WHITNEY v. CALIFORNIA

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.

Whether an Ohio law prohibiting speech that advocates for illegal activities violated Brandenburg's First Amendment rights.

Whether a conviction under the membership clause of the Smith Act was based on sufficient evidence that a Communist Party member "presently advocated forcible overthrow of the Government."

Whether the membership clause of the Smith Act, as applied to an "active member" of the Communist party, infringes on freedoms of expression and association in violation of the First Amendment.

Whether a California law requiring a loyalty oath in order to gain a tax exemption violated due process of law.

Whether the conviction of 14 Communists under the Smith Act for conspiring to "advocate and teach the duty of overthrowing the government by force or violence" violated the First Amendment

Whether the Smith Act which makes it a crime to "knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or by assignation" is on its face and as applied to the Petitioners violative of the First Amendment.

Whether the police can charge a speaker with disorderly conduct for continuing to speak to a restless and hostile crowd.

Does the First Amendment protect people’s right to say things that make other people so angry that it may lead them to cause unrest?

Whether a Mississippi statute punishing speech "reasonably tending to create an attitude of stubborn refusal to salute, honor, and respect the flag and government of the United States" or "calculated to encourage disloyalty to the government of the United States" violates the First Amendment

Whether a Georgia law prohibiting an "attempt to incite insurrection" was unconstitutional as applied to a Communist member planning to distribute literature, because the law was too vague to provide a sufficiently ascertainable standard of guilt.

Whether quoting in print "equivocal language" from the preamble to the IWW Constitution amounted to criminal syndicalism unprotected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Whether (1) the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment applies to states, and (2) whether the state criminal anarchy law violated First Amendment.

Whether the Espionage Act violates the First Amendment as applied to distributing leaflets calling for a strike at U.S. ammunitions plants.

Whether a conviction under the Espionage Act of 1917 for circulating anti-war articles should be overturned on First Amendment grounds.

Whether a political candidate’s speech that was considered to obstruct the United States’ war effort in violation of the Espionage Act deserved First Amendment protection.

Charles Schenck was charged with conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act for distributing anti-war leaflets that urged people to boycott the draft.