The First Amendment

The First Amendment was written more than 200 years ago, but it
remains just as relevant today. The 45 words have been the basis of
some of the most important court decisions in the United States
from flag burning to school prayer, from song lyrics to hate
speech.
The First Amendment was written more than 200 years ago, but it remains just as relevant today. The 45 words have been the basis of some of the most important court decisions in the United States from flag burning to school prayer, from song lyrics to hate speech. And while the First Amendment was established to protect many of our basic freedoms, few of us know much about it. To test your knowledge, take this quiz and see if you’re ready for the courts … or in need of a history refresher course.

1. The Bill of Rights is:

a. The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

b. The statement police must read to you when you are arrested.

c. The opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

d. The Preamble of the U.S. Constitution.

1. The First Amendment protects students while at school.

a. True

b. False

1. Which of the following is not a right explicitly protected by the First Amendment?

a. Press

b. Privacy

c. Assembly

d. Religion

1. The Constitution prohibits public school teachers from teaching about religion in school.

a. True

b. False

1. Which of the following categories of speech is never protected by the First Amendment?

a. Indecent speech on the Internet

b. Four-letter words

c. Obscenity

d. Nudity

1. The First Amendment protects a person’s right to burn the American flag as a form of political protest.

a. True

b. False

1. Bart is ticked off. To make time for more standardized testing, the public school he attends has decided to reduce recess to three minutes a day. To protest the school’s decision, he publishes a one-page flier that says “Recess Rules! Standardized Testing Drools.” As he has seen many other community activists do before, he takes his fliers to the town square, where he peacefully offers copies to passers-by. Which of the following acts probably violates his First Amendment rights?

a. A police officer politely orders Bart to stop distribution and go home.

b. A local merchant, in support of standardized testing, angrily rips the fliers out of Bart’s hands and shreds them.

c. Bart’s mother, embarrassed by the hullabaloo, confiscates the fliers and grounds him for two weeks.

d. All of the above.

1. At what age does the First Amendment officially begin to protect a person’s free speech rights?

a. 18

b. 21

c. 16

d. None of the above

1. Can a reporter be jailed for refusing a judge’s order to reveal the identity of his or her news source?

a. Yes

b. No

1. A local 14-year-old girl was recently found guilty of masterminding a dog-napping ring, which had shaken the community for months. Though the legal proceedings were closed to the public because she was charged as a minor, a trusted source has confirmed that the judge today sentenced the girl to four years in a juvenile detention center. You are the editor of the community newspaper who must decide how to cover the story. Which of the following options would the First Amendment protect?

a. Because the girl is a minor and the proceedings were closed to the public, you choose not to publish the story.

b. You publish the story with accurate details of the crime and the girl’s sentence but, because she is a minor, you withhold her name.

c. You run the story with accurate details of the crime, her sentence, her name and a photo of her entering court with her parents.

d. All of the above are legal.

1. Which of the following categories of speech is never protected by the First Amendment?

a. Use of racial epithets

b. Ridiculing a person’s ethnicity

c. Speech that demeans a person’s gender

d. Speech that violates a person’s legal right to privacy

1. The government can ban song lyrics that most people would find offensive.

a. True

b. False

1. The First Amendment limits the authority of school officials to strip-search students.

a. True

b. False

1. While the First Amendment restricts their authority to actually censor the press, government officials must be permitted to simply read or view highly controversial news stories before a commercial newspaper or TV station publishes or airs them for the general public.

a. True

b. False

1. The church/state clause of the First Amendment prohibits students from praying in class before a test.

a. True

b. False

1. Students cannot be forced to pledge allegiance to the flag.

a. True

b. False

1. Betty is upset with her public school’s proposed new dress code policy. She writes a column in which she explains why she opposes the policy. In the column, she criticizes the principal for using inaccurate statistics to support his position and urges her classmates to contact the school board to urge them to vote against the policy. Which of the following would be protected by the First Amendment?

a. Using her home computer, Betty posts the column on her personal Web site.

b. Betty publishes the column on a flier that she created at her mom’s office. She offers the flier to classmates as they enter school in the morning.

c. Betty includes the column as part of a press release that she sends to local media. Following an interview with a local TV station, her comments criticizing the school policy and the principal are seen throughout the community.

d. The First Amendment protects all of the above.

