{"id":2638184,"date":"2026-07-31T10:12:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/op-ed-the-first-amendment-isnt-optional\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T10:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T14:19:09","slug":"op-ed-the-first-amendment-isnt-optional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/op-ed-the-first-amendment-isnt-optional\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-Ed: The First Amendment Isn\u2019t Optional"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fop-ed-the-first-amendment-isnt-optional%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2638184&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the complexities of free speech rights in the United States, emphasizing that certain offensive or vulgar words, including racial slurs, are protected under the First Amendment. It highlights past adn recent legal cases, such as Paul Cohen&#8217;s 1968 protest at the Los angeles Courthouse and the Minnesota case involving Shiloh Hendrix, demonstrating that government attempts to ban or punish the use of certain words conflict with constitutional protections. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that hate speech and offensive language are protected unless they invoke true threats or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/drew-allen-the-j6-committee-promised-a-bombshell-but-delivered-a-dud\/\" title=\"Drew Allen: The J6 Committee Promised a Bombshell But Delivered a Dud\">incite imminent lawless action<\/a>.The piece underscores that courts recognize the importance of tolerating offensive speech to preserve free expression, and efforts by city governments to ban certain words are likely unlawful. the article advocates for respecting free speech&#8217;s broad protections,even when the language is hurtful or offensive.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><br \/>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\"><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<section> \t\t\t\t<script>console.log(\"ad slot (AC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC3)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC4)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_0)\")<\/script><\/p>\n<p>In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, 19-year-old Paul Cohen walked through the Los Angeles County Courthouse wearing a jacket with a four-letter negative opinion about the military draft on the back. His objection began with the F-word. He was arrested and convicted for disturbing the peace.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and Justice John Marshall Harlan left American law a sentence worth keeping: \u201cOne man\u2019s vulgarity is another\u2019s lyric.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 60 years later, two governments \u2014 Los Angeles and the state of Minnesota \u2014 are testing whether that\u2019s still true.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start out west, where the Los Angeles City Council has unanimously banned from public comment what are often called the \u201cN-word\u201d and the \u201cC-word.\u201d The rule cannot bring itself to print them, so it spells them out a letter at a time, the way a parent spells C-A-N-D-Y over a toddler\u2019s head. Then it bans words assembled by hanging -ish, -y, or -ing on the end.<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles has enacted a rule that conjugates, but also subjugates.<\/p>\n<p>Without doubt, the targeted words are vile. People of character refrain from using them. That\u2019s equally true of the slurs deriding other groups \u2014 the ones the Council left untouched. And that creates a problem.<\/p>\n<p>Two First Amendment organizations are now demanding repeal of the ban and threatening federal litigation.<\/p>\n<p>L.A. will likely lose such a battle because government has no legal authority to officially deem some slurs objectionable and others permissible. Even a ban on all of them would fail, since the Constitution protects speech that officials or listeners find offensive. Cohen\u2019s case established that.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court gave even more clarity on this in 1992. A Minnesota teenager burned a cross in a black family\u2019s yard and was charged under an ordinance reaching symbols that aroused anger based on race.<\/p>\n<p>His conduct was already criminal in other ways. The Court unanimously struck the ordinance down because government had sorted unprotected speech into favored and disfavored subjects.<\/p>\n<p>Some might call the banned words or subjects \u201chate speech.\u201d That term is subjective, but no matter the definition, the high court in 2017 ruled that \u201chate speech\u201d is protected under the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019d think that these decisions from America\u2019s highest court would have made the law rather clear. But, yet again, Minnesota didn\u2019t get the message. And you likely heard about the case.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, a white woman named Shiloh Hendrix was convicted of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fbi-still-hunting-for-hundreds-six-months-after-capitol-riot\/\" title=\"FBI Still Hunting For Hundreds Six Months After Capitol Riot\">misdemeanor disorderly conduct<\/a>. Her offense? At a Rochester playground last year, an 8-year-old boy took an applesauce pouch from her diaper bag. She chased him and used the same racial slur banned by the L.A. City Council.<\/p>\n<p>A bystander followed her with a phone, asked whether she\u2019d said it, then asked her to say it again. She did, at him, several times, while walking away holding her toddler. The video went viral.<\/p>\n<p>The jury acquitted her on the count involving the child but convicted her on the count involving the black man holding the camera. The judge fined her $1,000, ordered her to perform community service, and gave a stayed jail sentence. Her lawyer is appealing the judgment.