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Hello, everybody, and welcome to
this video for the third week of

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our semester.

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Today's video will be the first
of a series of three classes about

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the First Amendment to the American
Constitution.

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This is by far the most famous
amendment.

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The First and the Second amendments
are probably the only ones that

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any American citizen could explain
to you, or at least summarize.

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Why is this First Amendment so
important?

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Well, for once, the easy answer
is actually the right answer:

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It's the most important one because
it's the first one.

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Obviously, this seems a little
bit simplistic, to say the least.

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But remember, in the first video
of the semester, I told you that

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even though we were not going to
study it this way, the Bill of

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Rights could easily be seen as
a numerical list, one through ten.

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With that in mind, one thing you
probably realized last year in

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L2 is that the Founding Fathers,
the people who wrote the articles

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of the Constitution and the Bill
of Rights, were unbelievably smart

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people.

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The designed a democratic system
that had no equivalent in the world

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at the time, and that still works
more than 230 years later.

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They did everything for a reason
and with a precise purpose in mind.

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What I'm trying to tell you here
is that there is a reason why the

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First Amendment is the First Amendment.

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There is a reason why the rights
protected by this amendment were

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the first ones that were put in
the Bill of Rights.

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The reason is that those were the
rights that the Founding Fathers

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considered as the most important
to protect in a democracy.

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Remember last week I told you that
the objective of the Bill of Rights

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was to make sure that the US could
never be turned into a dictatorship.

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As we study the different rights
protected by the First Amendment,

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you will realize that you could
make a solid argument that as long

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as these particular rights are
protected, a country can never

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become a dictatorship.

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So we've been talking about these
rights protected by the First Amendment

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and how important they are

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for a few minutes now,
I think it's time to tell you what

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rights we're actually talking about.

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Let's start by reading the text
of the First Amendment,

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which you can find in the facts
document that you have to read.

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Quote, "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of

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religion or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof or abridging

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the freedom of speech, or of the press,
or the right of the people peaceably

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to assemble and to petition the
government for a redress of grievances."

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End of quote.

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Okay.

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The first thing I want you to notice
is that the first word of the First

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Amendment is Congress,
which serves as a reminder that

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the Bill of Rights was supposed
to apply to the federal government,

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not necessarily to the states and
certainly not to the private sector.

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But during our class on the 14th
Amendment, you studied the concept

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of incorporation, which is the
idea that the Supreme Court

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progressively forced the states
to respect certain parts of the

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Bill of Rights the same way the
federal government does.

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The First Amendment has been entirely
incorporated by the Supreme Court.

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In other words, every right that
we are going to study for the next

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three weeks has to be respected
both by the federal government

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and each of the 50 states.

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What you can gather from the text
of the First Amendment,

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which I just read to you,
is that it protects seven different

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rights.

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That's really one of the elements
of today's video that I want you

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to remember.

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The First Amendment protects seven
different rights.

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Six of them are explicitly mentioned
in the text of the First Amendment.

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Those are freedom of religion,
freedom from religion,

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freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, freedom of assembly,

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and the right to petition.

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The seventh right is freedom of
association,

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and it was recognized by the Supreme
Court, even though it is not explicitly

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mentioned in the First Amendment.

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These seven rights can be divided
into two categories that are generally

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described as the two pillars of
the First Amendment and the two

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most fundamental

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freedoms of American citizens:
Freedom of speech and freedom of

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religion.

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This is basically what the First
Amendment protects: freedom of speech

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and freedom of religion.

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The freedom of speech category
includes five of the seven rights

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we just described: Freedom of speech,
freedom of the press,

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freedom of assembly,
freedom of association,

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and the right to petition. The freedom
of religion category is made of

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the other two rights: Freedom of
religion and freedom from religion.

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Today we will talk about the freedom
of speech category and the five

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different rights it protects.

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Let's start with the right that
gave its name to the category itself:

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Freedom of speech.

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I told you several times since
the beginning of the semester that

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the rights protected by the Bill
of Rights are supposed to make

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sure that the US would always remain
a democracy.

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Freedom of speech is the best example
I can give you.

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You could easily say that as long
as freedom of speech is protected,

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as long as citizens are free to
voice their opinions and criticize

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their government,

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a country is a democracy.

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The Founding Fathers knew that,
and as a consequence,

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they adopted a definition of freedom
of speech that is by far the largest

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in the world today.

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But they didn't just want American
citizens to be free to voice their

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opinions.

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They wanted them to actively
participate in the political life

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of the country.

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As Abraham Lincoln famously said,
the US has a government of the people,

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by the people, for the people.

