First Amendment Library

R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) [Findlaw]
Argument Date	12/04/1991
Decided	6/22/1992
Supreme Court Vote	9-0
Supreme Court Ruling	First Amendment claim sustained.

Issue	Whether a municipality may constitutionally enact an ordinance that makes it a crime to place a symbol on public or private property that arouses anger in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender.

Case Summary & Additional Resources

Majority Opinion

Scalia, J.

Concurring Opinion

White, J. (concurring in judgment), & Blackmun, J. (concurring in judgment), & Stevens, J. (concurring in judgment)

Oral Arguments

audio of oral arguments [Oyez]
--edited transcript in Irons, Peter, editor, MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT: THE FIRST AMENDMENT (1997), pp. 200-209

Lawyers

For Petitioner

Edward J. Cleary

For Respondent

Tom Foley

News Stories & Commentary

McMasters, Paul, "Must a civil society be a censored society?"

Other

Amar, Akhil, "Comment, The Case of the Missing Amendments: R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul," 106 Harv. L. Rev. 124 (1992)

Bell, Jeannie, "Oh Say, Can You See: Free Expression by the Light of Fiery Crosses," 39 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 335 (2004)

Chemerinsky, Erwin, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES (1997), pp. 818-820

Cleary, Edward J., "Suppressing Hateful Ideas by Force of Law: Reflections on R.A.V. v. St. Paul and Virginia v. Black," in Joseph Russomano, editor, DEFENDING THE FIRST: COMMENTARY ON FIRST AMENDMENT ISSUES AND CASES (2005), pp. 85-109

Cleary, Edward, BEYOND THE BURNING CROSS (1994)

Delgado, Richard & Stefancic, Jean, MUST WE DEFEND NAZIS?: HATE SPEECH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT (1997)

Delgado, Richard, "Words That Wound: A Tort Action for Racial Insults, Epithets, and Name-Calling," 17 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 133 (1982)

Demaske, Chris, "Modern Power & the First Amendment: Reassessing Hate Speech," 9 Communications Law & Policy J. 273 (Summer, 2004, #3)

Downs, Donald, "Skokie Revisited: Hate Group Speech & the First Amendment," 60 Notre Dame L. Rev. 629 (1985)

Greenawalt, Kent, FIGHTING WORDS: INDIVIDUALS, COMMUNITIES, AND LIBERTIES OF SPEECH (1995)

Holdowsky, Jonathan, "Out of the Ashes of the Cross: The Legacy of R.A.V. v. St. Paul," 30 New England L. Rev. 115 (1996)

Kagan, Elena, "Regulation of Hate Speech and Pornography After R.A.V.," 60 Univ. Chi. L. Rev. 873 (1993)

Lawrence, Charles, "Cross Burning and the Sound of Silence," 37 Villanova L. Rev. 787 (1992)

Lawrence, Charles, "If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus," 1990 Duke L. J. 431

MacKinnon, Catherine, ONLY WORDS (1993)

Matsuda, Mari, "Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim's Story," 87 Michigan L. Rev. 2320 (1989)

Redish, Martin, "Freedom of Thought as Freedomof Expression: Hate Crime Sentencing Enhancement and First Amendment Theory," 1992 Criminal Justice Ethics 29

Sunstein, Cass, DEMOCRACY & THE PROBLEM OF FREE SPEECH (1993), pp. 188-193

Symposium, "Hate Speech After R.A.V.: More Conflict Between Free Speech and Equality," 18 William Mitchell L. Rev. 889 (1992)

Tsesis, Alexander, DESTRUCTIVE MESSAGES: HOW HATE SPEECH PAVES THE WAY FOR HARMFUL SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (2002)

Weinstein, James, HATE SPEECH, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE RADICAL ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH DOCTRINE (1999)

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