MC 3080 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Fourteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution, Strict Scrutiny, Intermediate Scrutiny
Document Summary
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. We now consider speech to also include expression or the written language. Expression involves various acts that describe a particular point of view. Says nothing about punishment after publishing works. Only mentions congress - doesn"t mention states or other governmental entities. Does not protect any of your rights, including free speech, in your specific state, only protects them in the federal government. However, over the years, it has been the states that have attempted to abridge speech. In the original bill of rights, the free speech clause was the 3rd amendment, but the first two were not ratified. Lower courts first interpreted the first amendment and came up with the bad tendency test: If proven that speech had a general tendency to cause social unrest, the state courts would approve the regulation of speech. Flaw: not speech-protected, anything can have a tendency to cause social unrest.
