Pornography During the 1980’s, antipornography
groups and some feminists convinced some state
and local governments that pornography should be
banned because it violated women’s civil rights by
portraying them as sex objects and could be linked
to violence against women. Cities and states began
passing antismut laws that allowed women to sue
porn producers and distributors if the women could
prove that they had been harmed by the porno-
graphic material. InAmerican Booksellers Association v.
Hudnut(1985), the Court struck down an Indianap-
olis antipornography ordinance, ruling that the law
and others like it were unconstitutional.
The selling of pornography moved to the tele-
phone lines when pornographers began providing
sexually oriented telephone services known as “dial-
a-porn.” Congress immediately passed a law making
dial-a-porn illegal. InSable Communications of Califor-
nia, Inc. v. FCC(1989), a unanimous Court over-
turned the federal law, ruling that it violated the free
speech rights of pornographers. The Court said that
the dial-a-porn industry should be regulated to pro-
tect minors, but it could not be outlawed altogether
because banning dial-a-porn would deny adults ac-
cess to this sexually oriented telephone service.
Throughout the 1980’s, the Court reaffirmed
that pornography deserved some First Amendment
protection, but not at the same level as political
speech. Despite the legal victories pornographers
won during the 1980’s, the Court reminded them
that there were still limits to how much free speech
protection pornographers possessed. Some cities
regulated pornography by moving X-rated movie
theaters away from churches, schools, homes, or
parks. Despite arguments that such zoning laws were
a form of censorship and violated free speech, the
Court inRenton v. Playtime Theatres(1986) ruled that
state and local governments could use zoning laws to
restrict the location of theaters that showed sexually
explicit films without violating pornographers’ First
Amendment rights.
Impact Through the rulings handed down by the
Supreme Court during the 1980’s, women no longer
could be forced to sign a consent form or wait
twenty-four hours before having an abortion. How-
ever, the Court did give state governments more au-
thority in restricting a woman’s ability to have an
abortion. Women were excluded from the military
draft, but African Americans could not be excluded
from jury duty solely because of their race. Colleges
and universities could still lose federal funding or
their tax-exempt status for gender or race discrimi-
nation. Cities could not ban pornography on the ba-
sis that it discriminated against women, but they
could zone X-rated movie theaters away from neigh-
borhoods and children. State and local governments
had to make sure that any public displays of religious
objects were in a secular context and did not pro-
mote a particular religion. School officials had more
authority in controlling the inappropriate speech of
their students but less authority in imposing religious-
based regulations such as school prayer disguised
as a “moment of silence” and the teaching of cre-
ationism. Parents could deduct from their state in-
come taxes expenses related to sending their chil-
dren to religious schools, but they could not force
school officials to censor books from the school li-
braries. Protesters could burn the American flag as a
form of protected symbolic speech. The govern-
ment could not refuse federal funding to public ra-
dio and television stations that aired editorials. Con-
sumers could use their VCRs to record their favorite
programs without fear of violating federal copyright
law. The impact of these Supreme Court decisions
continued to resonate throughout U.S. politics and
culture long after the decade was over.Further Reading
Harrison, Maureen, and Steve Gilbert, eds.Abortion
Decisions of the United States Supreme Court: The
1980’s. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Excellent Books, 1993.
For the general reader, a discussion of all the
abortion cases decided by the Supreme Court
fromHarris v. McRaethroughWebster v. Reproduc-
tive Health Services.
Irons, Peter.A People’s Histor y of the Supreme Court. New
York: Viking Press, 1999. A general history of the
Supreme Court and its most significant decisions
placed in their cultural and political context.
McCloskey, Robert G.The American Supreme Court.
4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,- A classic work offering a concise introduc-
tion into the workings of the Supreme Court and
its role in constructing the U.S. Constitution and
its role in U.S. politics.
Eddith A. Dashiell
See also Abortion; Affirmative action;Bowers v.
Hardwick; Education in the United States; Feminism;The Eighties in America Supreme Court decisions 935