Home › Case briefs › Constitutional Law

Grayned v. Rockford

Supreme Court of the United States · 1972 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawFirst AmendmentEqual ProtectionVaguenessOverbreadthTime, Place, and Mannerschool speechpublic sidewalks

Facts

Grayned participated in a demonstration by about 200 people on a sidewalk about 100 feet from a high school while school was in session. The demonstrators protested grievances involving black students and carried signs and marched near the school. The trial evidence conflicted over whether the demonstrators were loud and disruptive or quiet and orderly, but Grayned challenged only the facial validity of the ordinances, not their application to his own conduct. He was convicted under a school antipicketing ordinance banning demonstrations within 150 feet of schools during school hours except peaceful labor picketing, and under an antinoise ordinance forbidding willful noise or diversion adjacent to a school that disturbs or tends to disturb the peace or good order of school sessions.

Issue

Whether Rockford's school antipicketing ordinance and antinoise ordinance were facially constitutional. More specifically, whether the antinoise ordinance was unconstitutionally vague or overbroad under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and whether the antipicketing ordinance violated equal protection.

Rule

A law is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined so that ordinary people have fair notice and enforcement officials have explicit standards, especially where First Amendment freedoms are implicated. Reasonable, content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations are permissible if they are narrowly tailored to further a significant governmental interest, and in the school context expressive activity may be restricted when it materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others. An ordinance aimed at school-adjacent noise is facially valid when properly understood to prohibit only willful noise or diversion that actually disrupts or imminently threatens to disrupt normal school activity.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

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

The city council in Akron, Ohio adopts an ordinance making it unlawful for any person on property adjacent to a school during class hours to willfully create noise or a diversion that actually disrupts or imminently threatens to disrupt normal school activity. Maya Ortiz joins a midday sidewalk protest outside a middle school and brings a facial challenge before trial, arguing the ordinance is too vague because it does not list decibel levels or banned acts.

How should a court most likely rule on Maya's facial vagueness challenge?

Explanation. The majority upheld a school-adjacent antinoise ordinance when understood to prohibit only willful noise or diversion that actually disrupts or imminently threatens to disrupt normal school activity. In that context, the ordinance provides fair notice even without mathematical precision. The Court did not hold that schools eliminate vagueness concerns, nor that exact decibel levels are required.