are affiliated with ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’, for whom the Bible as the Word of God is the supreme authority. The children had been brought up conscientiously to believe that such a gesture of respect for the flag was forbidden by command of scripture.
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We must decide whether the requirement of participation in such a ceremony, exacted from a child who refuses upon sincere religious grounds, infringes without due process of law the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment …
Situations like the present are phases of the profoundest problem confronting a democracy—the problem which Lincoln cast in memorable dilemma: ‘Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?’ No mere textual reading or logical talisman can solve the dilemma. And when the issue demands judicial determination, it is not the personal notion of judges of what wise adjustment requires which must prevail.
… The ultimate foundation of a free society is the binding tie of cohesive sentiment. Such a sentiment is fostered by all those agencies of the mind and spirit which may serve to gather up the traditions of a people, transmit them from generation to generation, and thereby create that continuity of a treasured common life which constitutes a civilization. ‘We live by symbols.’ The flag is the symbol of our national unity, transcending all internal differences, however large, within the framework of the Constitution. This Court has had occasion to say that ‘* * * the flag is the symbol of the nation’s power,—the emblem of freedom in its truest, best sense. * * * it signifies government resting on the consent of the governed; liberty regulated by law; the protection of the weak against the strong; security against the exercise of arbitrary power; and absolute safety for free institutions against foreign aggression.’ Halter v. Nebraska, (1907).
… The precise issue, then, for us to decide is whether the legislatures of the various states and the authorities in a thousand counties and school districts of this country are barred from determining the appropriateness of various means to evoke that unifying sentiment without which there can ultimately be no liberties, civil or religious.
… That the flag salute is an allowable portion of a school program for those who do not invoke conscientious scruples is surely not debatable. But for us to insist that, though the ceremony may be required, exceptional immunity must be given to dissidents, is to maintain that there is no basis for a legislative judgment that such an exemption might introduce elements of difficulty into the school discipline, might cast doubts in the minds of the other children which would themselves weaken the effect of the exercise.
…
Reversed.
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)
319 U.S. 624 (1943)
Vote: 6-3
Majority: Jackson, joined by Stone, Black, Douglas, Murphy and Rutledge
Dissent: Frankfurter, Reed and Roberts
Justice Jackson delivered the opinion of the Court.
Following the decision by this Court on June 3, 1940, in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, the West Virginia legislature amended its statutes to require all schools therein to conduct courses of instruction in history, civics, and in the Constitutions of the United States and of the State “for the purpose of teaching, fostering and perpetuating the ideals, principles and spirit of Americanism, and increasing the knowledge of the organization and machinery of the government.” * * *
The Board of Education on January 9, 1942, adopted a resolution containing recitals taken largely from the Court’s Gobitis Opinion and ordering that the salute to the flag become “a regular part of the program of activities in the public schools,” that all teachers and pupils “shall be required to participate in the salute honoring the Nation represented by the Flag; provided, however, that refusal to salute the Flag be regarded as an act of insubordination, and shall be dealt with accordingly.”
… Failure to conform is “insubordination” dealt with by expulsion. Readmission is denied by statute until compliance. Meanwhile the expelled child is “unlawfully absent” and may be proceeded against as a delinquent. His parents or guardians are liable to prosecution, and if convicted are subject to fine not exceeding $50 and jail term not exceeding thirty days.
Appellees, citizens of the United States and of West Virginia, brought suit in the United States District Court for themselves and others similarly situated asking its injunction to restrain enforcement of these laws and regulations against Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Witnesses are an unincorporated body teaching that the obligation imposed by law of God is superior to that of laws enacted by temporal government … They consider that the flag is an “image” within this command. For this reason they refuse to salute it.
Children of this faith have been expelled from school and are threatened with exclusion for no other cause. Officials threaten to send them to reformatories maintained for criminally inclined juveniles. Parents of such children have been prosecuted and are threatened with prosecutions for causing delinquency.
* * *
This case calls upon us to reconsider a precedent decision, as the Court throughout its history often has been required to do. Before Turning to the Gobitis Case, however, it is desirable to notice certain characteristics by which this controversy is distinguished.
The freedom asserted by these appellees does not bring them into collision with rights asserted by any other individual. It is such conflicts which most frequently require intervention of the State to determine where the rights of one end and those of another begin. But the refusal of these persons to participate in the ceremony does not interfere with or deny rights of others to do so. Nor is there any question in this case that their behavior is peaceable and orderly. The sole conflict is between authority and rights of the individual. The State asserts power to condition access to public education on making a prescribed sign and profession and at the same time to coerce attendance by punishing both parent and child. The latter stand on a right of self-determination in matters that touch individual opinion and personal attitude.
* * *
There is no doubt that, in connection with the pledges, the flag salute is a form of utterance. Symbolism is a primitive but effective way of communicating ideas. The use of an emblem or flag to symbolize some system, idea, institution, or personality, is a short cut from mind to mind … Symbols of State often convey political ideas just as religious symbols come to convey theological ones. Associated with many of these symbols are appropriate gestures of acceptance or respect: a salute, a bowed or bared head, a bended knee …
Over a decade ago Chief Justice Hughes led this Court in holding that the display of a red flag as a symbol of opposition by peaceful and legal means to organized government was protected by the free speech guaranties of the Constitution. Here it is the State that employs a flag as a symbol of adherence to government as presently organized. It requires the individual to communicate by word and sign his acceptance of the political ideas it thus bespeaks. Objection to this form of communication when coerced is an old one, well known to the framers of the Bill of Rights …
… here the power of compulsion is invoked without any allegation that remaining passive during a flag salute ritual creates a clear and present danger that would justify an effort even to muffle expression. To sustain the compulsory flag salute we are required to say that a Bill of Rights which guards the individual’s right to speak his own mind, left it open to public authorities to compel him to utter what is not in his mind.
Whether the First Amendment to the Constitution will permit officials to order observance of ritual of this nature does not depend upon whether as a voluntary exercise we would think it to be good, bad or merely innocuous … Hence validity of the asserted power to force an American citizen publicly to profess any statement of belief or to engage in any ceremony of assent to one, presents questions of power that must be considered independently of any idea we may have as to the utility of the ceremony in question.
Nor does the issue as we see it turn on one’s possession of particular religious views or the sincerity with which they are held …
The Gobitis Decision, however, assumed, as did the argument in that case and in this, that power exists in the State to impose the flag salute discipline upon school children in general. The Court only examined and rejected a claim based on religious beliefs of immunity from an unquestioned general rule. The question which underlies the flag salute controversy is whether such a ceremony so touching matters of opinion and political attitude may be imposed upon the individual by official authority under powers committed to any political organization under our Constitution. We examine rather than assume existence of this power and, against this broader definition of issues in this case, reexamine specific grounds assigned for the Gobitis Decision …
We think these issues may be examined free of pressure or restraint growing out of such considerations.
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… It is important to note that while it is the Fourteenth Amendment which bears directly upon the State it is the more specific limiting principles of the First Amendment that finally govern this case.
Nor does our duty to apply the Bill of Rights to assertions of official authority depend upon our possession of marked competence in the field where the invasion of rights occurs. True, the task of translating the majestic generalities of the Bill of Rights, conceived as part of the pattern of liberal government in the eighteenth century, into concrete restraints on officials dealing with the problems of the twentieth century, is one to disturb self-confidence … We cannot, because of modest estimates of our competence in such specialties as public education, withhold the judgment that history authenticates as the function of this Court when liberty is infringed.
Lastly, and this is the very heart of the Gobitis Opinion, it reasons that “National unity is the basis of national security,” that the authorities have “the right to select appropriate means for its attainment,” and hence reaches the conclusion that such compulsory measures toward “national unity” are constitutional. Upon the verity of this assumption depends our answer in this case.
The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.
We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.
The decision of this Court in Minersville School District v. Gobitis and the holdings of those few per curiam decisions which preceded and foreshadowed it are overruled, and the judgment enjoining enforcement of the West Virginia Regulation is
Affirmed.
Giboney et al. v. Empire Storage & Ice Co. (1949)
336 U.S. 490 (1949)
Vote: 9-0
Majority: Black, joined by Reed, Frankfurter, Douglas, Murphy, Jackson, Rutledge, Burton and Vinson
Mr. Justice Black delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case here on appeal […] raises questions concerning the constitutional power of a state to apply its antitrade restraint law to labor union activities, and to enjoin union members from peaceful picketing carried on as an essential and inseparable part of a course of conduct which is in violation of the state law. The picketing occurred in Kansas City, Missouri. The injunction was issued by a Missouri state court.
The appellants are members and officers of the Ice and Coal Drivers and Handlers Local Union No. 953, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. Its membership includes about 160 of 200 retail ice peddlers who drive their own trucks in selling ice from door to door in Kansas City. The union began efforts to induce all the nonunion peddlers to join. One objective of the organizational drive was to better wage and working conditions of peddlers and their helpers. Most of the nonunion peddlers refused to join the union. To break down their resistance the union adopted a plan which was designed to make it impossible for nonunion peddlers to buy ice to supply their retail customers in Kansas City. Pursuant to the plan the union set about to obtain from all Kansas City wholesale ice distributors agreements that they would not sell ice to nonunion peddlers. Agreements were obtained from all distributors except the appellee, Empire Storage and Ice Company. Empire refused to agree. The union thereupon informed Empire that it would use other means at its disposal to force Empire to come around to the union view. Empire still refused to agree. Its place of business was promptly picketed by union members although the only complaint registered against Empire, as indicated by placards carried by the pickets, was its continued sale of ice to nonunion peddlers.
Thus the avowed immediate purpose of the picketing was to compel Empire to agree to stop selling ice to nonunion peddlers. Missouri statutes, set out in note 1, make such an agreement a crime punishable by a fine of not more than $5,000 and by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not more than five years. Furthermore, had Empire made the agreement, the ice peddlers could have brought actions for triple damages for any injuries they sustained as a result of the agreement under § 8308 of the Missouri Revised Statutes 1939, Mo.R.S.A.
About 85% of the truck drivers working for Empire’s customers were members of labor unions. These union truck drivers refused to deliver goods to or from Empire’s place of business. Had any one of them crossed the picket line he would have been subject to fine or suspension by the union of which he was a member.
Because of the foregoing facts shown either by admissions, by undisputed evidence, or by unchallenged findings, the picketing had an instantaneous adverse effect on Empire’s business. It was reduced 85%. In this dilemma, Empire was faced with three alternatives: It could continue to sell ice to nonunion peddlers, in which event it would be compelled to wage a fight for survival against overwhelming odds; it could stop selling ice to nonunion peddlers thereby relieving itself from further conflict with the union, in which event it would be subject to prosecution for crime and suits for triple damages; it could invoke the protection of the law. The last alternative was adopted.
