New York Times Co. v. Sullivan

(Redirected from L. B. Sullivan)

1964 United States Supreme Court case

The New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 6, 1964 Decided March 9, 1964
Full case name	The New York Times Company v. L. B. Sullivan Ralph D. Albernathy, et al. v. L. B. Sullivan
Citations	376 U.S. 254 (more)84 S. Ct. 710; 11 L. Ed. 2d 686; 1964 U.S. LEXIS 1655; 95 A.L.R.2d 1412; 1 Media L. Rep. 1527
Argument	Oral argument
Reargument	Reargument
Case history
Prior	Judgment for plaintiff, Circuit Court, Montgomery County, Alabama; motion for new trial denied, Circuit Court, Montgomery County; affirmed, 144 So. 2d 25 (Ala. 1962); cert. granted, 371 U.S. 946 (1963).
Holding
A newspaper cannot be held liable for making false defamatory statements about the official conduct of a public official unless the statements were made with actual malice.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart Byron White · Arthur Goldberg
Case opinions
Majority	Brennan, joined by Warren, Clark, Harlan, Stewart, White
Concurrence	Black, joined by Douglas
Concurrence	Goldberg (in result), joined by Douglas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restrict the ability of a public official to sue for defamation. The decision held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or candidate for public office, then not only must they prove the normal elements of defamation—publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party—they must also prove that the statement was made with "actual malice", meaning the defendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it might be false. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is frequently ranked as one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the modern era.

The underlying case began in 1960, when The New York Times published a full-page advertisement by supporters of Martin Luther King Jr. that criticized the police in Montgomery, Alabama, for their treatment of civil rights movement protesters. The ad had several factual errors regarding the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether students had been expelled for participating. Based on the inaccuracies, Montgomery police commissioner L. B. Sullivan sued the Times for defamation in the local Alabama county court. After the judge ruled that the advertisement's inaccuracies were defamatory per se, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Sullivan and awarded him $500,000 in damages. The Times appealed first to the Supreme Court of Alabama, which affirmed the verdict, and then to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.

In March 1964, the Court issued a 9–0 decision holding that the Alabama court's verdict violated the First Amendment. The Court reasoned that defending the principle of wide-open debate will inevitably include "vehement, caustic, and...unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." The Supreme Court's decision, and its adoption of the actual malice standard, reduced the financial exposure from potential defamation claims and frustrated efforts by public officials to use these claims to suppress political criticism. The Supreme Court has since extended Sullivan's higher legal standard for defamation to all "public figures". This has made it extremely difficult for a public figure to win a defamation lawsuit in the United States.

Background

On March 29, 1960, The New York Times carried a full-page advertisement titled "Heed Their Rising Voices", paid for by the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King and the Struggle for Freedom in the South. In the advertisement, the Committee solicited funds to defend Martin Luther King Jr., against an Alabama perjury indictment. The advertisement described actions against civil rights protesters, some of them inaccurately, some of which involved the police force of Montgomery, Alabama. Referring to Alabama "official authority and police power", the advertisement stated: "They have arrested seven times. ... ", whereas he had been arrested four times; and that "truckloads of police ... ringed the Alabama State College Campus" after the demonstration at the State Capitol, whereas the police had been "deployed near" the campus but had not actually "ringed" it and had not gone there in connection with the State Capitol demonstration. Although the Montgomery Public Safety commissioner, L. B. Sullivan, was not named in the advertisement, Sullivan argued that the inaccurate criticism of actions by the police was defamatory to him as well because it was his duty to supervise the police department.

Because Alabama law denied public officers recovery of punitive damages in a libel action on their official conduct unless they first made a written demand for a public retraction and the defendant failed or refused to comply, Sullivan sent such a request. The Times did not publish a retraction in response to the demand. Instead, its lawyers wrote a letter stating, among other things, that "we ... are somewhat puzzled as to how you think the statements in any way reflect on you," and "you might, if you desire, let us know in what respect you claim that the statements in the advertisement reflect on you."

