Title: First Amendment Right Violations - Baldani Law Group
Headings: First Amendment Right Violations
First Amendment Right Violations
Examples of First Amendment Violations
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 1969
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 1940
Edwards v. South Carolina, 1963
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Content: Cantwell v. Connecticut, 1940
In this case, the Court was asked to decide if a Connecticut state statute violated the First Amendment because it required a permit to be obtained in order to solicit for religious purposes. The Supreme Court rules unanimously against the state. The reasoning behind the decision was that the state would effectively be determining religious truth by deciding which causes were religious and which were not as they issued or denied permits. This was deemed to be a violation of both the First and Fourteenth Amendments. This case is also particularly important because it is the first time the Supreme Court applied the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to state government as well as federal. Edwards v. South Carolina, 1963
This case involved 187 black high school and college students who had assembled to protest laws in South Carolina which they alleged “prohibited Negro privileges”. The students had gathered peacefully at the site of the state government and were told by police that they would have to disperse within 15 minutes or face the possibility of being arrested. The students refused to leave and instead sang patriotic and religious songs. They were eventually arrested and convicted of breach of the peace. When the case eventually reached the Supreme Court, the Court ruled that South Carolina has violated the students’ First Amendment rights in three different ways.