Empire’s complaint charged that the concerted efforts of union members to restrain Empire from selling to nonunion members was a violation of the antitrade restraint statute and that an agreement by Empire to refuse to make such sales would violate the same statute. It prayed for an injunction against the picketing. In answering, appellants asserted a constitutional right to picket Empire’s premises in order to force it to discontinue sale of ice to nonunion peddlers. They contended that their right to do so was ‘guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments’ because there was ‘a labor dispute existing’ between appellants and appellee, and because the picketers publicized only the truthful information that appellee was ‘selling ice to peddlers who are not members of the said defendant union.’
The trial court heard evidence, made findings and issued an injunction restraining the appellants from ‘placing pickets or picketing around or about the buildings’ of Empire.
The State Supreme Court affirmed … It agreed with the findings of the trial court that the conduct of appellants was pursuant to a local transportation combination used to compel Empire to stop selling ice to nonunion peddlers and that the purpose of the picketing was to force Empire to become a party to such combination. It held that such activities were unlawful because in violation of § 8301 of the Missouri statutes and further held that the injunction to prevent picketing for such unlawful purpose did not contravene the appellants’ right of free speech.
… Attacking the Missouri statute as construed and applied, appellants broadly challenge the power of the state to issue any injunction against their conduct since, they assert, the primary objective of their combination and picketing was to improve wage and working conditions. On this premise they argue that their right to combine, to picket, and to publish must be determined by focusing attention exclusively upon their lawful purpose to improve labor conditions, and that their violation of the state antitrade restraint laws must be dismissed as merely incidental to this lawful purpose.
First. States have constitutional power to prohibit competing dealers and their aiders and abettors from combining to restrain freedom of trade is beyond question … There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States which precludes a state from adopting and enforcing such policy …
Second. It is contended that though the Missouri statute can be applied validly to combinations of businessmen who agree not to sell to certain persons, it cannot be applied constitutionally to combinations of union workers who agree in their self-interest to use their joint power to prevent sales to nonunion workers. This contention appears to be grounded on the guaranties of freedom of speech and press stemming from the Fourteenth and First Amendments. Aside from the element of disseminating information through peaceful picketers, later discussed, it is difficult to perceive how it could be thought that these constitutional guaranties afford labor union members a peculiar immunity from laws against trade restraint combinations, unless, as appellants contend, labor unions are given special constitutional protection denied all other people.
The objective of unions to improve wages and working conditions has sometimes commended itself to Congress and to state legislatures. To the extent that the states or Congress, for this or other reasons, have seen fit to exempt unions from antitrust laws, this Court has sustained legislative power to grant the exemptions … On the other hand where statutes have not granted exemptions, we have declared that violations of antitrust laws could not be defended on the ground that a particular accused combination would not injure but would actually help manufacturers, laborers, retailers, consumers, or the public in general. Fashion Guild v. Trade Comm’n, (1941).
The foregoing holdings rest on the premise that legislative power to regulate trade and commerce includes the power to determine what groups, if any, shall be regulated, and whether certain regulations will help or injure businessmen, workers, and the public in general. In making this determination Missouri has decided to apply its law without exception to all persons who combine to restrain freedom of trade. We are without constitutional authority to modify or upset Missouri’s determination that it is in the public interest to make combinations of workers subject to laws designed to keep the channels of trade wholly free and open. To exalt all labor union conduct in restraint of trade above all state control would greatly reduce the traditional powers of states over their domestic economy and might conceivably make it impossible for them to enforce their antitrade restraint laws. Allen Bradley Co. v. Union, (1945).
Third. It is contended that the injunction against picketing adjacent to Empire’s place of business is an unconstitutional abridgment of free speech because the picketers were attempting peacefully to publicize truthful facts about a labor dispute … But the record here does not permit this publicizing to be treated in isolation. For according to the pleadings, the evidence, the findings, and the argument of the appellants, the sole immediate object of the publicizing adjacent to the premises of Empire, as well as the other activities of the appellants and their allies, was to compel Empire to agree to stop selling ice to nonunion peddlers. Thus all of appellants’ activities—their powerful transportation combination, their patrolling, their formation of a picket line warning union men not to cross at peril of their union membership, their publicizing—constituted a single and integrated course of conduct, which was in violation of Missouri’s valid law. In this situation, the injunction did not more than enjoin an offense against Missouri law, a felony.
It rarely has been suggested that the constitutional freedom for speech and press extends its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute. We reject the contention now. Nothing that was said or decided in any of the cases relied on by appellants calls for different holding …
We think the circumstances here and the reasons advanced by the Missouri courts justify restraint of the picketing which was done in violation of Missouri’s valid law for the sole immediate purpose of continuing a violation of law. In holding this, we are mindful of the essential importance to our society of a vigilant protection of freedom of speech and press. Bridges v. California, (1941). States cannot consistently with our Constitution abridge those freedoms to obviate slight inconveniences or annoyances. Schneider v. State, (1939). But placards used as an essential and inseparable part of a grave offense against an important public law cannot immunize that unlawful conduct from state control. VA Electric Co. v. Board, (1943). Nor can we say that the publication here should not have been restrained because of the possibility of separating the picketing conduct into illegal and legal parts. Thomas v. Collins, (1945). For the placards were to effectuate the purposes of an unlawful combination, and their sole, unlawful immediate objective was to induce Empire to violate the Missouri law by acquiescing in unlawful demands to agree not to sell ice to nonunion peddlers. It is true that the agreements and course of conduct here were as in most instances brought about through speaking or writing. But it has never been deemed an abridgement of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed … Such an expansive interpretation of the constitutional guaranties of speech and press would make it practically impossible ever to enforce laws against agreements in restraint of trade as well as many other agreements and conspiracies deemed injurious to society.
The interest of Missouri in enforcement of its antitrust laws cannot be classified as an effort to outlaw only a slight public inconvenience or annoyance. The Missouri policy against restraints of trade is of long standing and is in most respects the same as that which the Federal Government has followed for more than half a century. It is clearly drawn in an attempt to afford all persons an equal opportunity to buy goods. There was clear danger, imminent and immediate, that unless restrained, appellants would succeed in making that policy a dead letter insofar as purchases by nonunion men were concerned. Appellants’ power with that of their allies was irresistible. And it is clear that appellants were doing more than exercising a right of free speech or press. Fox v. WA, (1915). They were exercising their economic power together with that of their allies to compel Empire to abide by union rather than by state regulation of trade.
…
While the State of Missouri is not a party in this case it is plain that the basic issue is whether Missouri or a labor union has paramount constitutional power to regulate and govern the manner in which certain trade practices shall be carried on in Kansas City, Missouri. Missouri has by statute regulated trade one way. The appellant union members have adopted a program to regulate it another way. The state has provided for enforcement of its statutory rule by imposing civil and criminal sanctions. The union has provided for enforcement of its rule by sanctions against union members who cross picket lines … We hold that the state’s power to govern in this field is paramount, and that nothing in the constitutional guaranties of speech or press compels a state to apply or not to apply its antitrade restraint law to groups of workers, businessmen or others. Of course this Court does not pass on the wisdom of the Missouri statute. We hold only that as here construed and applied it does not violate the Federal Constitution.
Affirmed.
United States v. O’Brien (1968)
391 U.S. 367 (1968)
Vote: 7-1
Majority: Warren, joined by Black, Warren, Harlan, Brennan, Stewart, White and Fortas
Concurrence: Harlan
Dissent: Douglas
Not participating: Justice Marshall
Chief Justice Warren delivered the opinion of the Court.
On the morning of March 31, 1966, David Paul O’Brien and three companions burned their Selective Service registration certificates on the steps of the South Boston Courthouse. A sizable crowd, including several agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, witnessed the event. Immediately after the burning, members of the crowd began attacking O’Brien and his companions. An FBI agent ushered O’Brien to safety inside the courthouse. After he was advised of his right to counsel and to silence, O’Brien stated to FBI agents that he had burned his registration certificate because of his beliefs, knowing that he was violating federal law. He produced the charred remains of the certificate, which, with his consent, were photographed.
For this act, O’Brien was indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He did not contest the fact that he had burned the certificate. He stated in argument to the jury that he burned the certificate publicly to influence others to adopt his antiwar beliefs, as he put it, “so that other people would reevaluate their positions with Selective Service, with the armed forces, and reevaluate their place in the culture of today, to hopefully consider my position.”
The indictment upon which he was tried charged that he “willfully and knowingly did mutilate, destroy, and change by burning … [his] Registration Certificate (Selective Service System Form No. 2); in violation of Title 50, App., United States Code, Section 462 (b).” * * * [It had been] amended by Congress in 1965, 79 Stat. 586 (adding the words italicized below), so that at the time O’Brien burned his certificate an offense was committed by any person, “who forges, alters, knowingly destroys, knowingly mutilates, or in any manner changes any such certificate. …” (Italics supplied.)
In the District Court, O’Brien argued that the 1965 Amendment prohibiting the knowing destruction or mutilation of certificates was unconstitutional because it was enacted to abridge free speech, and because it served no legitimate legislative purpose. The District Court rejected these arguments, holding that the statute on its face did not abridge First Amendment rights, that the court was not competent to inquire into the motives of Congress in enacting the 1965 Amendment, and that the Amendment was a reasonable exercise of the power of Congress to raise armies.
On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held the 1965 Amendment unconstitutional as a law abridging freedom of speech. * * * [This] decision conflicted with decisions by the Courts of Appeals for the Second and Eighth Circuit Upholding the 1965 Amendment against identical constitutional challenges. * * * We hold that the 1965 Amendment is constitutional both as enacted and as applied. * * *
When a male reaches the age of 18, he is required by the Universal Military Training and Service Act to register with a local draft board. He is assigned a Selective Service number … Subsequently, and based on a questionnaire completed by the registrant, he is assigned a classification denoting his eligibility for induction, and “[a]s soon as practicable” thereafter he is issued a Notice of Classification (SSS Form No. 110) …
Both the registration and classification certificates are small white cards, approximately 2 by 3 inches. The registration certificate specifies the name of the registrant, the date of registration, and the number and address of the local board with which he registered … and his Selective Service number. The Selective Service number itself indicates the State of registration, his local board, his year of birth, and his chronological position in the local board’s classification record.
…
Congress demonstrated its concern that certificates issued by the Selective Service System might be abused well before the 1965 Amendment here challenged …
By the 1965 Amendment, Congress added to § 12 (b) (3) of the 1948 Act the provision here at issue, subjecting to criminal liability not only one who “forges, alters, or in any manner changes” but also one who “knowingly destroys, [or] knowingly mutilates” a certificate. We note at the outset that the 1965 Amendment plainly does not abridge free speech on its face, and we do not understand O’Brien to argue otherwise. Amended § 12 (b) (3) on its face deals with conduct having no connection with speech. It prohibits the knowing destruction of certificates issued by the Selective Service System, and there is nothing necessarily expressive about such conduct. The Amendment does not distinguish between public and private destruction, and it does not punish only destruction engaged in for the purpose of expressing views. A law prohibiting destruction of Selective Service certificates no more abridges free speech on its face than a motor vehicle law prohibiting the destruction of drivers’ licenses, or a tax law prohibiting the destruction of books and records.
