UNITED STATES v. O'BRIEN

Did the Secret Service unconstitutionally discriminate against protestors when asking one group to leave while allowing another to stay?

Whether protests can be held liable in court for inflicting intentional emotional distress when picketing a funeral with hyperbolic signs, some of which are directed at the deceased.

Whether the First Amendment allows public schools to prohibit students from displaying messages that allegedly promote the use of illegal substances at so-called school-sponsored events. Whether the Ninth Circuit departed from established principles of qualified immunity in holding that a public high school principal was liable in a damages lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. _ 1983 when, pursuant to the school districts policy against displaying messages promoting illegal substances, she disciplined a student for displaying a large banner with a slang marijuana reference at a school-sponsored, faculty-supervised event.

The Solomon Amendment, 10 U.S.C. 983(b)(1), withholds specified federal funds from institutions of higher education that deny military recruiters the same access to campuses and students that they provide to other employers. The question presented is whether the court of appeals erred in holding that the Solomon Amendment's equal access condition on federal funding likely violates the First Amendment to the Constitution and in directing a preliminary injunction to be issued against its enforcement.

Whether a statute banning cross-burning with the intent to intimidate violates the First Amendment.

Whether the city of Erie's ban on public nudity violates the First Amendment or is a valid exercise of the city's power to regulate harmful secondary effects associated with nude-dancing establishments.

Whether the court-mandated inclusion of the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc. (GLIB) in Boston’s 1993 St. Patrick’s Day parade violated the First Amendment rights of the private group, the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council, that the city of Boston authorized to organize the parade.

Whether an ordinance punishing such action that “arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, or gender” violates the First Amendment.

Whether a state may constitutionally prohibit nude dancing in public places.

Whether Appellees' prosecution for burning a United States flag in violation of the Flag Protection Act of 1989 is consistent with the First Amendment.

Whether Gregory Lee Johnson's conviction under a Texas law for publicly burning an American flag in protest violates the First Amendment.

Whether a law outlawing signs within 500 feet of a foreign embassy tending to bring the foreign government into "public odium " or "public disrepute" and gatherings that refuse to disperse violates the First Amendment.

Whether the denial of a permit to protestors requesting to camp out in Washington D.C. parks, according to Park Service regulations, violated the protestors' First Amendment rights.

Whether a New Jersey ordinance prohibiting all live entertainment, including nonobscene nude dancing, was overbroad and violated rights of free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment

Whether a state statute that bars picketing of residences or dwellings, but exempts from its prohibition "the peaceful picketing of a place of employment involved in a labor dispute" violates the First Amendment because it is not content-neutral.

Whether a conviction for affixing a peace symbol to a United States flag under a state statute prohibiting flag desecration violates the First Amendment.

Whether a state may punish speech that is not part of “narrowly limited classes of speech” outside First Amendment protection (such as incitement, obscenity, or fighting words), and whether advocacy of illegal action at some indefinite future period qualifies as incitement.

Does a Chicago city ordinance which bans non-union picketing within 150 feet of a school building violate both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

Whether the city’s “anti-picketing” ordinance and “anti-noise” ordinance violated the First Amendment.

Whether a Georgia criminal statute prohibiting “opprobrious words or abusive language, tending to cause a breach of the peace” violates the First Amendment.

Whether arresting someone for wearing a jacket that says “Fuck the Draft” under a California statute which prohibits “offensive conduct” violated the First Amendment.

Whether a New York statute that made it illegal to "publicly [to] mutilate, deface, defile, or defy, trample upon, or cast contempt upon either by words or act [any flag of the United States]" violates the First Amendment.

Whether a Birmingham city ordinance, which gave public officials the unbridled authority to issue or withhold parade permits without reference to the legitimate regulation of public streets and sidewalks, unconstitutionally abridged the petitioner’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Whether the wearing of armbands by public school students as a form of symbolic speech is protected by the First Amendment.

Must a protester, when faced with an injunction enforcing a facially unconstitutional ordinance, engage in an orderly judicial review of that injunction before disobeying it?

Whether 1st and 14th Amendment freedoms give students the right to engage in peaceful protests on jailhouse grounds.

Whether a breach of the peace conviction arising out of a peaceful sit-in in a segregated library infringed upon the petitioners First Amendment free speech, assembly, and petition rights.

Do statutory "disturbance of the peace" and "obstruction of public passageways" convictions, for a peaceable demonstration that contains speech that may potentially incite violence, infringe on a demonstrator's First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly?

Do statutory "disturbance of the peace" and "obstruction of public passageways" convictions, for a peaceable demonstration that contains speech that may potentially incite violence, infringe on a demonstrator's First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly?

Whether the First Amendment was violated when civil rights protestors, marching in front of the state house, were arrested after refusing to disperse when a crowd gathered.

Whether a municipal ban on the use of any sound system emitting "loud and raucous" noises on public streets violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Whether a compulsory flag-salute law for school children violates the 1st and 14th Amendments.

Does a California statute that makes the display of a red flag as a statement of "opposition to organized government" violate the First & Fourteenth Amendments?

Does a Nebraska statute criminalizing the use of the American flag on advertisements violate the Fourteenth Amendment?