Sullivan did not respond but instead filed a libel suit a few days later. He also sued four African-American ministers mentioned in the ad: Ralph Abernathy, S.S. Seay Sr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and Joseph Lowery.

The Times subsequently published a retraction of the advertisement upon the demand of Governor John Patterson of Alabama, who alleged the publication charged him with "grave misconduct and ... improper actions and omissions as Governor of Alabama and ex officio chairman of the State Board of Education of Alabama." When asked to explain why there had been a retraction for the Governor but not for Sullivan, the Secretary of the Times testified:

We did that because we didn't want anything that was published by the Times to be a reflection on the State of Alabama and the Governor was, as far as we could see, the embodiment of the State of Alabama and the proper representative of the state and we had by that time learned more of the facts which the ad purported to recite and, finally, the ad did refer to the action of the state authorities and the Board of Education presumably of which the Governor is the ex officio chairman ...

However, the Secretary also testified he did not think that "any of the languages in there referred to Mr. Sullivan."

The jury returned a verdict for Sullivan and awarded him $500,000 in damages ($5.1 million in 2023). The state supreme court affirmed on August 30, 1962, saying "The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not protect libelous publications". The Times appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Constitutional law scholar Herbert Wechsler successfully argued the case before the United States Supreme Court. Louis M. Loeb, a partner at the firm of Lord Day & Lord who served as chief counsel to the Times from 1948 to 1967, was among the authors of the brief of the Times.

Decision

On March 9, 1964, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Times that vacated the Alabama court's judgment and limited newspapers' liability for damages in defamation suits by public officials.

Opinion of the Court

Justice William J. Brennan Jr. authored the Court's opinion, and five other justices joined it. The Court began by explaining that criticizing government and public officials was at the core of the American constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The general proposition that freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment has long been settled by our decisions. The constitutional safeguard, we have said, "was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people." ... "t is a prized American privilege to speak one's mind, although not always with perfect taste, on all public institutions." ... The First Amendment, said Judge Learned Hand, "presupposes that right conclusions are more likely to be gathered out of a multitude of tongues, than through any kind of authoritative selection. To many, this is, and always will be, folly; but we have staked upon it our all."
— Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 269–70 (citations omitted).

The Court said that because of these core American free-speech principles, it would have to consider Sullivan's defamation claims "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

With this background, the Court framed the case around the question of whether this American constitutional commitment to free speech required loosening traditional defamation laws.

The present advertisement, as an expression of grievance and protest on one of the major public issues of our time, would seem clearly to qualify for the constitutional protection. The question is whether it forfeits that protection by the falsity of some of its factual statements and by its alleged defamation of respondent.
— Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 271.

In answer, the Court held that the advertisement's inaccuracies did not remove its free-speech constitutional protections. The Court reasoned that "erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and ... must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the breathing space that they need ... to survive". It concluded that the importance of safeguarding the "breathing space" created by the First Amendment's protections required giving constitutional protection to "erroneous statements honestly made". The Court analogized Alabama's libel law to the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts passed in the late 1790s during the presidency of John Adams. It reasoned that a broad interpretation of libel laws that protected government officials from criticism would produce situations similar to those under the Alien and Sedition Acts, which had been historically criticized.

Because of the importance of free debate about public officials, the Court held that it was not enough that Alabama's libel law—like most libel laws in the English common law tradition—allowed defendants to use the truth of their defamatory statements as a defense. Instead, the Court held that under U.S. law, any public official suing for defamation must prove that the defendant made the defamatory statement with "actual malice".

The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with "actual malice" – that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.
— Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 279–80.

The Court said that besides proving "actual malice", the First Amendment's protections also imposed two other limitations on libel laws. First, a public official seeking damages must prove that the defendant's defamatory statement was about the official individually, not about government policy generally. Second, unlike in traditional common law defamation lawsuits where the defendant had the burden to prove that his or her statement was true, in defamation suits involving American public officials the officials must prove that the defendant's statement was false.