O’Brien nonetheless argues that the 1965 Amendment is unconstitutional in its application to him, and is unconstitutional as enacted because what he calls the “purpose” of Congress was “to suppress freedom of speech.” We consider these arguments separately.
O’Brien first argues that the 1965 Amendment is unconstitutional as applied to him because his act of burning his registration certificate was protected “symbolic speech” within the First Amendment. His argument is that the freedom of expression which the First Amendment guarantees includes all modes of “communication of ideas by conduct,” and that his conduct is within this definition because he did it in “demonstration against the war and against the draft.”
We cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled “speech” whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea. However, even on the assumption that the alleged communicative element in O’Brien’s conduct is sufficient to bring into play the First Amendment, it does not necessarily follow that the destruction of a registration certificate is constitutionally protected activity. This Court has held that when “speech” and “nonspeech” elements are combined in the same course of conduct, a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the nonspeech element can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms. To characterize the quality of the governmental interest which must appear, the Court has employed a variety of descriptive terms: compelling; substantial; subordinating; paramount; cogent; strong. Whatever imprecision inheres in these terms, we think it clear that a government regulation is sufficiently justified if it is within the constitutional power of the Government; if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest. We find that the 1965 Amendment to § 12 (b) (3) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act meets all of these requirements, and consequently that O’Brien can be constitutionally convicted for violating it.
The constitutional power of Congress to raise and support armies and to make all laws necessary and proper to that end is broad and sweeping. * * * The issuance of certificates indicating the registration and eligibility classification of individuals is a legitimate and substantial administrative aid in the functioning of this system. And legislation to insure the continuing availability of issued certificates serves a legitimate and substantial purpose in the system’s administration.
…
We think it apparent that the continuing availability to each registrant of his Selective Service certificates substantially furthers the smooth and proper functioning of the system that Congress has established to raise armies. We think it also apparent that the Nation has a vital interest in having a system for raising armies that functions with maximum efficiency and is capable of easily and quickly responding to continually changing circumstances. For these reasons, the Government has a substantial interest in assuring the continuing availability of issued Selective Service certificates.
It is equally clear that the 1965 Amendment specifically protects this substantial governmental interest. We perceive no alternative means that would more precisely and narrowly assure the continuing availability of issued Selective Service certificates than a law which prohibits their willful mutilation or destruction. The 1965 Amendment prohibits such conduct and does nothing more. In other words, both the governmental interest and the operation of the 1965 Amendment are limited to the noncommunicative aspect of O’Brien’s conduct. The governmental interest and the scope of the 1965 Amendment are limited to preventing harm to the smooth and efficient functioning of the Selective Service System. When O’Brien deliberately rendered unavailable his registration certificate, he willfully frustrated this governmental interest. For this noncommunicative impact of his conduct, and for nothing else, he was convicted.
…
In conclusion, we find that because of the Government’s substantial interest in assuring the continuing availability of issued Selective Service certificates, because amended § 462 (b) is an appropriately narrow means of protecting this interest and condemns only the independent noncommunicative impact of conduct within its reach, and because the noncommunicative impact of O’Brien’s act of burning his registration certificate frustrated the Government’s interest, a sufficient governmental interest has been shown to justify O’Brien’s conviction.
O’Brien finally argues that the 1965 Amendment is unconstitutional as enacted because what he calls the “purpose” of Congress was “to suppress freedom of speech.” We reject this argument because under settled principles the purpose of Congress, as O’Brien uses that term, is not a basis for declaring this legislation unconstitutional.
…
Since the 1965 Amendment to § 12 (b) (3) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act is constitutional as enacted and as applied * * * we vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and reinstate the judgment and sentence of the District Court …
It is so ordered.
Spence v. Washington (1974)
418 U.S. 405 (1974)
Per Curiam
Concurrence: Blackmun
Concurrence: Douglas
Dissent: Burger
Dissent: Rehnquist, joined by Burger and White
Appellant displayed a United States flag, which he owned, out of the window of his apartment. Affixed to both surfaces of the flag was a large peace symbol fashioned of removable tape. Appellant was convicted under a Washington statute forbidding the exhibition of a United States flag to which is attached or superimposed figures, symbols, or other extraneous material. The Supreme Court of Washington affirmed appellant’s conviction. It rejected appellant’s contentions that the statute under which he was charged, on its face and as applied, contravened the First Amendment, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, and was void for vagueness. We noted probable jurisdiction. We reverse on the ground that as applied to appellant’s activity the Washington statute impermissibly infringed protected expression.
On May 10, 1970, appellant, a college student, hung his United States flag from the window of his apartment on private property in Seattle, Washington. The flag was upside down, and attached to the front and back was a peace symbol (i. e., a circle enclosing a trident) made of removable black tape. The window was above the ground floor. The flag measured approximately three by five feet and was plainly visible to passersby. The peace symbol occupied roughly half of the surface of the flag.
Three Seattle police officers observed the flag and entered the apartment house. They were met at the main door by appellant, who said: “I suppose you are here about the flag. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it. I will take it down.” Appellant permitted the officers to enter his apartment, where they seized the flag and arrested him. Appellant cooperated with the officers. There was no disruption or altercation.
Appellant was not charged under Washington’s flag-desecration statute … Rather, the State relied on the so-called “improper use” statute, Wash. Rev. Code § 9.86.020. This statute provides, in pertinent part:
“No person shall, in any manner, for exhibition or display:
“(1) Place or cause to be placed any word, figure, mark, picture, design, drawing or advertisement of any nature upon any flag, standard, color, ensign or shield of the United States or of this state … or
“(2) Expose to public view any such flag, standard, color, ensign or shield upon which shall have been printed, painted or otherwise produced, or to which shall have been attached, appended, affixed or annexed any such word, figure, mark, picture, design, drawing or advertisement. …”
… [At trial] he testified that he put a peace symbol on the flag and displayed it to public view as a protest against the invasion of Cambodia and the killings at Kent State University, events which occurred a few days prior to his arrest. He said that his purpose was to associate the American flag with peace instead of war and violence:
“I felt there had been so much killing and that this was not what America stood for. I felt that the flag stood for America and I wanted people to know that I thought America stood for peace.”
Appellant further testified that he chose to fashion the peace symbol from tape so that it could be removed without damaging the flag. The State made no effort to controvert any of appellant’s testimony.
The trial court instructed the jury in essence that the mere act of displaying the flag with the peace symbol attached, if proved beyond a reasonable doubt, was sufficient to convict. There was no requirement of specific intent to do anything more than display the flag in that manner. The jury returned a verdict of guilty. The court sentenced appellant to 10 days in jail, suspended, and to a $75 fine. The Washington Court of Appeals reversed the conviction. It held the improper-use statute overbroad and invalid on its face under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. With one justice dissenting and two concurring in the result, the Washington Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the conviction.
A number of factors are important in the instant case. First, this was a privately owned flag. In a technical property sense it was not the property of any government. We have no doubt that the State or National Governments constitutionally may forbid anyone from mishandling in any manner a flag that is public property. But this is a different case. Second, appellant displayed his flag on private property. He engaged in no trespass or disorderly conduct. Nor is this a case that might be analyzed in terms of reasonable time, place, or manner restraints on access to a public area. Third, the record is devoid of proof of any risk of breach of the peace. It was not appellant’s purpose to incite violence or even stimulate a public demonstration. There is no evidence that any crowd gathered or that appellant made any effort to attract attention beyond hanging the flag out of his own window. Indeed, on the facts stipulated by the parties there is no evidence that anyone other than the three police officers observed the flag.
Fourth, the State concedes, as did the Washington Supreme Court, that appellant engaged in a form of communication. Although the stipulated facts fail to show that any member of the general public viewed the flag, the State’s concession is inevitable on this record … To be sure, appellant did not choose to articulate his views through printed or spoken words. It is therefore necessary to determine whether his activity was sufficiently imbued with elements of communication to fall within the scope of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, for as the Court noted in United States v. O’Brien,”[w]e cannot accept the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled `speech’ whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea.” But the nature of appellant’s activity, combined with the factual context and environment in which it was undertaken, lead to the conclusion that he engaged in a form of protected expression.
The Court for decades has recognized the communicative connotations of the use of flags. In many of their uses flags are a form of symbolism comprising a “primitive but effective way of communicating ideas …,” and “a short cut from mind to mind.” Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). On this record there can be little doubt that appellant communicated through the use of symbols. The symbolism included not only the flag but also the superimposed peace symbol.
Moreover, the context in which a symbol is used for purposes of expression is important, for the context may give meaning to the symbol … A flag bearing a peace symbol and displayed upside down by a student today might be interpreted as nothing more than bizarre behavior, but it would have been difficult for the great majority of citizens to miss the drift of appellant’s point at the time that he made it.
It may be noted, further, that this was not an act of mindless nihilism. Rather, it was a pointed expression of anguish by appellant about the then-current domestic and foreign affairs of his government. An intent to convey a particularized message was present, and in the surrounding circumstances the likelihood was great that the message would be understood by those who viewed it.
We are confronted then with a case of prosecution for the expression of an idea through activity … Accordingly, we must examine with particular care the interests advanced by appellee to support its prosecution.
* * * [The] state court’s thesis [was] that Washington has an interest in preserving the national flag as an unalloyed symbol of our country. The court did not define this interest; it simply asserted it. Mr. Justice Rehnquist’s dissenting opinion today, adopts essentially the same approach. Presumably, this interest might be seen as an effort to prevent the appropriation of a revered national symbol by an individual, interest group, or enterprise where there was a risk that association of the symbol with a particular product or viewpoint might be taken erroneously as evidence of governmental endorsement. Alternatively, it might be argued that the interest asserted by the state court is based on the uniquely universal character of the national flag as a symbol. For the great majority of us, the flag is a symbol of patriotism, of pride in the history of our country, and of the service, sacrifice, and valor of the millions of Americans who in peace and war have joined together to build and to defend a Nation in which self-government and personal liberty endure. It evidences both the unity and diversity which are America. For others the flag carries in varying degrees a different message … It might be said that we all draw something from our national symbol, for it is capable of conveying simultaneously a spectrum of meanings. If it may be destroyed or permanently disfigured, it could be argued that it will lose its capability of mirroring the sentiments of all who view it.
