PERRY et al. v. SINDERMANN

Whether a state’s denial of a specialty license plate featuring the Confederate flag violates the First Amendment.

Does the 1st Amendment protect a public employee’s subpoenaed trial testimony that was not a part of the employee’s ordinary job responsibilities?

Does the First Amendment protect the speech of a deputy district attorney who wrote and circulated a memorandum suggesting that a deputy sheriff lied in a search warrant affidavit and in his subsequent testimony at court?

Did the 8th Circuit err in holding that the 1985 Beef Promotion & Research Act, and regulations promulgated there under which impose assessments on beef producers and importers to fund research, education, and promotional activities carried out by special administrative bodies created by Congress for the express purpose of furthering important governmental objectives under direct supervision of Secretary of Agriculture are unconstitutional and unenforceable?

Whether the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) induces public libraries to violate the 1st Amendment, thereby exceeding Congress's power under the Spending Clause by providing that a library that is otherwise eligible for special federal assistance for Internet access in the form of discount rates for educational purposes under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 254(h), or grants under the Library Services and Technology Act, 20 U.S.C. 9121 et seq., may not receive that assistance unless the library has in place a policy that includes the operation of a technology protection measure on Internet-connected computers that protects against access by all persons to visual depictions that are obscene or child pornography, and that protects against access by minors to visual depictions that are harmful to minors, a condition of the receipt of federal funding.

Does a 1996 law that permits attorneys receiving Legal Services Corp. funds to represent individuals in suits for welfare benefits, but prohibits them from challenging the constitutionality of existing welfare laws violate the First Amendment?

Whether a law requiring the National Endowment for the Arts to consider "general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public" before awarding grants to artistic projects is impermissibly viewpoint-based and unconstitutionally vague.

Whether First Amendment prevents government officials from terminating a contract with an independent contractor because of the contractor's speech.

Whether government retaliation against a contractor or regular provider of services for the exercise of rights of political association or allegiance violates the First Amendment's free speech guarantee.

Whether a public university can deny funds to a religious student group that it provides to nonreligious student groups.

Whether the government can prohibit federal employees from receiving compensation for writing and speaking about matters not related to their employment.

Whether a public employee may be fired for her speech even though one version of what she said indicates that her speech was of public concern.

Whether promotion, transfer, recall, and hiring decisions involving low-level public employees may be constitutionally based on party affiliation and support.

Whether a clerical employee in a county Constable's office was properly discharged for remarking, after hearing of an attempt on the life of the President: "If they go for him again, I hope they get him."

Whether a state sales tax scheme that taxes general interest magazines, but exempts newspapers and religious, professional, trade, and sports journals, violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press

Whether Section 399 of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, as amended by the Public Broadcasting Amendments Act of 1981, which forbids any "non-commercial educational broadcasting station which receives a grant from the Corporation" to "engage in editorializing," violate the First Amendment.

Whether the First Amendment prevents the discharge of a state employee for circulating a questionnaire concerning internal office affairs.

Whether the First Amendment protects an assistant public defender who is satisfactorily performing his job from discharge solely because of his political beliefs.

Whether a public employee forfeits his or her 1st Amendment protection against governmental abridgment of freedom of speech when he arranges to communicate privately with his employer rather than to express his views publicly.

Whether a teacher whose contract was not renewed after several speech-related incidents had his First Amendment rights violated.

Whether the discharge of a non-civil-service employee of a sheriff's department for not being affiliated with the Democratic party was a violation of the First Amendment's free speech guarantee.

Whether a teacher's dismissal by the Board of Education for publishing a letter in a newspaper critical of the Board's allocation of funds violated his freedom of speech under the First Amendment.