International comparisons

The rule that somebody alleging defamation should have to prove untruth, rather than that the defendant should have to prove the truth of a statement, stood as a departure from the previous common law. In England, the development was specifically rejected in Derbyshire County Council v. Times Newspapers Ltd and it was also rejected in Canada in Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto and more recently in Grant v. Torstar Corp. In Australia, the outcome of the case was followed in Theophanous v. The Herald & Weekly Times Ltd, but Theophanous was itself overruled by the High Court of Australia in Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1997) 189 CLR 520.

50th anniversary

In 2014, on the 50th anniversary of the ruling, The New York Times released an editorial in which it stated the background of the case, laid out the rationale for the Supreme Court decision, critically reflected on the state of freedom of the press 50 years after the ruling and compared the state of freedom of the press in the United States with other nations. The editorial board of The New York Times heralded the Sullivan decision not only as a ruling which "instantly changed libel law in the United States", but also as "the clearest and most forceful defense of press freedom in American history." The board added:

The ruling was revolutionary because the court for the first time rejected virtually any attempt to squelch criticism of public officials—even if false—as antithetical to "the central meaning of the First Amendment." Today, our understanding of freedom of the press comes in large part from the Sullivan case. Its core observations and principles remain unchallenged, even as the Internet has turned everyone into a worldwide publisher—capable of calling public officials instantly to account for their actions and also of ruining reputations with the click of a mouse.

In a 2015 Time magazine survey of over 50 law professors, both Owen Fiss (Yale) and Steven Shiffrin (Cornell) named New York Times v. Sullivan "the best Supreme Court decision since 1960," with Fiss noting that the decision helped cement "the free-speech traditions that have ensured the vibrancy of American democracy" and Schiffrin remarking that the case "overturned the censorial aspects of the law of libel and made it far easier in what’s left of our democracy for citizens—including the Fourth Estate—to criticize the powerful."

Later developments

Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130 (1967) held that public figures who are not public officials may still sue news organizations if they disseminate information about them which is recklessly gathered and unchecked.
Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323 (1974): Actual malice not necessary for defamation of private person if negligence is present.
Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U.S. 374 (1967). Extension of actual malice standard to false light invasion of privacy tort.
Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988): Extending standard to intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1 (1990): Existing law is sufficient to protect free speech without recognizing opinion privilege against libel claims.

Further developments

In February 2019, the Supreme Court denied a petition brought by Katherine McKee, one of the women that accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, which claimed that Cosby had leaked a letter that permanently damaged her reputation, and had sought civil action against Cosby on this matter. Lower courts rejected her case based on New York Times Co., stating that she "thrust herself to the forefront of a public controversy", making her a limited public figure and requiring the higher standard of malice to be demonstrated. The denial by the Supreme Court did not include a vote count, but Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the solitary opinion on the case, agreeing that denial was appropriate per New York Times Co., but stating that he believed that decision of New York Times Co. was made wrongly. Thomas wrote "If the Constitution does not require public figures to satisfy an actual-malice standard in state-law defamation suits, then neither should we".

In March 2021, federal judge Laurence Silberman called on the Supreme Court to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, stating that the New York Times and The Washington Post are "virtually Democratic Party broadsheets". Silberman's dissent also accused big tech companies of censoring conservatives and warned that "Democratic Party ideological control" of mainstream media may be a prelude to an "authoritarian or dictatorial regime" that constitutes "a threat to a viable democracy".

Judge Silberman's dissent produced significant public discussion of Sullivan and potential reforms. Many conservative-leaning outlets endorsed Silberman's criticisms of Sullivan. Most liberal-leaning outlets and several moderate conservatives condemned Silberman's decision for its tone and the substantive idea of loosening defamation standards. However, some liberal scholars and a Harvard Law student writing in the Wall Street Journal embraced significant reforms to Sullivan.