<\/p>\n<p>Minnesota\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >disorderly conduct statute prohibits abusive language tending<\/a> to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment. That\u2019s so broad as to criminalize a bad mood. The Minnesota Supreme Court saw the problem in 1978 and narrowed the statute to ban only \u201cfighting words.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fighting words are a direct, face-to-face insult likely to provoke immediate violence, not a government conclusion that a word is uncivil or hurtful. Hendrix was leaving the playground and the bystander approached her, recorded her, and all but begged for the repetition he later published.<\/p>\n<p>A fight was never even in the cards. And the U.S. Supreme Court hasn\u2019t upheld a fighting words conviction since it created the category in 1942.<\/p>\n<p>The law is already settled: despicable and racist language is protected speech. That means the Hendrix appeal is likely to succeed.<\/p>\n<p>So, whether it\u2019s spouting off in a California city council meeting or yelling on a Minnesota playground, the First Amendment simply isn\u2019t optional. But not every utterance is protected speech. True threats, actionable defamation, and incitement likely to produce imminent lawless action may be sidelined.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a thoughtful reason behind the doctrine of protecting speech that hurts. Courts recognize that letting government use offensiveness to silence critics ends worse than letting the words be heard.<\/p>\n<p>The First Amendment does not require us to admire offensive or annoying speech. It requires government to tolerate it.<\/p>\n<p>Los Angeles politicians banned the word. A Minnesota jury punished it. But the Constitution protects it. And neither vote nor verdict can change that.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><i><b>The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either d or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/submitop-ed\/\">here<\/a>.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #171717; display: flex;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;line-height: 1.5;margin: 24px 0;padding: 18px 20px 18px 30px;text-align: left;\">\n<div style=\"align-self: stretch;border-left: 3px solid #171717;flex-shrink: 0;padding-left: 20px;\"><\/div>\n<p><a style=\"text-decoration: none;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/\">Choose The Western Journal as your preferred source on Google and never miss reporting that defends truth, protects freedom, and advances Western civilization<\/a><\/div>\n<p style=\"border: 1px solid #f5f5f5; padding: 16px;\">Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/advertise-us\/?wj_source=article\">Advertise Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position: relative;\">\n<div class=\"ff-fancy-header-container\"> \t\t\t \t<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-submit-correction inner-content\">\n<div class=\"correction-form\">\n<form style=\"display: none;\">\n<div class=\"sc-name-field\"> \t\t\t\t\t\t<label>* Name<\/label> \t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" name=\"name\" required> \t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc--field\"> \t\t\t\t\t\t<label>* <\/label> \t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" name=\"\" required> \t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p> \t\t\t\t\t<label>* Message<\/label> \t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t<textarea name=\"message\" required><\/textarea> \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"required-message\" style=\"display: none; padding-bottom: 15px;\">* All fields are required.<\/div>\n<p> \t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"submit\" value=\"Submit\" onclick=\"event.preventDefault(); firefly_sc();\"> \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"firefly-sc-confirm\" style=\"display: none;\">Success!<\/div>\n<\/p><\/form>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> \t\t<script> \t\t\tfunction firefly_sc() { \t\t\t\tif( typeof window.captchaPublicKey == typeof undefined ){ \t\t\t\t\tconsole.error('window.captchaPublicKey is not defined'); \t\t\t\t} \t\t\t\tgrecaptcha.execute( window.captchaPublicKey, { action: 'submit_correction' } ).then( function( token ) { \t\t\t\t\tvar opts = { \t\t\t\t\t\taction:    'firefly_sc_submit', \t\t\t\t\t\tname:      document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"name\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\t:     document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\tmessage:   document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"message\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\tpost_id:   firefly_post_id, \t\t\t\t\t\tcap_token: token \t\t\t\t\t}  \t\t\t\t\tvar inputs = [ 'name', '', 'message' ];  \t\t\t\t\tfor( var i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++ ) if( ! 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He was arrested and convicted for disturbing peace, but the Supreme Court later overturned his conviction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2638185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Ben-Working-Feature-Image-2026-07-29T143413.048.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[6371,23094,33332,81359,32311],"class_list":["post-2638184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-censorship","tag-constitutional-rights","tag-first-amendment","tag-free-expression-2","tag-free-speech"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Ben-Working-Feature-Image-2026-07-29T143413.048.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2638184"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2638188,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638184\/revisions\/2638188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2638185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2638184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2638184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2638184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}