Amendment+1

New Curricula First Amendment Freedoms and Americans Who Have Struggled to Defend, Preserve, and Expand Them

March 24, 2006

Arlington, VA – The Bill of Rights Institute has published two curriculum that focus on the First Amendment and those Americans who fought to defend, preserve and expand these freedoms.

Developed in collaboration with the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, a Chicago-based museum opening on April 11, 2006, Faces of Freedom in American History and Conflict and Continuity: The Story of American Freedom complement the museum exhibits, but are also effective stand alone instructional material.

Faces of Freedom in American History introduces middle school students to Americans who have exercised their First Amendment rights through hands-on activities, primary source documents, and biographical essays. Individuals include James Madison, Sojourner Truth, Edward R. Murrow, and Mary Beth Tinker.

Conflict and Continuity helps high school students understand the foundations of freedom and explore how First Amendment principles continue to challenge American society today through primary source documents, background essays, and historical narratives. The curriculum also demonstrates how the U.S. has reconciled competing rights; for example, the right to a fair trial versus the right to freedom of the press. Controversial and timely issues such as cameras in the courtroom and suspension of civil liberties in times of crisis are also examined.

The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum (www.FreedomMuseum.us), created and funded by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, is the nation’s first museum dedicated to freedom and the First Amendment. Through interactive exploration, visitors gain a greater understanding of the struggle of freedom in the United States and the role the First Amendment plays in historic and contemporary rights movements, as well as in everyday life.

The Bill of Rights Institute is an educational non-profit organization that was founded in 1999. Its mission is to educate young people about our country’s Founding principles through classroom materials and programs that teach the words and ideas of the Founders; the liberties and freedoms guaranteed in our Founding documents; and how America’s Founding principles affect and shape a free society. Visit us on the web at www.BillofRightsInstitute.org. This month’s Landmark Supreme Court Cases and the Constitution eLesson focuses on the rights of the accused case Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada (2003). In this case, the Supreme Court upheld Nevada’s “stop and identify” statute, reasoning that requiring individuals to identify themselves to police officers investigating crimes was not unreasonable. The law did not violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches, nor the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.Explores

Amendment 1

The first amendment protects your rights to the freedom of speech, religion, and press.

http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/firstamendment/courtcases/courtcases.htm http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/courtcasesample.html I Amendment

//The West Virginia Board of Education adopted a measure requiring that all public school students salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Students who did not participate could be expelled; their parents could even lose custody of them. A group of Jehovah's Witnesses challenged the law on First Amendment grounds. They argued that the forced flag salute conflicted with their religious beliefs against idol worship and graven images, and therefore violated their free exercise of religion and freedom of speech rights under the First Amendment.// //The Court held that school officials do violate the First Amendment by compelling students to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.//

My personal opinion on this particular case is that yes, we have to right to say the pledge or not according to our religion. However, if the parents of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were concerned on what may happen if they send their children to public school, they should not have sent them in the first place. On the other hand, according to the first amendment, the school did NOT have the right to expel someone for not saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Loewen v. Turnipseed, 488 F. Supp. 1138 (N.D. Miss. 1980) //When the Mississippi Textbook Purchasing Board refused to approve// //Mississippi////: Conflict and Change// //for use in Mississipp,i public schools, on the grounds that it was too concerned with racial matters and too controversial, the authors filed suit. U.S. District Judge Orma R. Smith ruled that the criteria used were not justifiable grounds for rejecting the book. He held that the controversial racial matter was a factor leading to its rejection, and thus the authors had been denied their constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of speech and the press.// A school in Mississippi did not put in a book due to “racial matters and too controversial.” The authors filed a law suit. The author put it that the school was taking away his 1st amendment, the freedom of speech. The judge said that the reasoning that they did not put the book in wasn’t justifiable. the freedom to assemble. the freedom of the press they can say what ever they want to.

Alexis Fehrenbach Bill of Rights

__Amendment I__: (case A) Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 1940

Felix Frankfurter, writing in a majority opinion in the first of several Pledge of Allegiance cases to come before the court, considered the conflicts between liberty of conscience and government's authority to safeguard the nation's fellowship to be the court's most difficult tests. In //Minersville School District v. Gobitis,// the court opted for authority. In this case, the court determined that Pennsylvania public schools had a legitimate goal in requiring students to recite the pledge. The case surfaced after Minersville, Pa., school officials expelled two children affiliated with Jehovah's Witnesses for refusing to say the pledge. "Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs," Frankfurter wrote. Frankfurter further wrote that the recitation of a pledge advanced the cause of patriotism in the United States. He said the country's foundation as a free society depends upon building sentimental ties. "We are dealing with an interest inferior to none in the hierarchy of legal values," Frankfurter wrote. "National unity is the basis of national security. To deny the legislature the right to select appropriate means for its attainment presents a totally different order of problem from that of the propriety of subordinating the possible ugliness of littered streets to the free expression opinion through handbills.