In the July 2021 denial of certiorari in Berisha v. Lawson, Justice Thomas dissented and reiterated his opposition to New York Times v. Sullivan. Justice Neil Gorsuch also questioned the usefulness of NYT v. Sullivan when applied to today's media and social media. Thomas reiterated his stance against the New York Times v. Sullivan decision in the Court's denial to grant certification in October 2023 to hear a case brought by Don Blankenship claiming defamation from news agencies; Thomas argued in a dissent to the denial that NYT v. Sullivan allows news agenices to "cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity".

On March 19, 2023, The New York Times published a story reviewing the original advertisement and the legal case.

References

Footnotes

Justices Hugo Black, Arthur Goldberg, and William O. Douglas only "concurred in the judgment", meaning they agreed the Times should win but for different legal reasons.

Citations

^ New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)
^ Chemerinsky (2019), § 11.3.5.2, p. 1140.
^ Sachs, Andrea. "The Best Supreme Court Decisions Since 1960". Time. Archived from the original on February 10, 2021. Retrieved February 10, 2021.
Elena Kagan, "A Libel Story: Sullivan Then and Now" (reviewing Anthony Lewis, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment (1991)), 18 Law and Social Inquiry 197 (1993).
Rick Schmitt, "Window to the Past: New York Times Co. v. Sullivan" Archived 2016-08-06 at the Wayback Machine, Washington Lawyer, October 2014.
"Heed Their Rising Voices" (advertisement). National Archives.
"Heed Their Rising Voices". The New York Times (advertisement). March 29, 1960. National Archives Identifier 2641477. Retrieved March 11, 2014 – via National Archives Atlanta, Records of District Courts of the United States.
Lewis, Anthony (April 20, 2011). Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-307-78782-8.
New York Times Company v. Sullivan, 273 Ala. 656 (Supreme Court of Alabama August 30, 1962).
Carson, Clayborne; Armstrong, Tenisha; Carson, Susan; Cook, Erin; Englander, Susan, eds. (May 30, 2017). "New York Times Co. v Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254". Martin Luther King Jr., Encyclopedia. Stanford University: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
"New York Times Co. v. Sullivan". Oyez.
Who's Who in America 1978–1979
^ Chemerinsky (2019), § 11.5.3.2, p. 1140.
Quoted in part in Nowak & Rotunda (2012), § 20.33(i).
Chemerinsky (2019), § 11.5.3.2, p. 1140 (quoting Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 270).
Chemerinsky (2019), § 11.5.3.2, p. 1140, quoting Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 271–72 (internal quotation marks omitted).
^ Nowak & Rotunda (2012), § 20.33(ii).
Quoted in part in Chemerinsky (2019), § 11.5.3.2, p. 1141
Derbyshire County Council v. Times Newspapers Ltd AC 534
Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto 2 SCR 1130
Grant v. Torstar Corp. 2009 SCC 61
Theophanous v. The Herald & Weekly Times Ltd (1994) 182 CLR 104
^ The New York Times Editorial Board (March 9, 2014). "The Uninhibited Press, 50 Years Later". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 10, 2021. Retrieved March 11, 2014. A version of this editorial appeared in print on March 9, 2014, on page SR10 of the New York edition with the headline: The Uninhibited Press, 50 Years Later.
Williams, Pete (February 19, 2019). "Justice Clarence Thomas criticizes landmark Supreme Court press freedom ruling". NBC News. Retrieved February 19, 2019.
"Judge Laurence Silberman: New York Times v. Sullivan 'Must Go'". March 19, 2021.
"Appeal document" (PDF). uscourts.gov. March 19, 2021. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
"Reconsidering Times v. Sullivan - WSJ". Wall Street Journal. March 22, 2021.
"Opinion | Judge Laurence Silberman's attack on Times v. Sullivan is shocking — and totally incorrect". The Washington Post. March 25, 2021. Retrieved November 20, 2021.
Lewin, Jeremy (April 5, 2021). "The Progressive Case for Libel Reform - WSJ". Wall Street Journal.
"Berisha v. Lawson" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 2, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
Liptak, Adam (October 10, 2023). "Clarence Thomas Renews Call for Reconsideration of Landmark Libel Ruling". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
David W. Dunlap (March 19, 2023). "The Ad in the First Amendment". The New York Times.

