The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of religion; prohibiting the free exercise of religion; or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. In the original draft of the Bill of Rights, what is now the First Amendment occupied third place. The first two articles were not ratified by the states, so the article on disestablishment and free speech ended up being first.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Usually considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to formerly enslaved Americans following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954) regarding racial segregation, Loving v. Virginia (1967) regarding interracial marriage, Roe v. Wade (1973) regarding abortion, Bush v. Gore (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) regarding same-sex marriage, and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023) regarding race-based college admissions. The amendment limits the actions of all state and local officials, and also those acting on behalf of such officials.
Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen, 541 U.S. 752 (2004), is a case argued in the Supreme Court of the United States on 21 April 2004. The question the case presented relates to Presidential foreign affairs and foreign trade actions exempt from environmental-review requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act. Specifically, the question is whether those actions are subject to those requirements as a result of a rulemaking action concerning motor carrier safety by the federal agency with responsibility for that type of safety.
Joseph McKenna was an American politician who served in all three branches of the U.S. federal government as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, as U.S. Attorney General and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He is one of seventeen members of the House of Representatives who subsequently served on the Supreme Court.
Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954), was a landmark case, "the first and only Mexican-American civil-rights case heard and decided by the United States Supreme Court during the post-World War II period." In a unanimous ruling, the court held that Mexican Americans and all other nationality groups in the United States have equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling was written by Chief Justice Earl Warren. This was the first case in which Mexican-American lawyers had appeared before the Supreme Court.
United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515 (1996), was a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the long-standing male-only admission policy of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in a 7–1 decision. Justice Clarence Thomas, whose son was enrolled at the university at the time, recused himself.
Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case which held that Congress could regulate the sale of private property to prevent racial discrimination: "[42 U.S.C. § 1982] bars all racial discrimination, private as well as public, in the sale or rental of property, and that the statute, thus construed, is a valid exercise of the power of Congress to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment."
H. L. v. Matheson, 450 U.S. 398 (1981), was a United States Supreme Court abortion rights case, according to which a state may require a doctor to inform a teenaged girl's parents before performing an abortion or face criminal penalty.
Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250 (1952), was a case that came before the United States Supreme Court in 1952. It upheld an Illinois law making it illegal to publish or exhibit any writing or picture portraying the "depravity, criminality, unchastity, or lack of virtue of a class of citizens of any race, color, creed or religion". It is most known for giving a legal basis to some degree that forms of hate speech that may be deemed to breach US libel law are not protected by the First Amendment.
Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S. 213 (1898), is a United States Supreme Court case that reviewed provisions of the 1890 Mississippi constitution and its statutes that set requirements for voter registration, including poll tax, literacy tests, the grandfather clause, and the requirement that only registered voters could serve on juries. The plaintiff, Henry Williams, claimed that Mississippi's voting laws were upheld with the intent to disenfranchise African Americans, thus violating the Fourteenth Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court did not find discrimination in the state's laws because, even though the laws made discrimination possible, the laws themselves did not discriminate against African Americans. The court found that any discrimination toward African Americans was performed by the administrative officers enforcing the law and that there was no judicial remedy for this kind of discrimination.
Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177 (1990), is a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the issue of whether a warrantless search conducted pursuant to third party consent violates the Fourth Amendment when the third party does not actually possess common authority over the premises.
Saint Francis College v. al-Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (1987), is a United States labor law case decided by the United States Supreme Court.
Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611 (1971), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a local city ordinance that made it a criminal offense for three or more persons to assemble on a sidewalk and "annoy" any passersby was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad.
Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602 (1993), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution applies to civil forfeiture cases.
National Association of Manufacturers v. Department of Defense, 583 U.S. ___ (2018), is a United States Supreme Court case. At issue is which court will hear cases that define the term Waters of the United States for the purpose of rule making, to the exclusion of the states. The case is the successor to North Dakota v. EPA, among others.
Hazen Paper Co. v. Biggins, 507 U.S. 604 (1993), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that a disparate treatment claim cannot succeed unless the employee's protected trait had a determinative influence on the employer's decisionmaking.
Executive Order 13990, officially titled Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis is an executive order signed by President Joe Biden on January 20, 2021, which implements various environmental policies of his administration including revoking the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline and temporarily prohibiting drilling in the arctic refuge. It was rescinded by Donald Trump within hours of his assuming office on January 20, 2025.
Royal Canin U. S. A. v. Wullschleger, 604 U.S. ___ (2024), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court affirmed the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, ordering that after a deletion of all federal claims deprived the District Court of federal-question jurisdiction, the suit became one for a state court. Justice Elena Kagan delivered the opinion of the unanimous court.
E.M.D. Sales, Inc. v. Carrera, 604 U.S. ___ (2024), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that a preponderance of the evidence standard applies when an employer seeks to show that an employee is exempt from the minimum-wage and overtimepay provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the unanimous court.
