Protests and the First Amendment The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives people the right to assemble peacefully and to petition the government to redress grievances, but there is a question that I have asked myself. What are the ways that U.S. citizens can petition or protest the government? To answer this question I had to ask myself other questions that could help me, which are: what does “freedom of petition” mean in the First Amendment?, how do citizens petition the government and how does the government have to respond?, and what have U.S. courts said about this right? So I started looking at government publications, law journals, court cases, and forums. So, how do citizens petition the government and how does the …show more content…
A more specific meaning is “the right to petition protects our right to ask the government to fix a wrong or change a policy. We can petition the federal, state and local governments. Petitions directed to the judicial, executive and legislative branches are all protected” (Freedom Forum). We have every right to ask the government to change something if that problem affects one person or many people, also our rights to ask the government for something are protected, it means that it cannot be ignored or infringed. “A more simple definition of the right to petition, is the right to present requests to the government without punishment or reprisal. This right is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This right grants people not only the freedom to stand up and speak out against injustices they feel are occurring, but also grants the power to help change those injustices” (Freedom Forum). This means that the right to ask the government for something not only gives us the right to speak about the problem, we can make that problem change if we continue to insist on the government to solve …show more content…
Government” (American Bar Association). This tells me that the Supreme Court highly respects this right and that in many cases it always took it into account. “The Petition Clause states that People have the right to appeal to the government in favor of or against policies that affect them or in which they feel strongly. This freedom includes the right to gather signatures in support of a cause and to lobby legislative bodies for or against legislation. During the civil rights movement, for example, the Supreme Court upheld the rights of several groups of individuals protesting segregation at public institutions such as libraries and schools, and ruled that these citizens had every right to express their rights under the petition clause” (American Bar Association). So, the Supreme Court once again says that it is an inalienable right, that according to the petition clause, citizens have every right to complain about something if they see that it is not fair and that even in the civil rights movement they confirmed it in front of all the