Works cited

Chemerinsky, Erwin (2019). Constitutional Law: Principles and Policies (6th ed.). New York: Wolters Kluwer. ISBN 978-1-4548-4947-6.
Nowak, John E.; Rotunda, Ronald D. (2012). Treatise on Constitutional Law: Substance and Procedure (5th ed.). Eagan, Minnesota: West. OCLC 798148265.

External links

Works related to New York Times v. Sullivan (376 U.S. 254) at Wikisource
Text of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) is available from: CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio) Boston College
Booknotes interview with Anthony Lewis on Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment, October 20, 1991.

U.S. Supreme Court Freedom of Speech Clause case law

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

Unprotected speech

Clear and present danger and imminent lawless action	Schenck v. United States (1919) Debs v. United States (1919) Abrams v. United States (1919) Gitlow v. New York (1925) Whitney v. California (1927) Fiske v. Kansas (1927) Dennis v. United States (1951) Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Bd. (1955; 1961) Yates v. United States (1957) Bond v. Floyd (1966) Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) Hess v. Indiana (1973)
Defamation and false speech	New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) United States v. Alvarez (2012) Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus (2014)
Fighting words and the heckler's veto	Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) Terminiello v. City of Chicago (1949) Feiner v. New York (1951) Gregory v. City of Chicago (1969) Cohen v. California (1971) Nat'l Socialist Party v. Village of Skokie (1977) R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) Snyder v. Phelps (2011)
True threats and threatening the President of the United States	Virginia v. Black (2003) Elonis v. United States (2015) Counterman v. Colorado (2023)
Obscenity	Rosen v. United States (1896) Roth v. United States (1957) One, Inc. v. Olesen (1958) Smith v. California (1959) Marcus v. Search Warrant (1961) Manual Enterprises, Inc. v. Day (1962) Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) Quantity of Books v. Kansas (1964) Ginzburg v. United States (1966) Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966) Redrup v. New York (1967) Ginsberg v. New York (1968) Stanley v. Georgia (1969) United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs (1971) Kois v. Wisconsin (1972) Miller v. California (1973) Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton (1973) United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film (1973) Jenkins v. Georgia (1974) Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville (1975) Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc. (1976) People v. Freeman (Cal. 1988) United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc. (1994) Reno v. ACLU (1997) United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc. (2000) City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. (2002) Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (2002) United States v. American Library Ass'n (2003) United States v. Williams (2008) United States v. Stevens (2010) Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'n (2011) FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. (2012) Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025)
Speech integral to criminal conduct	New York v. Ferber (1982) Osborne v. Ohio (1990) Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) United States v. Hansen (2023)

Strict scrutiny
Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010) Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar (2015)

Overbreadth and Vagueness doctrines
Smith v. Goguen (1974) Board of Airport Commissioners v. Jews for Jesus (1987) Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky (2018)

Symbolic speech versus conduct
Stromberg v. California (1931) United States v. O'Brien (1968) Cohen v. California (1971) Spence v. Washington (1974) Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984) Dallas v. Stanglin (1989) Texas v. Johnson (1989) United States v. Eichman (1990) Barnes v. Glen Theatre (1991) City of Erie v. Pap's A. M. (2000) Virginia v. Black (2003)

Content-based restrictions
Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965) Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego (1981) Boos v. Barry (1988) Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Crime Victims Board (1991) R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015) Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants (2020) City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of Austin, LLC (2022)

Content-neutral restrictions

Schneider v. New Jersey (1939)
Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986)
City of Ladue v. Gilleo (1994)
Packingham v. North Carolina (2017)
TikTok, Inc. v. Garland (2025)

