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Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229 (1963), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution forbade state government officials to force a crowd to disperse when they are otherwise legally marching in front of a state house.
Supreme Court of the United States 83 S. Ct. 680; 9 L. Ed. 2d 697 The 187 petitioners consisted of African-American high school and college students who peacefully assembled at the Zion Baptist Church in Columbia, South Carolina on March 2, 1961. The students marched in separate groups of roughly 15 to South Carolina State House grounds to peacefully express their grievances regarding civil rights of African-Americans.
The crowd of petitioners did not engage in any violent conduct and did not threaten violence in any manner, nor did crowds gathering to witness the demonstration engage in any such behavior. Petitioners were told by police officials that they must disperse within 15 minutes or face arrest. The petitioners failed to disperse, opting to sing religious and patriotic songs instead. Petitioners were convicted of the common law crime of breach of the peace.[1]
Decided February 25, 1963Full case nameEdwards, et al. v. South CarolinaCitations372 U.S. 229 (more)
Tom C. Clark · John M. Harlan II
William J. Brennan Jr. · Potter Stewart
Byron White · Arthur Goldberg
Case opinionsMajorityStewart, joined by Warren, Black, Douglas, Harlan, Brennan, White, GoldbergDissentClarkLaws appliedU.S. Const. amend. I, XIV
The Supreme Court held that in arresting, convicting and punishing the petitioners, South Carolina infringed on the petitioners' rights of free speech, free assembly and freedom to petition for a redress of grievances. The Court stated that these rights are guaranteed by the First Amendment and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by the States.
The Supreme Court argued the arrests and convictions of 187 marchers were an attempt by South Carolina to "make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views" where the marchers' actions were an exercise of First Amendment rights "in their most pristine and classic form." The Court described the common law crime of breach of the peace as "not susceptible of exact definition."[2]
Clark's dissent
While the majority in Edwards distinguished Feiner v. New York (1951), based on the absence of violence or threats from the petitioners' march to the state capital, Justice Clark stated that the breach of the peace convictions upheld in Feiner presented "a situation no more dangerous than that found here." Justice Clark noted that Edwards was more dangerous because Feiner involved one person and was limited to a crowd of about 80, whereas the Edwards demonstration involved around 200 demonstrators and 300 onlookers. He argued that the City Manager's action may have averted a catastrophe because of the "almost spontaneous combustion in some Southern communities in such a situation."[3][4]
- Brown v. Louisiana
- Adderley v. Florida
- List of United States Supreme Court cases
- List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Warren Court
- List of United States Supreme Court cases involving the First Amendment
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 372
- ^ "Edwards v. South Carolina - 372 U.S. 229 (1963)". Oyez: Chicago-Kent College of Law. Retrieved 15 January 2014.
- ^ Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 237 (1963).
- ^ Edwards, 372 U.S. at 244 (Clark, J., dissenting).
- ^ Christmas, Gary. "Supreme Court Case: Edwards v. South Carolina, 1963". Howell & Christmas.
- Works related to Edwards v. South Carolina at Wikisource
- Text of Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229 (1963) is available from: Cornell Findlaw Justia Library of Congress Oyez (oral argument audio)
- First Amendment Library entry for Edwards v. South Carolina
Retrieved from "//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edwards_v._South_Carolina&oldid=999550795"
By David L. Hudson Jr.
In Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229 (1963), the Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina had violated students’ First Amendment rights of peaceable assembly, speech, and petition when the police dispersed a peaceful protest against segregation. The case illustrates one of the roles played by the First Amendment in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
South Carolina students arrested during peaceful protest
The case began on March 2, 1961, when a group of African-American high school and college students marched on the South Carolina State House grounds in Columbia to protest segregation. Carrying placards reading “Down with Segregation” and similar protest phrases, the students walked single and double file for approximately 45 minutes, attracting a crowd of 200 to 300 onlookers, when the police gave them 15 minutes to disperse.
Instead of leaving, the students chanted patriotic and religious songs. At the end of the 15 minutes, police officers arrested the students. A magistrate’s court in Columbia convicted 187 students for violating a breach-of-the-peace law. The convictions carried a fine of between $10 and $100 and a jail sentence of 10 to 30 days. The South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the convictions.
Court said students exercised basic First Amendment rights
In the majority opinion for the Supreme Court, Justice Potter Stewart wrote that the students’ actions “reflect an exercise of these basic constitutional rights [to speech, assembly, and petition] in their most pristine and classic form.” Stewart emphasized that the students acted peaceably and never threatened violence or harm. He concluded that the First and 14th Amendments do not “permit a State to make criminal the peaceful expression of unpopular views.”
Dissenting justice said demonstration was not 'passive'
Justice Tom C. Clark, in a lone dissent, asserted that the majority understated the facts that faced the police in Columbia and that the students’ actions were “by no means the passive demonstration which this Court relates.”
He believed that the police had acted reasonably in preventing a possible riot. “But to say that the police may not intervene until the riot has occurred is like keeping out the doctor until the patient dies,” he wrote.
In Adderly v. Florida (1966), the Court would distinguish demonstrations on state capitol grounds from similar demonstrations on the grounds of a jail.
David L. Hudson, Jr. is a law professor at Belmont who publishes widely on First Amendment topics. He is the author of a 12-lecture audio course on the First Amendment entitled Freedom of Speech: Understanding the First Amendment (Now You Know Media, 2018). He also is the author of many First Amendment books, including The First Amendment: Freedom of Speech (Thomson Reuters, 2012) and Freedom of Speech: Documents Decoded (ABC-CLIO, 2017). This article was originally published in 2009.
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Sweezy v. New Hampshire (1957) stands as the first U.S. Supreme Court case to expound upon the concept of academic freedom though some earlier cases mention it.
Most constitutional academic freedom issues today revolve around professors’ speech, students’ speech, faculty’s relations to government speech, and using affirmative action in student admissions.
Although academic freedom is regularly invoked as a constitutional right under the First Amendment, the Court has never specifically enumerated it as one, and judicial opinions have not developed a consistent interpretation of constitutional academic freedom or pronounced a consistent framework to analyze such claims.