But we need not decide in this case whether the interest advanced by the court below is valid. We assume, arguendo, that it is. The statute is nonetheless unconstitutional as applied to appellant’s activity. There was no risk that appellant’s acts would mislead viewers into assuming that the Government endorsed his viewpoint. To the contrary, he was plainly and peacefully protesting the fact that it did not. Appellant was not charged under the desecration statute nor did he permanently disfigure the flag or destroy it. He displayed it as a flag of his country in a way closely analogous to the manner in which flags have always been used to convey ideas. Moreover, his message was direct, likely to be understood, and within the contours of the First Amendment. Given the protected character of his expression and in light of the fact that no interest the State may have in preserving the physical integrity of a privately owned flag was significantly impaired on these facts, the conviction must be invalidated.
The judgment is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist, with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice White join, dissenting.
… Although I agree with the Court that appellant’s activity was a form of communication, I do not agree that the First Amendment prohibits the State from restricting this activity in furtherance of other important interests. And I believe the rationale by which the Court reaches its conclusion is unsound.
… This Court has long recognized, for example, that some forms of expression are not entitled to any protection at all under the First Amendment, despite the fact that they could reasonably be thought protected under its literal language …
Since a State concededly may impose some limitations on speech directly, it would seem to follow a fortiori that a State may legislate to protect important state interests even though an incidental limitation on free speech results. Virtually any law enacted by a State, when viewed with sufficient ingenuity, could be thought to interfere with some citizen’s preferred means of expression. But no one would argue, I presume, that a State could not prevent the painting of public buildings simply because a particular class of protesters believed their message would best be conveyed through that medium. Had appellant here chosen to tape his peace symbol to a federal courthouse, I have little doubt that he could be prosecuted under a statute properly drawn to protect public property.
Yet the Court today holds that the State of Washington cannot limit use of the American flag, at least insofar as its statute prevents appellant from using a privately owned flag to convey his personal message. Expressing its willingness to assume, arguendo, that Washington has a valid interest in preserving the integrity of the flag, the Court nevertheless finds that interest to be insufficient in this case. To achieve this result the Court first devalues the State’s interest under these circumstances, noting that “no interest the State may have in preserving the physical integrity of a privately owned flag was significantly impaired on these facts. …” The Court takes pains to point out that appellant did not “permanently disfigure the flag or destroy it,” and emphasizes that the flag was displayed “in a way closely analogous to the manner in which flags have always been used to convey ideas.” The Court then restates the notion that such state interests are secondary to messages which are “direct, likely to be understood, and within the contours of the First Amendment.” In my view the first premise demonstrates a total misunderstanding of the State’s interest in the integrity of the American flag, and the second premise places the Court in the position either of ultimately favoring appellant’s message because of its subject matter, a position about which almost all members of the majority have only recently expressed doubt, or, alternatively, of making the flag available for a limitless succession of political and commercial messages. * * *
What appellant here seeks is simply license to use the flag however he pleases, so long as the activity can be tied to a concept of speech, regardless of any state interest in having the flag used only for more limited purposes. I find no reasoning in the Court’s opinion which convinces me that the Constitution requires such license to be given.
The fact that the State has a valid interest in preserving the character of the flag does not mean, of course, that it can employ all conceivable means to enforce it. It certainly could not require all citizens to own the flag, or compel citizens to salute one. Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). It presumably cannot punish criticism of the flag, or the principles for which it stands, any more than it could punish criticism of this country’s policies or ideas. But the statute in this case demands no such allegiance. Its operation does not depend upon whether the flag is used for communicative or noncommunicative purposes; upon whether a particular message is deemed commercial or political; upon whether the use of the flag is respectful or contemptuous; or upon whether any particular segment of the State’s citizenry might applaud or oppose the intended message. It simply withdraws a unique national symbol from the roster of materials that may be used as a background for communications. Since I do not believe the Constitution prohibits Washington from making that decision, I dissent.
Neal R. Wooley etc., et al. v. George Maynard et ux. (1977)
430 U.S. 705 (1977)
Vote: 6-3
Majority: Burger, joined by Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Powell, Stevens and White (in part)
Dissent: White (in part), joined by Blackmun, Rehnquist (in part)
Dissent: Rehnquist, joined by Blackmun
Mr. Chief Justice BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue on appeal is whether the State of New Hampshire may constitutionally enforce criminal sanctions against persons who cover the motto “Live Free or Die” on passenger vehicle license plates because that motto is repugnant to their moral and religious beliefs.
Since 1969 New Hampshire has required that noncommercial vehicles bear license plates embossed with the state motto, “Live Free or Die.” … Another New Hampshire statute makes it a misdemeanor “knowingly (to obscure) … the figures or letters on any number plate.” … The term “letters” in this section has been interpreted by the State’s highest court to include the state motto …
Appellees George Maynard and his wife Maxine are followers of the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith. The Maynards consider the New Hampshire State motto to be repugnant to their moral, religious, and political beliefs, and therefore assert it objectionable to disseminate this message by displaying it on their automobiles. Pursuant to these beliefs, the Maynards began early in 1974 to cover up the motto on their license plates.
On November 27, 1974, Mr. Maynard was issued a citation for violating [the law above mentioned] … After waiving his right to counsel, he entered a plea of not guilty and proceeded to explain his religious objection to the motto. The state trial judge expressed sympathy … but considered himself bound [precedent] … to hold Maynard guilty. A $25 fine was imposed, but execution was suspended during “good behavior.”
On December 28, 1974, Mr. Maynard was again charged … again chose to represent himself; he was found guilty, and fined $50, and sentenced to six months in the Grafton County House of Corrections. The court suspended this jail sentence but ordered Mr. Maynard to also pay the $25 fine for the first offense. Maynard informed the court that, as a matter of conscience, he refused to pay the two fines. The court thereupon sentenced him to jail for a period of 15 days. He has served his full sentence.
Prior to trial on the second offense Mr. Maynard was charged with yet a third violation of § 262:27-c on January 3, 1975. He appeared on this complaint on the same day as for the second offense, and was, again, found guilty. This conviction was “continued for sentence” so that Maynard received no punishment in addition to the 15 days.
On March 4, 1975, appellees brought the present … They sought injunctive and declaratory relief against enforcement … insofar as these [laws] required displaying the state motto on their vehicle license plates, and made it a criminal offense to obscure the motto. On March 11, 1975, the single District Judge issued a temporary restraining order against further arrests and prosecutions of the Maynards. Because the appellees sought an injunction against a state statute on grounds of its unconstitutionality, a three-judge District Court was convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2281. Following a hearing on the merits, the District Court entered an order enjoining the State “from arresting and prosecuting (the Maynards) at any time in the future for covering over that portion of their license plates that contains the motto ‘Live Free or Die.’ ” … We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal …
The District Court held that by covering up the state motto “Live Free or Die” on his automobile license plate, Mr. Maynard was engaging in symbolic speech and that “New Hampshire’s interest in the enforcement of its defacement statute is not sufficient to justify the restriction on (appellee’s) constitutionally protected expression.” … We find it unnecessary to pass on the “symbolic speech” issue, since we find more appropriate First Amendment grounds to affirm the judgment of the District Court. We turn instead to what in our view is the essence of appellees’ objection to the requirement that they display the motto “Live Free or Die” on their automobile license plates. This is succinctly summarized in the statement made by Mr. Maynard in his affidavit filed with the District Court:
“I refuse to be coerced by the State into advertising a slogan which I find morally, ethically, religiously and politically abhorrent.”
We are thus faced with the question of whether the State may constitutionally require an individual to participate in the dissemination of an ideological message by displaying it on his private property in a manner and for the express purpose that it be observed and read by the public. We hold that the State may not do so.
We begin with the proposition that the right of freedom of thought protected by the First Amendment against state action includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all. A system which secures the right to proselytize religious, political, and ideological causes must also guarantee the concomitant right to decline to foster such concepts. The right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of the broader concept of “individual freedom of mind.” …
The Court in Barnette was faced with a state statute which required public school students to participate in daily public ceremonies by honoring the flag both with words and traditional salute gestures … Compelling the affirmative act of a flag salute involved a more serious infringement upon personal liberties than the passive act of carrying the state motto on a license plate, but the difference is essentially one of degree. Here, as in Barnette, we are faced with a state measure which forces an individual, as part of his daily life indeed constantly while his automobile is in public view to be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view he finds unacceptable …
New Hampshire’s statute in effect requires that appellees use their private property as a “mobile billboard” for the State’s ideological message or suffer a penalty, as Maynard already has. As a condition to driving an automobile a virtual necessity for most Americans the Maynards must display “Live Free or Die” to hundreds of people each day. The fact that most individuals agree with the thrust of New Hampshire’s motto is not the test; most Americans also find the flag salute acceptable. The First Amendment protects the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority and to refuse to foster, in the way New Hampshire commands, an idea they find morally objectionable.
Identifying the Maynards’ interests as implicating First Amendment protections does not end our inquiry however. We must also determine whether the State’s countervailing interest is sufficiently compelling to justify requiring appellees to display the state motto on their license plates. US v. O’Brien, (1968). The two interests advanced by the State are that display of the motto (1) facilitates the identification of passenger vehicles, and (2) promotes appreciation of history, individualism, and state pride.
The State first points out that passenger vehicles, but not commercial, trailer, or other vehicles are required to display the state motto. Thus, the argument proceeds, officers of the law are more easily able to determine whether passenger vehicles are carrying the proper plates. However, the record here reveals that New Hampshire passenger license plates normally consist of a specific configuration of letters and numbers, which makes them readily distinguishable from other types of plates, even without reference to the state motto. Even were we to credit the State’s reasons and “even though the governmental purpose be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved …
The State’s second claimed interest is not ideologically neutral. The State is seeking to communicate to others an official view as to proper appreciation of history, state pride, and individualism. Of course, the State may legitimately pursue such interests in any number of ways. However, where the State’s interest is to disseminate an ideology, no matter how acceptable to some, such interest cannot outweigh an individual’s First Amendment right to avoid becoming the courier for such message.
We conclude that the State of New Hampshire may not require appellees to display the state motto upon their vehicle license plates; and, accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the District Court.
Affirmed.
William P. Clark, Secretary of the Interior, et al. v. Community for Creative Non-Violence et al. (1984)
468 U.S. 288 (1984)
Vote: 6-3
Majority: White, joined by Burger, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens and O’Connor
Concurrence: Burger
Dissent: Marshall, joined by Brennan
Justice White delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is whether a National Park Service regulation prohibiting camping in certain parks violates the First Amendment when applied to prohibit demonstrators from sleeping in Lafayette Park and the [National] Mall in connection with a demonstration intended to call attention to the plight of the homeless. We hold that it does not and reverse the contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals.
* The Interior Department, through the National Park Service, is charged with responsibility for the management and maintenance of the National Parks and is authorized to promulgate rules and regulations for the use of the parks in accordance with the purposes for which they were established … The network of National Parks includes the National Memorial-core parks, Lafayette Park and the Mall, which are set in the heart of Washington, D.C., and which are unique resources that the Federal Government holds in trust for the American people … Under the regulations involved in this case, camping in National Parks is permitted only in campgrounds designated for that purpose … No such campgrounds have ever been designated in Lafayette Park or the Mall.