In the public forum	Davis v. Massachusetts (1897) Hague v. CIO (1939) Thornhill v. Alabama (1940) Martin v. City of Struthers (1943) Niemotko v. Maryland (1951) Edwards v. South Carolina (1963) Cox v. Louisiana (1965) Brown v. Louisiana (1966) Adderley v. Florida (1966) Carroll v. Town of Princess Anne (1968) Coates v. City of Cincinnati (1971) Org. for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971) Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984) Frisby v. Schultz (1988) Ward v. Rock Against Racism (1989) Burson v. Freeman (1992) Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc. (1994) Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York (1997) Hill v. Colorado (2000) McCullen v. Coakley (2014)
Designated public forum	Widmar v. Vincent (1981) Rosenberger v. Univ. of Virginia (1995) Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski (2021)
Nonpublic forum	Lehman v. Shaker Heights (1974) Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators' Association (1983) Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense Fund (1985) Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes (1997) Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky (2018)

Compelled speech

Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940)
West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette (1943)
Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974)
Wooley v. Maynard (1977)
Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980)
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Comm'n of California (1986)
Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston (1995)
Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, Inc. (2006)
National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra (2018)
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis (2023)
Moody v. NetChoice, LLC (2024)

Compelled subsidy of others' speech

International Ass'n of Machinists v. Street (1961)
Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977)
Minnesota Board for Community Colleges v. Knight (1984)
Communications Workers of America v. Beck (1988)
Keller v. State Bar of California (1990)
Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Ass'n (1991)
Board of Regents of the Univ. of Wisconsin System v. Southworth (2000)
Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Ass'n (2005)
Davenport v. Washington Education Ass'n (2007)
Locke v. Karass (2008)
Knox v. SEIU, Local 1000 (2012)
Harris v. Quinn (2014)
Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (2016)
Janus v. AFSCME (2018)

Government grants and subsidies
Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Washington (1983) Rust v. Sullivan (1991) National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley (1998) Legal Services Corp. v. Velazquez (2001) USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International I (2013) USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International II (2020)

Government speech
Pleasant Grove City v. Summum (2009) Walker v. Texas Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans (2015) Matal v. Tam (2017) Iancu v. Brunetti (2019) Houston Community College System v. Wilson (2022) Shurtleff v. City of Boston (2022) Vidal v. Elster (2024)

Loyalty oaths
American Communications Ass'n v. Douds (1950) Garner v. Board of Public Works (1951) Speiser v. Randall (1958) Keyishian v. Board of Regents (1967) Communist Party of Indiana v. Whitcomb (1974)

School speech

Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940)
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)
Tinker v. Des Moines Ind. Community School Dist. (1969, substantial disruption)
Healy v. James (1972)
Island Trees School District v. Pico (1982)
Bethel School District v. Fraser (1986)
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988)
Westside Community Board of Ed. v. Mergens (1990)
Rosenberger v. Univ. of Virginia (1995)
Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Ass'n (2001)
Morse v. Frederick (2007)
Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski (2021)
Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021)

Public employees

Pickering v. Board of Education (1968)
Perry v. Sindermann (1972)
Arnett v. Kennedy (1974)
Elrod v. Burns (1976)
Mt. Healthy City School Dist. Board of Ed. v. Doyle (1977)
Givhan v. Western Line Consol. School Dist. (1979)
Connick v. Myers (1983)
Rankin v. McPherson (1987)
Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois (1990)
Waters v. Churchill (1994)
United States v. National Treasury Employees Union (1995)
Brentwood Academy v. Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Ass'n (2001)
Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006)
Borough of Duryea v. Guarnieri (2011)
Lane v. Franks (2014)
Heffernan v. City of Paterson (2016)
Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist. (2022)

Hatch Act and similar laws
Ex parte Curtis (1882) United Public Workers v. Mitchell (1947) U.S. Civil Service Comm'n v. National Ass'n of Letter Carriers (1973) Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973)

Licensing and restriction of speech
Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm'n of Ohio (1915) Cox v. New Hampshire (1941) Murdock v. Pennsylvania (1943) Kunz v. New York (1951) Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson (1952) Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown (1957) NAACP v. Button (1963) Freedman v. Maryland (1965) Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. (1982) Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement (1992)

