“Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open:” The Meaning of the First Amendment
Justice William Brennan’s opinion in the Supreme Court decision in New York Times v. Sullivan on this day is generally regarded as on of the most profound statements of the meaning of free speech in a democracy. It rivals, and in fact builds on, Justice Louis Brandeis’ greatest opinions on the subject.
In the crucial passage, Brennan wrote that the Free Speech clause of the First Amendment means “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.”
The New York Times v. Sullivan case was one of many cases arising from the Civil Rights Movement that had a profound impact on the course of American constitutional law. Decided together with Abernathy v. Sullivan on this day, the case concerned a full-page ad in The New York Times on March 29, 1960, which alleged that the arrest of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., for perjury in Alabama was part of a campaign to destroy King’s efforts to integrate public facilities and encourage blacks to vote. L. B. Sullivan, the Montgomery city commissioner, filed a libel action against the newspaper and four black ministers who were listed as endorsers of the ad, claiming that the allegations against the Montgomery police defamed him personally.
The Court ruled that, without the show of malice, the case would severely cripple the safeguards of freedoms of speech and expression that are guaranteed in the First Amendment and applicable to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment.
See the Original Advertisement: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/documented-rights/exhibit/section4/detail/heed-rising-voices.html
Justice Brennan’s classic opinion, in part:
Read: Anthony Lewis, Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment (1991)
Listen to the oral arguments before the Supreme Court: http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1963/1963_39
And read: Kermit Hall and Melvin Urofsky, New York Times v. Sullivan: Civil Rights, Libel Law, and the Free Press (2011)
See a timeline for important rulings regarding the First Amendment at the First Amendment Center:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/first-amendment-timeline