The Interior Department, through the National Park Service, is charged with responsibility for management and maintenance of the National Parks and is authorized to promulgate rules and regulations for the use of the parks in accordance with the purposes for which they were established …
Under the regulations involved in this case, camping in the National Parks is permitted only in campgrounds designated for that purpose. No such campgrounds have ever been designated in Lafayette Park the Mall. Camping is defined as “the use of park land for living accommodation purposes such as sleeping activities, or making preparations to sleep (including the laying down of bedding for the purpose of sleeping), or storing personal belongings, or making any fire, or using any tents or … other structure … for sleeping or doing any digging or earth breaking or carrying on cooking activities.”
These activities, the regulation provides,
“constitute camping when it reasonably appears, in light of all the circumstances, that the participants, in conducting these activities, are in fact using the area as a living accommodation regardless of the intent of the participants or the nature of any other activities in which they may also be engaging.”
Demonstrations for the airing of views or grievances are permitted in the Memorial-core parks, but for the most part only by Park Service permits … Temporary structures may be erected for demonstration purposes but may not be used for camping …
In 1982, the Park Service issued a renewable permit to respondent Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV) to conduct a wintertime demonstration in Lafayette Park and the Mall for the purpose of demonstrating the plight of the homeless. The permit authorized the erection of two symbolic tent cities: 20 tents in Lafayette Park that would accommodate 50 people and 40 tents in the Mall with a capacity of up to 100. The Park Service, however, relying on the above regulations, specifically denied CCNV’s request that demonstrators be permitted to sleep in the symbolic tents.
CCNV and several individuals then filed an action to prevent the application of the no-camping regulations to the proposed demonstration, which, it was claimed, was not covered by the regulation. It was also submitted that the regulations were unconstitutionally vague, had been discriminatorily applied, and could not be applied to prevent sleeping in the tents without violating the First Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the Park Service. The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, reversed. The 11 judges produced 6 opinions. Six of the judges believed that application of the regulations so as to prevent sleeping in the tents would infringe the demonstrators’ First Amendment right of free expression. The other five judges disagreed and would have sustained the regulations as applied to CCNV’s proposed demonstration. We granted the Government’s petition for certiorari and now reverse.
CCNV and several individuals then filed an action to prevent the application of the no-camping regulations to the proposed demonstration, which, it was claimed, was not covered by the regulation. It was also submitted that the regulations were unconstitutionally vague, had been discriminatorily applied, and could not be applied to prevent sleeping in the tents without violating the First Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the Park Service. The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, reversed. Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Watt (1983). The 11 judges produced 6 opinions. Six of the judges believed that application of the regulations so as to prevent sleeping in the tents would infringe the demonstrators’ First Amendment right of free expression. The other five judges disagreed and would have sustained the regulations as applied to CCNV’s proposed demonstration. We granted the Government’s petition for certiorari … and now reverse.
… We need not differ with the view of the Court of Appeals that overnight sleeping in connection with the demonstration is expressive conduct protected to some extent by the First Amendment. We assume for present purposes, but do not decide, that such is the case, cf. United States v. O’Brien … but this assumption only begins the inquiry. Expression, whether oral or written or symbolized by conduct, is subject to reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions. We have often noted that restrictions of this kind are valid provided that they are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and that they leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information …
It is also true that a message may be delivered by conduct that is intended to be communicative and that, in context, would reasonably be understood by the viewer to be communicative … Symbolic expression of this kind may be forbidden or regulated if the conduct itself may constitutionally be regulated, if the regulation is narrowly drawn to further a substantial governmental interest, and if the interest is unrelated to the suppression of free speech. United States v. O’Brien, supra.
We need not differ with the view of the Court of Appeals that overnight sleeping in connection with the demonstration is expressive conduct protected to some extent by the First Amendment. We assume for present purposes, but do not decide, that such is the case, but this assumption only begins the inquiry. Expression, whether oral or written or symbolized by conduct, is subject to reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions. We have often noted that restrictions of this kind are valid provided that they are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest, and that they leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.
Petitioners submit, as they did in the Court of Appeals, that the regulation forbidding sleeping is defensible either as a time, place, or manner restriction or as a regulation of symbolic conduct. We agree with that assessment. The permit that was issued authorized the demonstration but required compliance with 36 CFR § 50.19 (1913), which prohibits “camping” on park lands, that is, the use of park lands for living accommodations … These provisions, including the ban on sleeping, are clearly limitations on the manner in which the demonstration could be carried out. That sleeping, like the symbolic tents themselves, may be expressive and part of the message delivered by the demonstration does not make the ban any less a limitation on the manner of demonstrating, for reasonable time, place, or manner regulations normally have the purpose and direct effect of limiting expression but are nevertheless valid … Neither does the fact that sleeping, arguendo, may be expressive conduct, rather than oral or written expression, render the sleeping prohibition any less a time, place, or manner regulation. To the contrary, the Park Service neither attempts to ban sleeping generally nor to ban it everywhere in the parks. It has established areas for camping and forbids it elsewhere, including Lafayette Park and the Mall. Considered as such, we have very little trouble concluding that the Park Service may prohibit overnight sleeping in the parks involved here.
The requirement that the regulation be content-neutral is clearly satisfied. The courts below accepted that view, and it is not disputed here that the prohibition on camping, and on sleeping specifically, is content-neutral and is not being applied because of disagreement with the message presented. Neither was the regulation faulted, nor could it be, on the ground that without overnight sleeping the plight of the homeless could not be communicated in other ways. The regulation otherwise left the demonstration intact, with its symbolic city, signs, and the presence of those who were willing to take their turns in a day-and-night vigil. Respondents do not suggest that there was, or is, any barrier to delivering to the media, or to the public by other means, the intended message concerning the plight of the homeless.
It is also apparent to us that the regulation narrowly focuses on the Government’s substantial interest in maintaining the parks in the heart of our Capital in an attractive and intact condition, readily available to the millions of people who wish to see and enjoy them by their presence. To permit camping—using these areas as living accommodations—would be totally inimical to these purposes, as would be readily understood by those who have frequented the National Parks across the country and observed the unfortunate consequences of the activities of those who refuse to confine their camping to designated areas.
It is urged by respondents, and the Court of Appeals was of this view, that if the symbolic city of tents was to be permitted and if the demonstrators did not intend to cook, dig, or engage in aspects of camping other than sleeping, the incremental benefit to the parks could not justify the ban on sleeping, which was here an expressive activity said to enhance the message concerning the plight of the poor and homeless. We cannot agree. In the first place, we seriously doubt that the First Amendment requires the Park Service to permit a demonstration in Lafayette Park and the Mall involving a 24-hour vigil and the erection of tents to accommodate 150 people … The sleeping ban, if enforced, would thus effectively limit the nature, extent, and duration of the demonstration and to that extent ease the pressure on the parks.
… With the prohibition, however, as is evident in the case before us, at least some around-the-clock demonstrations lasting for days on end will not materialize, others will be limited in size and duration, and the purposes of the regulation will thus be materially served. Perhaps these purposes would be more effectively and not so clumsily achieved by preventing tents and 24-hour vigils entirely in the core areas. But the Park Service’s decision to permit nonsleeping demonstrations does not, in our view, impugn the camping prohibition as a valuable, but perhaps imperfect, protection to the parks. If the Government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that the National Parks are adequately protected, which we think it has, and if the parks would be more exposed to harm without the sleeping prohibition than with it, the ban is safe from invalidation under the First Amendment as a reasonable regulation of the manner in which a demonstration may be carried out …
We have difficulty, therefore, in understanding why the prohibition against camping, with its ban on sleeping overnight, is not a reasonable time, place, or manner regulation that withstands constitutional scrutiny. Surely the regulation is not unconstitutional on its face. None of its provisions appears unrelated to the ends that it was designed to serve. Nor is it any less valid when applied to prevent camping in Memorial-core parks by those who wish to demonstrate and deliver a message to the public and the central Government. Damage to the parks as well as their partial inaccessibility to other members of the public can as easily result from camping by demonstrators as by non demonstrators. In neither case must the Government tolerate it. All those who would resort to the parks must abide by otherwise valid rules for their use, just as they must observe the traffic laws, sanitation regulations, and laws to preserve the public peace. This is no more than a reaffirmation that reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions on expression are constitutionally acceptable.
… We are unmoved by the Court of Appeals’ view that the challenged regulation is unnecessary, and hence invalid, because there are less speech-restrictive alternatives that could have satisfied the Government interest in preserving park lands. There is no gainsaying that preventing overnight sleeping will avoid a measure of actual or threatened damage to Lafayette Park and the Mall. The Court of Appeals’ suggestions that the Park Service minimize the possible injury by reducing the size, duration, or frequency of demonstrations would still curtail the total allowable expression in which demonstrators could engage, whether by sleeping or otherwise, and these suggestions represent no more than a disagreement with the Park Service over how much protection the core parks require or how an acceptable level of preservation is to be attained. We do not believe, however, that either O’Brien or the time, place, or manner decisions assign to the judiciary the authority to replace the Park Service as the manager of the Nation’s parks or endow the judiciary with the competence to judge how much protection of park lands is wise and how that level of conservation is to be attained.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Texas v. Johnson (1989)
491 U.S. 397 (1989)
Vote: 5-4
Decision: Affirmed
Majority: Brennan, joined by Marshall, Blackmun, Scalia and Kennedy
Concurrence: Kennedy
Dissent: Rehnquist, joined by White and O’Connor
Dissent: Stevens
Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the Court.
After publicly burning an American flag as a means of political protest, Gregory Lee Johnson was convicted of desecrating a flag in violation of Texas law. This case presents the question whether his conviction is consistent with the First Amendment. We hold that it is not.
While the Republican National Convention was taking place in Dallas in 1984, respondent Johnson participated in a political demonstration dubbed the “Republican War Chest Tour.” As explained in literature distributed by the demonstrators and in speeches made by them, the purpose of this event was to protest the policies of the Reagan administration and of certain Dallas-based corporations. The demonstrators marched through the Dallas streets, chanting political slogans and stopping at several corporate locations to stage “die-ins” intended to dramatize the consequences of nuclear war. On several occasions they spray-painted the walls of buildings and overturned potted plants, but Johnson himself took no part in such activities. He did, however, accept an American flag handed to him by a fellow protestor who had taken it from a flagpole outside one of the targeted buildings.
The demonstration ended in front of Dallas City Hall, where Johnson unfurled the American flag, doused it with kerosene, and set it on fire. While the flag burned, the protestors chanted: “America, the red, white, and blue, we spit on you.” After the demonstrators dispersed, a witness to the flag burning collected the flag’s remains and buried them in his backyard. No one was physically injured or threatened with injury, though several witnesses testified that they had been seriously offended by the flag burning.