Commercial speech

Valentine v. Chrestensen (1942)
Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Dept. (1970)
Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Comm'n on Human Relations (1973)
Lehman v. Shaker Heights (1974)
Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar (1975)
Bigelow v. Virginia (1975)
Virginia State Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council (1976)
Linmark Assoc., Inc. v. Township of Willingboro (1977)
Carey v. Population Services International (1977)
Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (1977)
In re Primus (1978)
Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn. (1978)
Friedman v. Rogers (1979)
Consol. Edison Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n (1980)
Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission (1980)
Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego (1981)
Hoffman Estates v. The Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. (1982)
Zauderer v. Off. of Disciplinary Counsel of Supreme Court of Ohio (1985)
Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Public Utilities Comm'n of California (1986)
Posadas de Puerto Rico Assoc. v. Tourism Co. of Puerto Rico (1986)
San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. U.S. Olympic Committee (1987)
City of Cincinnati v. Discovery Network, Inc. (1993)
Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corp. (1995)
Florida Bar v. Went For It, Inc. (1995)
44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island (1996)
Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly (2001)
Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Ass'n (2005)
Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. (2011)
Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman (2017)
Matal v. Tam (2017)
Iancu v. Brunetti (2019)
Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants (2020)
Vidal v. Elster (2024)

Campaign finance and political speech

Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978)
Citizens Against Rent Control v. City of Berkeley (1981)
FEC v. National Conservative PAC (1985)
FEC v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life (1986)
Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990)
Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. FEC (1996)
Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000)
Republican Party of Minnesota v. White (2002)
McConnell v. FEC (2003)
Randall v. Sorrell (2006)
FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. (2007)
Davis v. FEC (2008)
Citizens United v. FEC (2010)
Nevada Commission on Ethics v. Carrigan (2011)
Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett (2011)
American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock (2012)
McCutcheon v. FEC (2014)
Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar (2015)
Thompson v. Hebdon (2019)
FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate (2022)

Anonymous speech
NAACP v. Alabama (1958) Bates v. City of Little Rock (1960) Buckley v. Valeo (1976) Brown v. Socialist Workers '74 Campaign Committee (1982) McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n (1995) Doe v. Reed (2010) Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta (2021)

State action
Marsh v. Alabama (1946) Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner (1972) Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck (2019) Lindke v. Freed (2024) Murthy v. Missouri (2024)

Official retaliation
Hartman v. Moore (2006) Wood v. Moss (2014) Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach (2018) Nieves v. Bartlett (2019) Egbert v. Boule (2022) Gonzalez v. Trevino (2024) National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo (2024)

Boycotts
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982)

Prisons
Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union (1977) Turner v. Safley (1987) Shaw v. Murphy (2001) Beard v. Banks (2006)

v t e U.S. Supreme Court Freedom of the Press Clause case law
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
Prior restraints and censorship	Patterson v. Colorado (1907) Near v. Minnesota (1931) Lovell v. City of Griffin (1938) Tucker v. Texas (1946) Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc. (1946) Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965) Sheppard v. Maxwell (1966) New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart (1976) Landmark Communications, Inc. v. Virginia (1978) Lowe v. SEC (1985) Tory v. Cochran (2005)
Privacy	Time, Inc. v. Hill (1967) Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn (1975) Florida Star v. B. J. F. (1989)
Taxation and privileges	Grosjean v. American Press Co. (1936) Branzburg v. Hayes (1972) Houchins v. KQED, Inc. (1978) Minneapolis Star Tribune Co. v. Commissioner (1983) Arkansas Writers' Project v. Ragland (1987) Cohen v. Cowles Media Co. (1991)
Defamation	Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952) New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (1967) Greenbelt Cooperative Publishing Ass'n, Inc. v. Bresler (1970) Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974) Time, Inc. v. Firestone (1976) Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc. (1984) Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc. (1985) McDonald v. Smith (1985) Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton (1989) Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. (1990)
Broadcast media	Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969) FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) CBS, Inc. v. FCC (1981) FCC v. WNCN Listeners Guild (1981) Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC I (1994) Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC II (1997) Bartnicki v. Vopper (2001)
Copyrighted materials	Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co. (1977) Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises (1985) Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003)

Categories:

Misplaced Pages