Handout C: Speech Scenarios

Handout C: Speech Scenarios

Directions: After the group activity has ended, complete the following chart for each speech scenario. In one or two sentences, explain whether you think each scenario is an example of protected speech. Use the information in Handout A: Background Essay to support your reasoning.

---

Scenario	Protected Speech?	Reasoning?
1. A group who opposes the president meets in front of the White House and gives speeches calling him a liar and an idiot. Its members also pass out voter registration forms, encouraging people to vote for someone new next fall.
2. A man organizes a protest outside of a big corporation’s headquarters to protest its use of child-labor in another country. During his speech, he tells the protestors to throw rocks and bottles at the company’s building.
3. An anti-government organization hands out pamphlets at a local festival. The literature states the group’s mission is to change the structure of American society, and that its eventual goal is to overthrow the government.
4. A small group of students, upset about their school’s new dress code policy, intentionally [on purpose] wear clothes to the lunchroom that violate it. They try to convince passing students to join their cause, and hand out a small pamphlet explaining what they believe to be the unfairness of the new school policy.
5. Eventually, the students get angry that no one’s paying attention to them or their message. One of the students calls a bomb threat in to the school. He’s hoping the students and staff in the cafeteria will be forced to listen to them while they’re all in lock-down.
6. A young man wears a jacket into a courthouse. On the back of the jacket is the phrase “[Bad word] the Draft. Stop the War.” [A draft is when the government forces citizens to join the army, even though they don’t want to.] He is arrested for disturbing the peace through offensive conduct.