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The First Amendment

Major Supreme Court Cases

Please note that this is not a comprehensive list of freedom of assembly cases. It is intended only as a brief guide to some of the most significant decisions.

U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)

De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 (1937)

NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 (1963)

Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229 (1963)

National Socialist Party v. Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977)

Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 525 U.S. 299 (1992)

Buckley v. American Constitutional Law Foundation, 525 U.S. 182 (1999)

Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000)

Virginia v. Hicks, 539 U.S. 113 (2003)

Other Resources

Online Resources

Freedom of Assembly Research Articles and Overview, First Amendment Center

The Heritage Guide to the Constitution: Freedom of Assembly and Petition, Heritage Foundation, 2012

Books

Abernathy, M. Glenn, The right of assembly and association, 2nd. ed, University of South Carolina Press (1981)

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF4778 .A24 1981

Bresler, Robert J., Freedom of association: rights and liberties under the law, ABC-CLIO (2004)

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF4778 .B74 2004

Ellis, Richard J., Judging the Boy Scouts of America: gay rights, freedom of association, and the Dale case, University Press of Kansas (2014)

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF229 .D35 E45 2014

Gutmann, Amy, Freedom of association, Princeton University Press (1998)

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF4778 .F74 1998

Inazu, John D., Liberty's refuge: the forgotten freedom of assembly, Yale University Press (2012)

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF4778 .I53 2012

Koppelman, Andrew, A right to discriminate?: how the case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale warped the law of free association, Yale University Press (2009)

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF4778 .K66 2009

Krotoszynski, Ronald J., Reclaiming the petition clause: seditious libel, "offensive" protest, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances,

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF4780 .K76 2012

Russell, Margaret M., Freedom of assembly and petition: the First Amendment: its constitutional history and the contemporary debate, Prometheus Books (2010)

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF4778 .F57 2010

Soifer, Aviam, Law and the company we keep, Harvard University Press (1995)

  • Available in the Dee J. Kelly Law Library at call number KF1390 .C6 S64 1995

Articles

Gary Lawson & Guy Seidman, Downsizing the Right to Petition, 93 Nw. U. L. Rev. 739 (1996)

Gregory A. Mark, The Vestigial Constitution: The History and Significance of the Right to Petition, 66 Fordham L. Rev. 2153 (1998)

Jason Mazzone, Freedom's Associations, 77 Wash. L. Rev. 639 (2002)