The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as granted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution In its 9-0 decision, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine and held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech [of which] the prevention and punishment of...have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem." In the United States, constitutional law generally refers to the provisions of the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards and appeal to a wider international audience, this article may require cleanup. ... The first ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. ... The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. ... In its decision, Chaplinsky v. ... The Supreme Court of the United States is the supreme court in the United States. ... An insult is a statement or action which affronts or demeans someone. ... Breach of the peace is a legal term used in constitutional law in English speaking countries, and in a wider public order sense in Britain. ...

Chaplinsky decision

Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, had told a New Hampshire town marshal who was attempting to prevent him from preaching "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned fascist" and was arrested. The court upheld the arrest and wrote in its decision that Organized crime is crime carried out systematically by formal criminal organizations. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

"There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting words" those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality." Image File history File links Left_double_quotation_mark. ...

— Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 1942

Post-Chaplinsky

The court has continued to uphold the doctrine but also steadily narrowed the grounds on which fighting words are held to apply. In Street v. New York (1969), which the court overturned a statute prohibiting flag-burning & verbally abusing the flag, holding that mere offensiveness does not qualify as "fighting words" and that the threat of actual violence must be present. Similarly, in Cohen v. California (1971), the fact that Cohen had been arrested for wearing a jacket that said "fuck the draft" did not constitute uttering fighting words since there had been no "personally abusive epithets." Flag desecration is a blanket term applied to various ways of intentionally defacing or dishonoring a flag, most often a national flag (though other flags may be defaced as well). ... Holding The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, prohibits states from making the public display of a single four-letter expletive a criminal offense, without a more specific and compelling reason than a general tendency to disturb the peace. ... Children run down a road near Trang Bang after an ARVN napalm attack on villages suspected of harboring National Liberation Front fighters in this June, 1972 photo by Huynh Cong Ut, which became a defining symbol of the international movement against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. ...

In R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992), the court overturned a statute prohibiting cross-burning on the grounds that governments could not prohibit speech based on its content or subjects addressed. The court went on to assign some free-speech value to fighting words (although the court ruled that cross burning was not fighting words): R. A. V., Petitioner, v. ...

"It is not true that "fighting words" have at most a de minimis expressive content, or that their content is in all respects worthless and undeserving of constitutional protection;" sometimes they are quite expressive indeed. We have not said that they constitute "no part of the expression of ideas," but only that they constitute "no essential part of any expression of ideas."" Image File history File links Left_double_quotation_mark. ... De Minimis is the a cappella group of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India and consists entirely of undergraduate students of the B.A., LL.B. (Hons. ...

— R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 1942

The court went on to say that while the government can regulate the mode of delivery of the ideas (time, place, and manner), it cannot regulate the ideas themselves. In more recent decisions, the court has held that fighting words must "reasonably incite the average person to retaliate" and risk "an immediate breach of the peace" or they could not be prohibited.

External links

• What is the Fighting Words doctrine? from freedomforum.org.
• First Amendment Library entry on Fighting Words