__Summery:__ Basically the school district thought that the freedom of religion was not happening at the school because they have to recite the American pledge. Basically frankfurter stated that religious freedom has not been promoted or restricted. So the school did not win and it should be freely expressed through opinion.

__Amendment I:__ (case B) Stromberg v. California, 1931

In //Stromberg v. California,// the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a state court conviction of a young woman of the Young Communist League, who violated a state law prohibiting the display of a red flag as "an emblem of opposition to the United States government." The woman raised the flag as part of a daily routine for a children's summer camp. Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing for the majority opinion, said free political discussion calling for changes in government through lawful means is a fundamental principle of the American Republic. Holmes further wrote that the state law was "so vague and indefinite as to permit the punishment of the fair use of this opportunity." Legal experts cite //Stromberg// as the first in which the Court recognizes that protected speech may be nonverbal, or a form of symbolic expression. But Holmes' opinion revealed that the court agreed that states possess a legitimate interest in maintaining order. "The right is not an absolute one," Holmes wrote about free speech, "and the State in the exercise of its police power may punish the abuse of this freedom. There is no question but that the State may thus provide for the punishment of those who indulge in utterances which incite to violence and crime and threaten the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means." The case was also among the first freedom-of-speech cases to reach the court in the wake of //Gitlow v. New York.// In that 1925 decision, the court ruled that the First Amendment prohibition against government abridging freedom of speech applied to the states as well as to the federal government. The decision was the first of several rulings holding that the 14th Amendment extended the guarantees of the Bill of Rights to state action.

__Summery:__ Basically at a summer camp they raised an American flag everyday and people got upset but the woman won which was the one who was raising the American flag at camp and and reversed a court conviction of prohibiting the display of the flag.

Schenck v. United States Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in this case his famous aphorism about "falsely shouting fire in a theatre" and set forth a "clear and present danger test" to judge whether speech is protected by the First Amendment. "The question," he wrote, "is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has the right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree." The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of the defendants for conspiring to violate certain federal statutes by attempting to incite subordination in the armed forces and interfere with recruitment and enlistment. During wartime, the defendants mailed to new recruits and enlisted men leaflets that compared military conscription to involuntary servitude and urged them to assert constitutional rights.

[| Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940)] Facts of the Case Jesse Cantwell and his son were Jehovah's Witnesses; they were proselytizing a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in Connecticut. The Cantwells distributed religious materials by travelling door-to-door and by approaching people on the street. After voluntarily hearing an anti-Roman Catholic message on the Cantwells' portable phonograph, two pedestrians reacted angrily. The Cantwells were subsequently arrested for violating a local ordinance requiring a permit for solicitation and for inciting a breach of the peace. Question Did the solicitation statute or the "breach of the peace" ordinance violate the Cantwells' First Amendment free speech or free exercise rights? Conclusion Yes. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that while general regulations on solicitation were legitimate, restrictions based on religious grounds were not. Because the statute allowed local officials to determine which causes were religious and which ones were not, it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Court also held that while the maintenance of public order was a valid state interest, it could not be used to justify the suppression of "free communication of views." The Cantwells' message, while offensive to many, did not entail any threat of "bodily harm" and was protected religious speech.

The Oyez Project, Cantwell v. State of Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), available at:  Sunday, March 30, 2008 (last visited Sunday, March 30, 2008).

Summary: A man and his two sons were arrested for violating a law on soliciting without a permit. The court decided that the regulations on solicitation were reasonable but based on religious grounds the regulations were not. Although the court knew the regulations were reasonable they still interfered with the first amendment. Cantwell and his two sons were not found guilty.

[|Muslim Veil Issue] This case deals with the freedom of religion. They were trying to decide whether Muslim women could wear veils while in court.These veils are a part of their faith. A judge told her in court to take off her head wear, so he could see her face to judge her truthfulness, or have her case dismissed. She sued him later for taking away her freedom of religion.

[|Does religion grant freedom of medicine?] This case is seen in many different perspectives.A boy with cancer and his mother fled from Wisconsin to California because chemotherapy treatment was not part of their religious beliefs. The family says that natural Native American healing will get rid of the treatable tumor.Doctors say that the tumor in his chest can be treated very easily but the parents argue that religious freedom is their First Amendment right and since they believe in natural healing they do believe chemotherapy will harm their son.