ABSTRACT
The First Amendment to the US Constitution is the first of the ten amendments collectively known as the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment guarantees such basic rights as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of association by prohibiting government interference with the civil liberties. Some of the first challenges to the First Amendment's free speech guarantee came during World War I when the government enacted laws to prohibit acts such as espionage that could undermine the US war effort. One of the broadest restrictions the Supreme Court has allowed the government to place on speech covered by the First Amendment is the time, place, or manner restriction. The Supreme Court has historically held that the First Amendment protects even the most repugnant symbolic speech such as cross burning, which has a long history of association with the Ku Klux Klan's violence against African Americans.