1. When a public school fully funds its student newspaper, public high school principals have unlimited authority to dictate its content.

a. True

b. False

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ANSWERS

1. a. The U.S. Constitution was signed on Sept. 17, 1787. Following much debate, the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the Constitution – went into effect on Dec. 15, 1791, guaranteeing the essential freedoms we now rely on to protect citizens from excessive governmental power.

2. a. In its landmark decision, Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court, in what has become a much-quoted statement, ruled that neither “students (n)or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

3. b. There are five freedoms explicitly protected by the First Amendment: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Privacy is not a right explicitly guaranteed, but rather has been recognized by the Supreme Court to have evolved and “emanated” from the recognition of other constitutional rights.

4. b. The First Amendment prohibits government officials – including public school teachers – from endorsing or promoting a particular religion. It does not prohibit teachers from discussing or providing instructional materials about various religions and churches as part of a viewpoint-neutral curriculum where such discussion is relevant (e.g., history class discussion of the Holocaust).

5. c. Obscenity is a category of speech – defined by law – that is not protected by the First Amend-ment. Obscenity, however, is not the same as indecency, profanity or nudity and the First Amendment does protect – to at least some degree – such speech.

6. a. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that burning the American flag is constitutionally protected free speech.

7. a. The First Amendment only prohibits government officials – such as the police officer in this case – from restricting a citizen’s free speech activities. Neither the local merchant nor Bart’s mom fall into that category. While their actions definitely limit Bart’s speech, they do not violate the First Amendment.

8. d. The First Amendment protects all citizens, regardless of their age. Still, courts have recognized that young children may have more limited free speech protections under the First Amendment in certain contexts than older children and adults.

9. a. While both the First Amendment and so-called “shield laws” do provide some protection to reporters working with confidential sources and information, such protection is rarely absolute. Where a court decides that the law does not protect a journalist, he or she may be ordered to cooperate. If they refuse, they may be subject to penalty, including jail time.

10. d. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment protects the right of news organizations to publish accurate, lawfully obtained and newsworthy information about a minor. While some news organizations do not identify minors, they do so as a matter of editorial policy, not because the law requires it. Finally, the fact that the proceedings were closed to the public does not prevent news media from reporting accurate information they lawfully obtain elsewhere.

11. d. The First Amendment does not protect an individual’s right to publish material that invades another person’s legal right to privacy. The First Amendment does protect – to at least some degree – the other listed types of speech activities.

12. b. The First Amendment protects “offensive” speech in song lyrics (and in other published material) from government censorship. Note, however, that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can restrict when “indecent” speech is broadcast over the airwaves.

13. b. While the federal Constitution does restrict the authority of school officials to conduct strip searches, it is the Fourth Amendment – not the First – that protects students’ rights in such cases.

14. b. Most courts consider “prior review” (reading only) to be a form of unconstitutional prior restraint. In the context of commercial news media, the law prohibits nearly all mandatory prior review by government officials. In the context of high school student media, administrators generally have more leeway to engage in prior review. Still, their authority to review content prior to publication is not unlimited, and high school officials must adhere to recognized constitutional protections.

15. b. The First Amendment only prohibits government officials from endorsing or promoting a particular religion. It does not prohibit students from doing so on their own. For example, while it would be unlawful for a public school teacher to have his class recite the Lord’s Prayer prior to handing out a test, nothing prohibits his students from quietly praying on their own.

16. a. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that students have a First Amendment right to refuse to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or salute the flag during school.

17. d. The First Amendment provides significant legal protection to non-school-sponsored, independent student speech. Public school officials are prohibited from punishing or unreasonably interfering with students who engage in lawful (not libelous, obscene, etc.), independent speech activities – on or off-campus – that do not seriously interfere with normal school activities.

18. b. Allocating taxpayer dollars and other public resources to support student media does not give a public school principal unlimited authority over a publication’s content.