| A | B |
|---|
| amendment 14 | Granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States; banned states from denying any person life, liberty, or property without due process of law; and banned states from denying any person equal protection under the laws. |
| assembly | to gether together |
| association | to connect with in terms of similar beliefs |
| Bill of Rights | First ten amendments to the Constitution that restrict the federal government's power to take away certain basic rights of people. |
| clear and present danger | a risk or threat to safety that is serious and imminent; justifies limitations of rights |
| due process clause | Part of the Fourteenth Amendment that guarantees that no state can deny basic rights to its people. |
| establishment clause | The clause in the First Amendment that says the government may not establish an official religion. This clause separates church and state. |
| free exercise clause | Protection of the First Amendment prohibiting the government from unduly interfering with the free exercise of religion. |
| incorporation doctrine | The process of incorporating, or including, the guarantees in the Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause – which applies the protection on the state and local level |
| libel | False written or published statements intended to damage a person’s reputation. |
| petition | A letter to a government official commenting on a law or a formal written request signed by thousands of citizens. |
| prior restraint | censorship of information before it is published or broadcast. |
| pure speech | The verbal expression of thought and opinion before and audience that has chosen to listen. |
| seditious | Verbally advocating the overthrow of the government. |
| slander | False and malicious use of spoken words. |
| symbolic speech | Expression by conduct; communicating ideas through facial expressions, body language, or by carrying a sign or wearing an armband. |
| Tinker v Des Moines | Protected students right to symbolic speech on the grounds that the speech did not cause a material and substantial disruption. |
| Bethel School District v Fraser | Retreated form the expansive view of the First Amendment rights of public school students found in Tinker. Here the Supreme Court held that a public high school student did not have a First amendment right to give a sexually aggressive speech ate a school-sponsored assembly, and upheld the three-day suspension of the student who made the speech. In deciding the case, the Court made it clear that students have only a limited right of free speech. According to the Court, a school does not have to tolerate speech that is inconsistent with its educational mission, even if the same speech would be protected elsewhere. |
| Hazelwood School District v Kuhlmeier | Held that public school officials are in control of the editorial content of a student newspaper published as part of the school’s journalism curriculum. Students’ First Amendment rights do not include deciding what will and will not be published in a student newspaper that is tied to the school’s curriculum. |
| Engle v Vitale | Held that the establishment clause was violated by a public school district’s practice of starting each school day with a prayer which began: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee.” The Supreme Court explained that under the establishment clause religion is a personal matter to be guided by individual choice. In short, the Court concluded that the establishment clause was intended to keep government out of religion, thus making it unacceptable for government to compose prayers for anyone to recite. |
| Texas v Johnson | Held that burning an American flag is expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment. Expressive conduct, the Supreme Court explained, is conduct that is intended by the actor to convey a message, and the message that the actor intends to convey is one that observers likely would understand. The Court applied the O’Brien test under which the government can punish a person for conduct that might have an expressive component as long as the punishment advances an important government interest that is unrelated to the content of the speech. |
| Roe v Wade | Held that females have a constitutional right under various provisions of the Constitution - most notably, the due process clause – to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. The Supreme Court’s decision in this case was the most significant in a long line of decisions over a period of 50 years that recognized a constitutional right of privacy, even though the word privacy is not found in the Constitution. |
