Limiting the 1st Amendment Despite its prominent plating in the lore Americana, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s clear and present standard, exemplified by shouting fire in a crowded theater, has been recognized as inconstant, prone to bias, and unsatisfactory at explaining the threshold of America’s First Amendment. The case in which this standard was established, Schenck v. United States, was a landmark decision in defining the limits of the First Amendment. Schenck distributed draft opposition flyers, calling the state act “a form of involuntary servitude that violated the Thirteenth Amendment.” For…
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