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R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul

Supreme Court of the United States · 1992 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawFirst Amendmenthate speechviewpoint discriminationcontent-based restrictionfighting wordscontent discriminationviewpoint discrimination

Facts

Petitioner and several other teenagers allegedly made a crude cross from broken chair legs and burned it inside the fenced yard of a black family living across from the house where petitioner was staying. St. Paul charged petitioner under a city ordinance making it a misdemeanor to place symbols, including a burning cross or Nazi swastika, on public or private property when the person knows or has reason to know the symbol arouses anger, alarm, or resentment on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender. The Minnesota Supreme Court authoritatively construed the ordinance to cover only fighting words. Petitioner argued that the ordinance was facially invalid because it was overbroad and impermissibly content based.

Issue

Whether a city may, consistent with the First Amendment, prohibit only those fighting words that arouse anger, alarm, or resentment on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender. More specifically, whether St. Paul's ordinance is facially unconstitutional because it selectively bans otherwise proscribable speech based on its subject matter or viewpoint.

Rule

Even within categories of speech that may be proscribed, such as fighting words, the government may not engage in content discrimination unrelated to the distinctively proscribable features of that category. Content-based regulation is permissible only when the basis for the distinction consists entirely of the reason the whole category is proscribable, when the subclass is associated with secondary effects and the regulation is justified without reference to content, when the speech is incidentally reached by a law aimed at conduct rather than expression, or when there is otherwise no realistic possibility that official suppression of ideas is afoot.

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

The city council of Toledo, Ohio enacts an ordinance making it a misdemeanor to direct personally abusive epithets at another person in a face-to-face confrontation when the words are likely to provoke an immediate violent response, but only if the epithets express hostility toward the listener's religion or race. Marcus Velez is cited after shouting a slur about a neighbor's religion during a heated sidewalk argument.

If a court accepts that the ordinance reaches only fighting words, which is the strongest First Amendment analysis?

Explanation. Even assuming the law covers only fighting words, the government may not make further content or viewpoint distinctions unrelated to why fighting words are proscribable. A ban limited to insults expressing hostility on selected subjects impermissibly singles out disfavored messages. The defect is facial and does not depend on proof of illicit motive in a particular prosecution. (Derived from R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992).)