Of the approximately 100 demonstrators, Johnson alone was charged with a crime. The only criminal offense with which he was charged was the desecration of a venerated object in violation of Tex. Penal Code Ann. 42.09(a)(3) (1989). After a trial, he was convicted, sentenced to one year in prison, and fined $2,000. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas at Dallas affirmed Johnson’s conviction, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, holding that the State could not, consistent with the First Amendment, punish Johnson for burning the flag in these circumstances.
…
Because it reversed Johnson’s conviction on the ground that § 42.09 was unconstitutional as applied to him, the state court did not address Johnson’s argument that the statute was, on its face, unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. We granted certiorari and now affirm.
Johnson was convicted of flag desecration for burning the flag rather than for uttering insulting words. This fact somewhat complicates our consideration of his conviction under the First Amendment. We must first determine whether Johnson’s burning of the flag constituted expressive conduct, permitting him to invoke the First Amendment in challenging his conviction. Spence v. Washington, (1974). If his conduct was expressive, we next decide whether the State’s regulation is related to the suppression of free expression. US v. O’Brien, (1968). If the State’s regulation is not related to expression, then the less stringent standard we announced in O’Brien for regulations of noncommunicative conduct controls. If it is, then we are outside of O’Brien‘s test, and we must ask whether this interest justifies Johnson’s conviction under a more demanding standard. A third possibility is that the State’s asserted interest is simply not implicated on these facts, and in that event the interest drops out of the picture.
The First Amendment literally forbids the abridgment only of “speech,” but we have long recognized that its protection does not end at the spoken or written word. While we have rejected “the view that an apparently limitless variety of conduct can be labeled `speech’ whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea,” O’Brien, we have acknowledged that conduct may be “sufficiently imbued with elements of communication to fall within the scope of the First and Fourteenth Amendments,” Spence.
In deciding whether particular conduct possesses sufficient communicative elements to bring the First Amendment into play, we have asked whether “[a]n intent to convey a particularized message was present, and [whether] the likelihood was great that the message would be understood by those who viewed it.” Spence …
Especially pertinent to this case are our decisions recognizing the communicative nature of conduct relating to flags. That we have had little difficulty identifying an expressive element in conduct relating to flags should not be surprising. The very purpose of a national flag is to serve as a symbol of our country; it is, one might say, “the one visible manifestation of two hundred years of nationhood.” * * * Pregnant with expressive content, the flag as readily signifies this Nation as does the combination of letters found in “America.”
* * * The State of Texas conceded for purposes of its oral argument in this case that Johnson’s conduct was expressive conduct, and this concession seems to us as prudent as was Washington’s in Spence … The expressive, overtly political nature of this conduct was both intentional and overwhelmingly apparent. * * *
The government generally has a freer hand in restricting expressive conduct than it has in restricting the written or spoken word. See O’Brien. It may not, however, proscribe particular conduct because it has expressive elements. * * * It is, in short, not simply the verbal or nonverbal nature of the expression, but the governmental interest at stake, that helps to determine whether a restriction on that expression is valid.
Thus, although we have recognized that where “`speech’ and `nonspeech’ elements are combined in the same course of conduct, a sufficiently important governmental interest in regulating the nonspeech element can justify incidental limitations on First Amendment freedoms,” O’Brien, we have limited the applicability of O’Brien’s relatively lenient standard to those cases in which “the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression.” [We] have highlighted the requirement that the governmental interest in question be unconnected to expression in order to come under O’Brien’s less demanding rule.
In order to decide whether O’Brien’s test applies here, therefore, we must decide whether Texas has asserted an interest in support of Johnson’s conviction that is unrelated to the suppression of expression. If we find that an interest asserted by the State is simply not implicated on the facts before us, we need not ask whether O’Brien’s test applies. The State offers two separate interests to justify this conviction: preventing breaches of the peace and preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity. We hold that the first interest is not implicated on this record and that the second is related to the suppression of expression.
Texas claims that its interest in preventing breaches of the peace justifies Johnson’s conviction for flag desecration. However, no disturbance of the peace actually occurred or threatened to occur because of Johnson’s burning of the flag. Although the State stresses the disruptive behavior of the protestors during their march toward City Hall, it admits that “no actual breach of the peace occurred at the time of the flag burning or in response to the flag burning.”
* * * The State’s position, therefore, amounts to a claim that an audience that takes serious offense at particular expression is necessarily likely to disturb the peace and that the expression may be prohibited on this basis. Our precedents do not countenance such a presumption. * * *
Thus, we have not permitted the government to assume that every expression of a provocative idea will incite a riot, but have instead required careful consideration of the actual circumstances surrounding such expression, asking whether the expression “is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio, (1969) …
We thus conclude that the State’s interest in maintaining order is not implicated on these facts. The State need not worry that our holding will disable it from preserving the peace … And, in fact, Texas already has a statute specifically prohibiting breaches of the peace, which tends to confirm that Texas need not punish this flag desecration in order to keep the peace.
The State also asserts an interest in preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity. In Spence, we acknowledged that the government’s interest in preserving the flag’s special symbolic value “is directly related to expression in the context of activity” such as affixing a peace symbol to a flag. We are equally persuaded that this interest is related to expression in the case of Johnson’s burning of the flag. The State, apparently, is concerned that such conduct will lead people to believe either that the flag does not stand for nationhood and national unity, but instead reflects other, less positive concepts, or that the concepts reflected in the flag do not in fact exist, that is, that we do not enjoy unity as a Nation. These concerns blossom only when a person’s treatment of the flag communicates some message, and thus are related “to the suppression of free expression” within the meaning of O’Brien. We are thus outside of O’Brien’s test altogether.
It remains to consider whether the State’s interest in preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity justifies Johnson’s conviction.
* * * Johnson was not, we add, prosecuted for the expression of just any idea; he was prosecuted for his expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of this country, expression situated at the core of our First Amendment values.
Moreover, Johnson was prosecuted because he knew that his politically charged expression would cause “serious offense.” If he had burned the flag as a means of disposing of it because it was dirty or torn, he would not have been convicted of flag desecration under this Texas law: federal law designates burning as the preferred means of disposing of a flag “when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display,” 36 U.S.C. 176(k), and Texas has no quarrel with this means of disposal. The Texas law is thus not aimed at protecting the physical integrity of the flag in all circumstances, but is designed instead to protect it only against impairments that would cause serious offense to others. Texas concedes as much. * * * Johnson’s political expression was restricted because of the content of the message he conveyed. We must therefore subject the State’s asserted interest in preserving the special symbolic character of the flag to “the most exacting scrutiny.”
Texas argues that its interest in preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity survives this close analysis. Quoting extensively from the writings of this Court chronicling the flag’s historic and symbolic role in our society, the State emphasizes the “`special place'” reserved for the flag in our Nation. The State’s argument is not that it has an interest simply in maintaining the flag as a symbol of something, no matter what it symbolizes; indeed, if that were the State’s position, it would be difficult to see how that interest is endangered by highly symbolic conduct such as Johnson’s. Rather, the State’s claim is that it has an interest in preserving the flag as a symbol of nationhood and national unity, a symbol with a determinate range of meanings. According to Texas, if one physically treats the flag in a way that would tend to cast doubt on either the idea that nationhood and national unity are the flag’s referents or that national unity actually exists, the message conveyed thereby is a harmful one and therefore may be prohibited.
If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
We have not recognized an exception to this principle even where our flag has been involved. * * *
In short, nothing in our precedents suggests that a State may foster its own view of the flag by prohibiting expressive conduct relating to it. To bring its argument outside our precedents, Texas attempts to convince us that even if its interest in preserving the flag’s symbolic role does not allow it to prohibit words or some expressive conduct critical of the flag, it does permit it to forbid the outright destruction of the flag. The State’s argument cannot depend here on the distinction between written or spoken words and nonverbal conduct. That distinction, we have shown, is of no moment where the nonverbal conduct is expressive, as it is here, and where the regulation of that conduct is related to expression, as it is here. In addition, both Barnette and Spence involved expressive conduct, not only verbal communication, and both found that conduct protected.
Texas’ focus on the precise nature of Johnson’s expression, moreover, misses the point of our prior decisions: their enduring lesson, that the government may not prohibit expression simply because it disagrees with its message, is not dependent on the particular mode in which one chooses to express an idea. If we were to hold that a State may forbid flag burning wherever it is likely to endanger the flag’s symbolic role, but allow it wherever burning a flag promotes that role – as where, for example, a person ceremoniously burns a dirty flag – we would be saying that when it comes to impairing the flag’s physical integrity, the flag itself may be used as a symbol – as a substitute for the written or spoken word or a “short cut from mind to mind” – only in one direction. We would be permitting a State to “prescribe what shall be orthodox” by saying that one may burn the flag to convey one’s attitude toward it and its referents only if one does not endanger the flag’s representation of nationhood and national unity.
We never before have held that the Government may ensure that a symbol be used to express only one view of that symbol or its referents. * * *
There is, moreover, no indication – either in the text of the Constitution or in our cases interpreting it – that a separate juridical category exists for the American flag alone … The First Amendment does not guarantee that other concepts virtually sacred to our Nation as a whole – such as the principle that discrimination on the basis of race is odious and destructive – will go unquestioned in the marketplace of ideas. See Brandenburg. We decline, therefore, to create for the flag an exception to the joust of principles protected by the First Amendment …
We are tempted to say, in fact, that the flag’s deservedly cherished place in our community will be strengthened, not weakened, by our holding today. Our decision is a reaffirmation of the principles of freedom and inclusiveness that the flag best reflects, and of the conviction that our toleration of criticism such as Johnson’s is a sign and source of our strength. Indeed, one of the proudest images of our flag, the one immortalized in our own national anthem, is of the bombardment it survived at Fort McHenry. It is the Nation’s resilience, not its rigidity, that Texas sees reflected in the flag – and it is that resilience that we reassert today.
The way to preserve the flag’s special role is not to punish those who feel differently about these matters. It is to persuade them that they are wrong … And, precisely because it is our flag that is involved, one’s response to the flag burner may exploit the uniquely persuasive power of the flag itself. We can imagine no more appropriate response to burning a flag than waving one’s own, no better way to counter a flag burner’s message than by saluting the flag that burns, no surer means of preserving the dignity even of the flag that burned than by – as one witness here did – according its remains a respectful burial. We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.
… The judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.
Justice Kennedy, concurring
I write not to qualify the words Justice BRENNAN chooses so well, for he says with power all that is necessary to explain our ruling. I join his opinion without reservation, but with a keen sense that this case, like others before us from time to time, exacts its personal toll. This prompts me to add to our pages these few remarks.
