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Grayned v. City of Rockford

Supreme Court of the United States · 1972 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawFirst AmendmentFourteenth AmendmentVaguenessOverbreadthTime, Place, and MannerEqual Protectionvoid for vagueness

Facts

Grayned participated in a demonstration with about 200 people on a sidewalk roughly 100 feet from West Senior High School while school was in session. The group carried signs protesting school grievances, and the trial evidence conflicted as to whether the demonstrators were noisy and disruptive or quiet and orderly. After warnings, police arrested Grayned and others, and he was convicted under both a school antipicketing ordinance and a school antinoise ordinance. In this appeal, Grayned challenged the ordinances only on their face, not as applied to his own conduct.

Issue

Whether Rockford's school antipicketing ordinance and school antinoise ordinance were facially unconstitutional. Specifically, whether the antinoise ordinance was void for vagueness or overbroad under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and whether the antipicketing ordinance violated equal protection.

Rule

A statute is unconstitutionally vague if it fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, fails to provide explicit standards to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, or chills First Amendment freedoms by uncertain meaning. A regulation of expression in public places may constitutionally restrict the time, place, and manner of speech when it is content neutral, narrowly tailored to further a legitimate and significant governmental interest, and limited to expression that materially disrupts the normal activities of the particular place; in the school setting, expressive activity may be prohibited when it materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

Madison enacts an ordinance providing that no person on public or private property adjacent to a school building while classes are in session may willfully make any noise or diversion that disturbs or tends to disturb the peace or good order of the school session. During a facial challenge, the Wisconsin courts construe the ordinance to require actual or imminent interference with normal school activity and a causal link between the conduct and the disruption.

How should a court most likely rule on the facial vagueness challenge?

Explanation. The majority upheld a similar school antinoise ordinance when read in context to reach only deliberately noisy or diversionary activity that disrupts or is about to disrupt normal school activities. The limiting features that save it from vagueness are fair notice tied to the school setting, willfulness, adjacency to the school while classes are in session, and a demonstrated causal connection to actual or imminent interference. The Court did not require mathematical precision, decibel levels, or elimination of every interpretive question.