Heckler's Veto Speech

To begin, it is important to understand the history and jurisprudence behind what led
The Court to set protections for controversial speech: the heckler’s veto. The heckler’s veto is defined by the Court as a situation in which a crowd disagrees with a speaker at an event and drowns the speaker’s message by disrupting the event. There are three elements that make up a situation leading to the heckler’s veto. The first one is a potential or actual speaker, second, an audience part of which is somehow hostile to the speaker of the speech, and lastly, some actual or potential police or other security presence. In other words, the heckler’s veto is “the suppression of speech by the government because of the possibility of violent reaction by

Chicago. In this case a Catholic priest made a call for white people to protest against black people, and made some extreme derogatory comments against minorities. There were around eight hundred people in an auditorium listening to father Terminiello’s message and approximately one thousand people outside protesting his message. In a Majority opinion, Justice Douglas wrote that the purpose of free speech protections under the First Amendment was to invite people to debate even when the message might incite people to

South Carolina. In this case one hundred and eighty-seven high school and college black students who peacefully assembled at the Zion Baptist Church in South Carolina. The students then march to the South Carolina State House to protest for their civil rights. Although the students did not engage in any violence they were asked by the police to disperse or be arrested. The crowd did not comply and the students were arrested. The Court held that in arresting and convicting the students, South Carolina infringed upon the student’s freedom of speech and freedom of assembly