The case before us illustrates better than most that the judicial power is often difficult in its exercise. We cannot here ask another Branch to share responsibility, as when the argument is made that a statute is flawed or incomplete. For we are presented with a clear and simple statute to be judged against a pure command of the Constitution. The outcome can be laid at no door but ours.
The hard fact is that sometimes we must make decisions we do not like. We make them because they are right, right in the sense that the law and the Constitution, as we see them, compel the result. And so great is our commitment to the process that, except in the rare case, we do not pause to express distaste for the result, perhaps for fear of undermining a valued principle that dictates the decision. This is one of those rare cases.
Our colleagues in dissent advance powerful arguments why respondent may be convicted for his expression, reminding us that among those who will be dismayed by our holding will be some who have had the singular honor of carrying the flag in battle. And I agree that the flag holds a lonely place of honor in an age when absolutes are distrusted and simple truths are burdened by unneeded apologetics.
With all respect to those views, I do not believe the Constitution gives us the right to rule as the dissenting Members of the Court urge, however painful this judgment is to announce. Though symbols often are what we ourselves make of them, the flag is constant in expressing beliefs Americans share, beliefs in law and peace and that freedom which sustains the human spirit. The case here today forces recognition of the costs to which those beliefs commit us. It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt.
For all the record shows, this respondent was not a philosopher and perhaps did not even possess the ability to comprehend how repellent his statements must be to the Republic itself. But whether or not he could appreciate the enormity of the offense he gave, the fact remains that his acts were speech, in both the technical and the fundamental meaning of the Constitution. So I agree with the Court that he must go free.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, with whom Justice White and Justice O’Connor join, dissenting.
… For more than 200 years, the American flag has occupied a unique position as the symbol of our Nation, a uniqueness that justifies a governmental prohibition against flag burning in the way respondent Johnson did here. * * *
… The flag is not simply another “idea” or “point of view” competing for recognition in the marketplace of ideas. Millions and millions of Americans regard it with an almost mystical reverence regardless of what sort of social, political, or philosophical beliefs they may have. I cannot agree that the First Amendment invalidates the Act of Congress, and the laws of 48 of the 50 States, which make criminal the public burning of the flag. * * *
Our Constitution wisely places limits on powers of legislative majorities to act, … Uncritical extension of constitutional protection to the burning of the flag risks the frustration of the very purpose for which organized governments are instituted. The Court decides that the American flag is just another symbol, about which not only must opinions pro and con be tolerated, but for which the most minimal public respect may not be enjoined. The government may conscript men into the Armed Forces where they must fight and perhaps die for the flag, but the government may not prohibit the public burning of the banner under which they fight. I would uphold the Texas statute as applied in this case.
Stevens, J., dissenting.
… In my judgment rules that apply to a host of other symbols, such as state flags, armbands, or various privately promoted emblems of political or commercial identity, are not necessarily controlling. Even if flag burning could be considered just another species of symbolic speech under the logical application of the rules that the Court has developed in its interpretation of the First Amendment in other contexts, this case has an intangible dimension that makes those rules inapplicable.
A country’s flag is a symbol of more than “nationhood and national unity.” It also signifies the ideas that characterize the society that has chosen that emblem as well as the special history that has animated the growth and power of those ideas. The fleurs-de-lis and the tricolor both symbolized “nationhood and national unity,” but they had vastly different meanings. The message conveyed by some flags – the swastika, for example – may survive long after it has outlived its usefulness as a symbol of regimented unity in a particular nation.
So it is with the American flag. It is more than a proud symbol of the courage, the determination, and the gifts of nature that transformed 13 fledgling Colonies into a world power. It is a symbol of freedom, of equal opportunity, of religious tolerance, and of good will for other peoples who share our aspirations. The symbol carries its message to dissidents both at home and abroad who may have no interest at all in our national unity or survival.
The value of the flag as a symbol cannot be measured. Even so, I have no doubt that the interest in preserving that value for the future is both significant and legitimate. Conceivably that value will be enhanced by the Court’s conclusion that our national commitment to free expression is so strong that even the United States as ultimate guarantor of that freedom is without power to prohibit the desecration of its unique symbol. But I am unpersuaded. The creation of a federal right to post bulletin boards and graffiti on the Washington Monument might enlarge the market for free expression, but at a cost I would not pay. Similarly, in my considered judgment, sanctioning the public desecration of the flag will tarnish its value – both for those who cherish the ideas for which it waves and for those who desire to don the robes of martyrdom by burning it. That tarnish is not justified by the trivial burden on free expression occasioned by requiring that an available, alternative mode of expression – including uttering words critical of the flag, be employed.
It is appropriate to emphasize certain propositions that are not implicated by this case. The statutory prohibition of flag desecration does not “prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943). The statute does not compel any conduct or any profession of respect for any idea or any symbol.
… The Court is therefore quite wrong in blandly asserting that respondent “was prosecuted for his expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of this country, expression situated at the core of our First Amendment values.” Respondent was prosecuted because of the method he chose to express his dissatisfaction with those policies. Had he chosen to spray-paint – or perhaps convey with a motion picture projector – his message of dissatisfaction on the facade of the Lincoln Memorial, there would be no question about the power of the Government to prohibit his means of expression. The prohibition would be supported by the legitimate interest in preserving the quality of an important national asset …
I respectfully dissent.
United States v. Eichman (1990)
496 U.S. 310 (1990)
Vote: 5-4
Decision: Reversed
Majority: Brennan, joined by Marshall, Blackmun, Scalia and Kennedy
Dissent: Stevens, joined by Rehnquist, White and O’Connor
Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the court.
In these consolidated appeals, we consider whether appellees’ prosecution for burning a United States flag in violation of the Flag Protection Act of 1989 is consistent with the First Amendment. Applying our recent decision in Texas v. Johnson, the District Courts held that the Act cannot constitutionally be applied to appellees. We affirm.
* In No. 89-1433, the United States prosecuted certain appellees for violating the Flag Protection Act of 1989, 103 Stat. 777, 18 U.S.C. § 700 (1988 ed. and Supp. I), by knowingly setting fire to several United States flags on the steps of the United States Capitol while protesting various aspects of the Government’s domestic and foreign policy. In No. 89-1434, the United States prosecuted other appellees for violating the Act by knowingly setting fire to a United States flag in Seattle while protesting the Act’s passage. In each case, the respective appellees moved to dismiss the flag-burning charge on the ground that the Act, both on its face and as applied, violates the First Amendment. Both the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington (1990), and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (1990), following Johnson, supra, held the Act unconstitutional as applied to appellees and dismissed the charges. The United States appealed both decisions directly to this Court …
Last Term in Johnson, we held that a Texas statute criminalizing the desecration of venerated objects, including the United States flag, was unconstitutional as applied to an individual who had set such a flag on fire during a political demonstration …
After our decision in Johnson, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989. The Act provides in relevant part:
After our decision in Johnson, Congress passed the Flag Protection Act of 1989. The Act provides in relevant part:
“(a)(1) Whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
“(2) This subsection does not prohibit any conduct consisting of the disposal of a flag when it has become worn or soiled.
“(b) As used in this section, the term ‘flag of the United States’ means any flag of the United States, or any part thereof, made of any substance, of any size, in a form that is commonly displayed.” 18 U.S.C. § 700 (1988 ed., Supp. I).
… The only remaining question is whether the Flag Protection Act is sufficiently distinct from the Texas statute that it may constitutionally be applied to proscribe appellees’ expressive conduct.
The Government contends that the Flag Protection Act is constitutional because, unlike the statute addressed in Johnson, the Act does not target expressive conduct on the basis of the content of its message. The Government asserts an interest in “protect[ing] the physical integrity of the flag under all circumstances” in order to safeguard the flag’s identity ” ‘as the unique and unalloyed symbol of the Nation.'” … The Act proscribes conduct (other than disposal) that damages or mistreats a flag, without regard to the actor’s motive, his intended message, or the likely effects of his conduct on onlookers. By contrast, the Texas statute expressly prohibited only those acts of physical flag desecration “that the actor knows will seriously offend” onlookers, and the former federal statute prohibited only those acts of desecration that “cas[t] contempt upon” the flag.
Although the Flag Protection Act contains no explicit content-based limitation on the scope of prohibited conduct, it is nevertheless clear that the Government’s asserted interest is “related ‘to the suppression of free expression,'” and concerned with the content of such expression. The Government’s interest in protecting the “physical integrity” of a privately owned flag rests upon a perceived need to preserve the flag’s status as a symbol of our Nation and certain national ideals. But the mere destruction or disfigurement of a particular physical manifestation of the symbol, without more, does not diminish or otherwise affect the symbol itself in any way. For example, the secret destruction of a flag in one’s own basement would not threaten the flag’s recognized meaning. Rather, the Government’s desire to preserve the flag as a symbol for certain national ideals is implicated “only when a person’s treatment of the flag communicates [a] message” to others that is inconsistent with those ideals … Moreover, the precise language of the Act’s prohibitions confirms Congress’ interest in the communicative impact of flag destruction. The Act criminalizes the conduct of anyone who “knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag.”. … Each of the specified terms—with the possible exception of “burns”—unmistakably connotes disrespectful treatment of the flag and suggests a focus on those acts likely to damage the flag’s symbolic value. And the explicit exemption in § 700(a)(2) for disposal of “worn or soiled” flags protects certain acts traditionally associated with patriotic respect for the flag.
As we explained in Johnson, …”[I]f we were to hold that a State may forbid flag burning wherever it is likely to endanger the flag’s symbolic role, but allow it wherever burning a flag promotes that role—as where, for example, a person ceremoniously burns a dirty flag—we would be … permitting a State to ‘prescribe what shall be orthodox’ by saying that one may burn the flag to convey one’s attitude toward it and its referents only if one does not endanger the flag’s representation of nationhood and national unity.” Although Congress cast the Flag Protection Act of 1989 in somewhat broader terms than the Texas statute at issue in Johnson, the Act still suffers from the same fundamental flaw: It suppresses expression out of concern for its likely communicative impact … The Act therefore must be subjected to “the most exacting scrutiny,” and for the reasons stated in Johnson … the Government’s interest cannot justify its infringement on First Amendment rights. We decline the Government’s invitation to reassess this conclusion in light of Congress’ recent recognition of a purported “national consensus” favoring a prohibition on flag burning. … Even assuming such a consensus exists, any suggestion that the Government’s interest in suppressing speech becomes more weighty as popular opposition to that speech grows is foreign to the First Amendment.
… Government may create national symbols, promote them, and encourage their respectful treatment. But the Flag Protection Act of 1989 goes well beyond this by criminally proscribing expressive conduct because of its likely communicative impact.
… ”If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the Government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.” … Punishing desecration of the flag dilutes the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering. The judgments of the District Courts are
Affirmed.
Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al. v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights et al. (2006)
547 U.S. 47 (2006)
Vote: 8-0
Majority: Roberts, joined by Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg and Breyer
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court
When law schools began restricting the access of military recruiters to their students because of disagreement with the Government’s policy on homosexuals in the military, Congress responded by enacting the Solomon Amendment … That provision specifies that if any part of an institution of higher education denies military recruiters access equal to that provided other recruiters, the entire institution would lose certain federal funds. The law schools responded by suing, alleging that the Solomon Amendment infringed their First Amendment freedoms of speech and association. The District Court disagreed but was reversed by a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which ordered the District Court to enter a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Solomon Amendment. We granted certiorari.
Respondent Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. (FAIR), is an association of law schools and law faculties … Its declared mission is “to promote academic freedom, support educational institutions in opposing discrimination and vindicate the rights of institutions of higher education.” … FAIR members have adopted policies expressing their opposition to discrimination based on, among other factors, sexual orientation … They would like to restrict military recruiting on their campuses because they object to the policy Congress has adopted with respect to homosexuals in the military … The Solomon Amendment, however, forces institutions to choose between enforcing their nondiscrimination policy against military recruiters in this way and continuing to receive specified federal funding.
In 2003, FAIR sought a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Solomon Amendment, which at that time—it has since been amended—prevented the Department of Defense (DOD) from providing specified federal funds to any institution of higher education “that either prohibits, or in effect prevents” military recruiters “from gaining entry to campuses.” … Although the statute required only “entry to campuses,” the Government—after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001—adopted an informal policy of “ ‘requir[ing] universities to provide military recruiters access to students equal in quality and scope to that provided to other recruiters.’ ” … Prior to the adoption of this policy, some law schools sought to promote their nondiscrimination policies while still complying with the Solomon Amendment by having military recruiters interview on the undergraduate campus … But under the equal access policy, military recruiters had to be permitted to interview at the law schools, if other recruiters did so.
FAIR argued that this forced inclusion and equal treatment of military recruiters violated the law schools’ First Amendment freedoms of speech and association. According to FAIR, the Solomon Amendment was unconstitutional because it forced law schools to choose between exercising their First Amendment right to decide whether to disseminate or accommodate a military recruiter’s message, and ensuring the availability of federal funding for their universities.
We granted certiorari.
… The statute provides an exception for an institution with “a longstanding policy of pacifism based on historical religious affiliation.” … The Government and FAIR agree on what this statute requires: In order for a law school and its university to receive federal funding, the law school must offer military recruiters the same access to its campus and students that it provides to the nonmilitary recruiter receiving the most favorable access …
… [I]t [the Solomon Amendment] looks to the result achieved by the policy and compares the “access … provided” military recruiters to that provided other recruiters. Applying the same policy to all recruiters is therefore insufficient to comply with the statute if it results in a greater level of access for other recruiters than for the military. Law schools must ensure that their recruiting policy operates in such a way that military recruiters are given access to students at least equal to that “provided to any other employer.” (Emphasis added.)
Not only does the text support this view, but this interpretation is necessary to give effect to the Solomon Amendment’s recent revision. Under the prior version, the statute required “entry” without specifying how military recruiters should be treated once on campus … Congress responded directly to this decision by codifying the DOD policy …
We therefore read the Solomon Amendment the way both the Government and FAIR interpret it. It is insufficient for a law school to treat the military as it treats all other employers who violate its nondiscrimination policy. Under the statute, military recruiters must be given the same access as recruiters who comply with the policy.
The Constitution grants Congress the power to “provide for the common Defence,” “[t]o raise and support Armies,” and “[t]o provide and maintain a Navy.” Congress’ power in this area is “broad and sweeping,” … But the fact that legislation that raises armies is subject to First Amendment constraints does not mean that we ignore the purpose of this legislation when determining its constitutionality …
Although Congress has broad authority to legislate on matters of military recruiting, it nonetheless chose to secure campus access for military recruiters indirectly, through its Spending Clause power. The Solomon Amendment gives universities a choice: Either allow military recruiters the same access to students afforded any other recruiter or forgo certain federal funds. Congress’ decision to proceed indirectly does not reduce the deference given to Congress in the area of military affairs. Congress’ choice to promote its goal by creating a funding condition deserves at least as deferential treatment as if Congress had imposed a mandate on universities.
…
This case does not require us to determine when a condition placed on university funding goes beyond the “reasonable” choice … and becomes an unconstitutional condition. It is clear that a funding condition cannot be unconstitutional if it could be constitutionally imposed directly. Speiser v. Randall, (1958). Because the First Amendment would not prevent Congress from directly imposing the Solomon Amendment’s access requirement, the statute does not place an unconstitutional condition on the receipt of federal funds.
The Solomon Amendment neither limits what law schools may say nor requires them to say anything. Law schools remain free under the statute to express whatever views they may have on the military’s congressionally mandated employment policy, all the while retaining eligibility for federal funds … As a general matter, the Solomon Amendment regulates conduct, not speech. It affects what law schools must do—afford equal access to military recruiters—not what they may or may not say.
…
Some of this Court’s leading First Amendment precedents have established the principle that freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say. …
The Solomon Amendment does not require any similar expression by law schools. Nonetheless, recruiting assistance provided by the schools often includes elements of speech. For example, schools may send e-mails or post notices on bulletin boards on an employer’s behalf … Law schools offering such services to other recruiters must also send e-mails and post notices on behalf of the military to comply with the Solomon Amendment. As FAIR points out, these compelled statements of fact (“The U. S. Army recruiter will meet interested students in Room 123 at 11 a.m.”), like compelled statements of opinion, are subject to First Amendment scrutiny …
This sort of recruiting assistance, however, is a far cry from the compelled speech in Barnette and Wooley. The Solomon Amendment, unlike the laws at issue in those cases, does not dictate the content of the speech at all, which is only “compelled” if, and to the extent, the school provides such speech for other recruiters. There is nothing in this case approaching a Government-mandated pledge or motto that the school must endorse.
The compelled speech to which the law schools point is plainly incidental to the Solomon Amendment’s regulation of conduct … Congress, for example, can prohibit employers from discriminating in hiring on the basis of race. The fact that this will require an employer to take down a sign reading “White Applicants Only” hardly means that the law should be analyzed as one regulating the employer’s speech rather than conduct … Compelling a law school that sends scheduling e-mails for other recruiters to send one for a military recruiter is simply not the same as forcing a student to pledge allegiance, or forcing a Jehovah’s Witness to display the motto “Live Free or Die,” and it trivializes the freedom protected in Barnette and Wooley to suggest that it is.
… The compelled-speech violation in each of our prior cases, however, resulted from the fact that the complaining speaker’s own message was affected by the speech it was forced to accommodate. The expressive nature of a parade was central to our holding in Hurley … As a result, we held that the State’s public accommodation law, as applied to a private parade, “violates the fundamental rule of protection under the First Amendment, that a speaker has the autonomy to choose the content of his own message.”
… In this case, accommodating the military’s message does not affect the law schools’ speech, because the schools are not speaking when they host interviews and recruiting receptions. Unlike a parade organizer’s choice of parade contingents, a law school’s decision to allow recruiters on campus is not inherently expressive. Law schools facilitate recruiting to assist their students in obtaining jobs. A law school’s recruiting services lack the expressive quality of a parade, a newsletter, or the editorial page of a newspaper; its accommodation of a military recruiter’s message is not compelled speech because the accommodation does not sufficiently interfere with any message of the school.
…
Having rejected the view that the Solomon Amendment impermissibly regulates speech, we must still consider whether the expressive nature of the conduct regulated by the statute brings that conduct within the First Amendment ’s protection. In O’Brien, we recognized that some forms of “‘symbolic speech’” were deserving of First Amendment protection. But we rejected the view that “conduct can be labeled ‘speech’ whenever the person engaging in the conduct intends thereby to express an idea.” Instead, we have extended First Amendment protection only to conduct that is inherently expressive. In Texas v. Johnson, for example, we applied O’Brien and held that burning the American flag was sufficiently expressive to warrant First Amendment protection.
Unlike flag burning, the conduct regulated by the Solomon Amendment is not inherently expressive … The expressive component of a law school’s actions is not created by the conduct itself but by the speech that accompanies it. The fact that such explanatory speech is necessary is strong evidence that the conduct at issue here is not so inherently expressive that it warrants protection under O’Brien. If combining speech and conduct were enough to create expressive conduct, a regulated party could always transform conduct into “speech” simply by talking about it … Neither O’Brien nor its progeny supports such a result.
… We have held that “an incidental burden on speech is no greater than is essential, and therefore is permissible under O’Brien, so long as the neutral regulation promotes a substantial government interest that would be achieved less effectively absent the regulation.” The Solomon Amendment clearly satisfies this requirement. Military recruiting promotes the substantial Government interest in raising and supporting the Armed Forces—an objective that would be achieved less effectively if the military were forced to recruit on less favorable terms than other employers … The issue is not whether other means of raising an army and providing for a navy might be adequate … That is a judgment for Congress, not the courts … It suffices that the means chosen by Congress add to the effectiveness of military recruitment. Accordingly, even if the Solomon Amendment were regarded as regulating expressive conduct, it would not violate the First Amendment under O’Brien.
… FAIR argues that the Solomon Amendment violates law schools’ freedom of expressive association. According to FAIR, law schools’ ability to express their message that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong is significantly affected by the presence of military recruiters on campus and the schools’ obligation to assist them …
… The Solomon Amendment, however, does not similarly affect a law school’s associational rights. To comply with the statute, law schools must allow military recruiters on campus and assist them in whatever way the school chooses to assist other employers. Law schools therefore “associate” with military recruiters in the sense that they interact with them. But recruiters are not part of the law school. Recruiters are, by definition, outsiders who come onto campus for the limited purpose of trying to hire students—not to become members of the school’s expressive association. This distinction is critical …
… Students and faculty are free to associate to voice their disapproval of the military’s message; nothing about the statute affects the composition of the group by making group membership less desirable. The Solomon Amendment therefore does not violate a law school’s First Amendment rights. A military recruiter’s mere presence on campus does not violate a law school’s right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter’s message.
…
In this case, FAIR has attempted to stretch a number of First Amendment doctrines well beyond the sort of activities these doctrines protect. The law schools object to having to treat military recruiters like other recruiters, but that regulation of conduct does not violate the First Amendment . To the extent that the Solomon Amendment incidentally affects expression, the law schools’ effort to cast themselves as just like the schoolchildren in Barnette, the parade organizers in Hurley, and the Boy Scouts in Dale plainly overstates the expressive nature of their activity and the impact of the Solomon Amendment on it, while exaggerating the reach of our First Amendment precedents.
Because Congress could require law schools to provide equal access to military recruiters without violating the schools’ freedoms of speech or association, the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the Solomon Amendment likely violates the First Amendment . We therefore reverse the judgment of the Third Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Alito took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.