Cohen v. California 1971

AuthorDaniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
Pages216-220

Page 216

Appellant: Paul Robert Cohen

Appellee: State of California

Appellant's Claim: That convicting him for wearing a jacket that said "F———the Draft" in a county courthouse violated his freedom of speech.

Chief Lawyer for Appellant: Melville B. Nimmer

Chief Lawyer for Appellee: Michael T. Sauer

Justices for the Court: William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, John Marshall Harlan II, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart

Justices Dissenting: Hugo Lafayette Black, Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, Byron R. White

Date of Decision: June 7, 1971

Decision: The Supreme Court overturned Cohen's conviction for disturbing the peace because it violated the First Amendment.

Significance: Cohen says the First Amendment protects profanity and other offensive language that is not obscene and does not provoke violence.

The Vietnam War, which lasted from 1955 until 1974 was a battle between North and South Vietnam. North Vietnam wanted to unite the country under communism. South Vietnam resisted with help from the United States. The

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United States used a military draft to build an army of Americans to fight in the war. By 1968, over 500,000 American troops were fighting in Vietnam.

Although the war was almost fifteen years old in 1968, there was no sign that North Vietnam would be defeated. Many Americans became opposed to the war. Some thought a civil war in Vietnam was not America's concern. They were angry to see young Americans die in a fight for another country. Others were generally opposed to human beings killing each other. Protests against the war became common in America. In Cohen v. California, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the case of a protestor in Los Angeles, California.

STUDENT PROTESTS, 1964–1967

The student protest movement began in 1964 in Berkeley, California. In what became known as the Free Speech Movement, students pressed issues against an academic bureaucracy out of touch with the problems of contemporary society. Students staged sit-ins, strikes, sang folk songs, and created slogans to identify the targets of their protests. By 1965, with escalating events in Vietnam coming to the forefront, students rallied in opposition to the war. "Make Love Not War" became a new slogan. The draft system of the Selective Service was the most visible target of the government war policy spurring draft card burnings, sit-ins, and...

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