Antiwar

The Role of the First Amendment during the Progressive Era

In the Progressive era, we learned that the interpretation of the First Amendment began shifting toward what we recognize it as today. It's interesting that up until the early 1920s, the Supreme Court viewed free speech protections as applying only to the federal government, leaving state and local governments to interpret it how they saw fit. This allowed laws like the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 to criminalize speech against the government, particularly during World War I, where war protestors were often jailed for expressing dissent. The courts upheld these laws by arguing that certain forms of speech posed a threat to national security.

But a shift started with Gitlow v. New York (1925). This case was important because the Supreme Court used the "incorporation doctrine" to extend First Amendment protections to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause. Gitlow was a socialist and was convicted for distributing material calling for the "overthrow" of the government. While the Court upheld his conviction, they acknowledged, for the first time, that the freedoms of speech and press were fundamental rights that states, not just the federal government, must respect.

This decision was revolutionary in First Amendment law, as it began the process of applying federal constitutional protections to state and local governments. Gitlow v. New York laid the foundation for a different interpretation of First Amendment rights in the U.S., changing how the courts viewed free speech and state power in a much more progressive way. It's hard to believe that during this time people were able to be arrested just because they spoke up against something they thought was wrong that our government was doing.

Antiwar Rhetoric Today

When watching video sources about war protests and First Amendment laws I can't help but think about all the protests that happened in the spring at college campuses across the U.S. over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I think we saw a lot of these stories in the news because both Republicans and Democrats had strong opinions about what was happening. 

Some people thought that it was outrageous that college students were allowed to set up tents, hold up signs that could be thought of as anti-Semitic, and damage campus property. Others thought they should be allowed to express their First Amendment rights to voice their opinion. Now a year after the conflict started, there haven't been many protests in the news. I think that the news has stopped reporting on how many Palestinian civilians have died in the conflict and isn't on people's radars every evening like it used to be. I think it might change again if the U.S. gets more involved in the conflict. I think like all our news, we should make sure that we are checking many news sources to make sure we are getting the whole story, and letting all voices be heard.