was intended to promote a religious belief. The
Court said that the state law had no secular purpose
and endorsed religion in violation of the Constitu-
tion’s establishment clause of the First Amend-
ment.
InWallace v. Jaffree(1985), the Supreme Court
struck down an Alabama law that allowed public
school teachers to hold a one-minute period of si-
lence for “meditation or voluntary prayer” each day.
The Court did not rule that the moment of silence
was itself unconstitutional. Rather, it held that Ala-
bama lawmakers had passed the law solely to ad-
vance religion, thereby violating the First Amend-
ment.
How much freedom of speech minors should
have at school was the issue before the Court in two
First Amendment cases during the 1980’s. InBethel
School District v. Fraser(1986), the Court upheld a
school district’s suspension of a high school student
for delivering a speech that contained “elaborate,
graphic, and explicit sexual” metaphors. The Court
ruled that the First Amendment did not prevent
school officials from prohibiting vulgar and lewd
speech that would undermine the school’s basic ed-
ucational mission. Two years later, the Court handed
down a similar decision that First Amendment advo-
cates considered to be a major setback in protecting
students’ rights to freedom of expression. The Court
held inHazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier(1988)
that a school principal could censor the content of a
student newspaper if that newspaper was part of a
class assignment and not a forum for public discus-
sion.
However, students did win an important Supreme
Court victory during the 1980’s in the area of school
censorship. Steven Pico was one of five students who
challenged their school board’s decision to remove
books from their high school library because they
were “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic,
and just plain filthy.” The Court ruled inIsland Trees
School District v. Pico(1982) that school officials could
not remove books from school library shelves simply
because they disliked the ideas contained in those
books.
Freedom of Speech During the 1980’s, the Su-
preme Court heard a variety of First Amendment
cases ranging from copyright issues to the public’s
access to court trials. By the 1980’s, many Americans
were using videocassette recorders (VCRs) to record
their favorite television programs while they were
away from home. Movie producers believed that this
use of the VCR was a violation of copyright law and
sued the VCR manufacturer. However, the Court
ruled inSony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios,
Inc.(1984) that the home use of VCRs to tape televi-
sion programs for later viewing (“time shifting”) did
not violate federal copyright law.
Evangelist Jerry Falwell believed that the First
Amendment did not give pornography publisher
Larry Flynt the right to publish a fake ad poking
fun at him and his deceased mother. However, in its
1988 Hustler Magazine v. Falwelldecision, the Court
decided in favor of Flynt andHustler, ruling that
satire and parody were protected forms of free
speech.
The American flag is a symbol associated with
freedom, nationalism, patriotism, and sometimes
militarism. Protesters sometimes burn the flag to
demonstrate their opposition to a government pol-
icy. Outside the 1984 Republican National Conven-
tion in Dallas, Texas, Gregory Lee Johnson burned a
flag in protest against President Ronald Reagan’s
policies. Johnson was arrested under the state’s flag
desecration statute. In its 5-4 ruling inTexas v. John-
son(1989), the Court struck down the Texas flag des-
ecration law as well as similar laws in forty-eight states
by ruling that flag burning was a constitutionally
protected form of symbolic speech.
The Court reaffirmed that the public’s right to
have access to the courts could outweigh a defen-
dant’s desire to keep the public out of the court-
room. InRichmond Newspapers v. Virginia(1980), the
Court ruled that a trial judge’s order to close the
courtroom to the public and media during a murder
trial was unconstitutional. The Court ruled that the
arbitrary closing of a courtroom to avoid unwanted
publicity violated the First Amendment and that the
closure of court hearings was permissible only under
unusual circumstances.
Public broadcasting, unlike commercial broad-
casting with its advertisers, is dependent on the gov-
ernment for much of its funding. In the 1980’s, the
government tried to prevent public radio and televi-
sion stations from voicing opinion through editori-
als. In its 1984FCC v. League of Women Voters of Califor-
niadecision, the Court struck down the federal
regulation that prohibited any noncommercial edu-
cational station receiving government funding from
engaging in editorializing. The Court ruled that thisThe Eighties in America Supreme Court decisions 933