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The people themselves are a source
of political power and a major

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actor of the political system.

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Out of this idea have emerged three
theoretical justifications for

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the way the First Amendment protects
freedom of speech.

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First, you have the marketplace
of ideas theory, which says that

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open debate is necessary in a society
for the best ideas to emerge and

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bad ideas to be defeated.

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Then you have the self government
theory which says that the only

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way people are able to govern
themselves in a government by the

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people is if they are free to criticize
their government.

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Finally, the self realization theory
is the idea that in order to realize

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their full potential as human beings,
citizens need to access as much

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information and as many ideas as
possible.

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Now be careful.

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Freedom of speech is not only the
freedom to speak.

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It includes other forms of speech,
such as symbolic speech.

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For instance, American citizens
are allowed to burn the American

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flag if they want to.

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The reason for that is that burning
the American flag, as controversial

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as it may be, is seen as a form
of political expression,

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which is exactly what the First
Amendment was supposed to protect.

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Freedom of speech is also freedom
from compelled speech, from forced

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speech, which means that the government
cannot force you to express ideas

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that you disagree with.

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I told you a few minutes ago that
the US has the largest definition

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of free speech in the entire world.

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Let me be clear about that.

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Freedom of speech in the US is
significantly larger than in European

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countries like France,
the UK or Germany.

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This can be hard to understand because,
after all, European citizens also

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have the right to criticize their
government freely.

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So what is it about the American
version of freedom of speech that

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makes it larger than in European
countries?

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The main difference has to do with
the notion of hate speech.

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So racist speech and homophobic speech,
for example, or islamophobia or

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anti-Semitism.

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As you know, those are illegal
in pretty much every single European

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country.

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However, they are absolutely legal
in the US.

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It is legal and it is actually
constitutionally protected for

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US citizens to express racist ideas,
homophobic ideas, or even to deny

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the Holocaust.

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What's interesting is that many
American citizens don't even know

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that. For

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instance, many American students
think that hate speech is illegal

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in America.

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They're wrong.

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The best example I can use to show
you how limitless the American

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version of freedom of speech is
is a Supreme Court case decided

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in 1977 and called National Socialist
Party of America v. Village

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of Skokie.

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In this decision, the Supreme Court
authorized American Nazis to

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demonstrate in Skokie,
which is the Jewish neighborhood

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of Chicago, wearing Nazi uniforms.

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If that is authorized,
you can easily imagine that pretty

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much nothing will be forbidden
when it comes to hate speech.

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As far as the Supreme Court was
concerned, those Nazis were expressing

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a political opinion.

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And as long as they did not engage
in violence, the government had

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no right to make their demonstration
illegal.

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Very recently, in 2017,
the Supreme Court confirmed this

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jurisprudence in a case called
Matal v. Tam, asserting that

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even the most hateful speech is
indeed protected by the Constitution

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and more precisely, by the First
Amendment.

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What's interesting about the Matal
V. Tam decision of 2017 is

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that it was a unanimous one.

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In other words, Supreme Court justices,
whether they are liberals or

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conservatives, all agree that hate
speech is indeed free speech and

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is protected by the First Amendment.

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But of course, even though the
US has the largest definition of

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freedom of speech in the entire world,
even the US has some limits on

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freedom of speech.

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For instance, you cannot threaten
somebody.

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You cannot advocate illegal actions.

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The government can also impose
what are known as time,

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place and manner restrictions.

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For instance, a city has the right
to prevent a concert scheduled

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at two in the morning in a residential
neighborhood from taking place.

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Obscenity can also be censored
on television or on the radio.

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The government also has the right
to limit freedom of speech in certain

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places that are under its direct
control, such as schools,

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prisons or military facilities.

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It can also limit the freedom of
speech of government employees,

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because if you work for the government,
there are obviously some secrets

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that you cannot share publicly.

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But generally speaking,
the rule is that the government

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cannot limit the content of what
people say.

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Now, it's important for you to
understand that this rule,

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just like any other right protected
by the Bill of Rights,

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only applies to the public sector,
to the government, not to the private

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sector.

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For instance, if you say something
racist in public, you will not

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go to jail because the First Amendment
protects you from the government.

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But you can lose your job because
the company you work for has every

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right to fire you.

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All right.

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That's it for today.

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Next week, we will talk about the
other freedoms related to freedom

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of speech that the First Amendment
protects,

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so freedom of the press,
freedom of assembly,

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the right to petition and freedom
of association.

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And then we will start studying
the second category of rights protected

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by the First Amendment:

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Religious freedom.

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Goodbye, and see you next week.