The Pros And Cons Of The First Amendment

Despite the fact that the First Amendment protects offensive speech, the Supreme Court has created a category of unprotected speech that consists of “fighting words.” In Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the Court defined fighting words as “words which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of peace.” The Court established that in order for the speaker's speech to fall under the fighting words doctrine the speech must be directed to an individual face-to-face and the words must have a tendency to cause the average person to respond with an immediate violent action. Fighting words are not subject to First Amendment protection because they don’t convey ideas and are not of social value.