The answer is B) The government can limit the speech that causes harm. Though the outcomes of Schenck and New York Times differed the both show that the Government can limit speech by people or organizations that causes it harm. Especially in the case of Schneck Vs. the United States where the decision was not it the favor Schneck. It ruled that the defendants who distributed fliers to draft age men urging them to resist induction, was in effect disrupting the draft and ruled a criminal offense. This was proof that the government had the power to limit speech if it caused harm.
Although the results of the decisions made by Schenck and the New York Times were different from each other, both agreed on the viewpoint that the government is allowed to limit speech, if that speech may lead to disastrous results.
Further Explanation:
The Schenck vs. United States (1919) was a case heard by the United States Supreme Court, concerning the country’s involvement in World War I. When the country joined Britain and France, against Germany and its allies, in World War I, in 1917, it led to a huge outcry in the country, especially from the radical leftists and those who were sympathetic to Germany. During this period, while the government was drafting men to fight in the war, these people distributed fliers all across the country, urging men to oppose their induction into their army. They were eventually convicted, by a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, following the opinion of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., of trying to obstruct the draft, which was viewed as a criminal offense. According to the court, given the circumstances, such actions would have dangerous consequences, and hence punishable.
In the 1964 decision of the Supreme Court in the New York Times Co. vs Sullivan case, the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was upheld, with the court maintaining that protection of the freedom of speech limits public officials’ right to sue for defamation. In early 1960, the New York Times, in an advertisement by the supporters of Martin Luther King Jr., criticized the police in Montgomery, Alabama, for maltreating civil rights supporters. In response, L.B. Sullivan, a Montgomery police officer sued the paper for defamation in a local county court, which ruled that inaccuracies in the advertisements were defamatory in nature. This decision, when taken to the Supreme Court of Alabama by the paper, was backed. When the paper appealed against the verdict in the U.S. Supreme Court, the latter ruled that if the plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official, or one running for public office, he/she must not only prove normal defamatory elements, i.e. publishing false defamatory statements to a third party, but also that statements were made with malicious intent, i.e. either the defendant knew that statements were false, or it deliberately ignored the truth.
In summary, it can be said that both statements were made in different times, under different circumstances. In the first case, the freedom of speech was subject to government constraints, given the circumstances, while in the second case, the freedom of speech was upheld, for the plaintiff ought to have proved that false defamatory statements were made with malicious intentions. However, the common thread binding both cases is that both agreed that the government could limit free speech if it were to cause harm to both nation and the public.
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Answer Details:
Grade: High School
Subject: History
Chapter: Your Rights: Freedom of Expression
Keywords:
World War I, Germany, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., 1st Amendment, Martin Luther King Jr., Montgomery, L.B. Sullivan, Alabama
