Table of Contents
Individual Rights
The Constitution of the United States of America protects the individual rights of all citizens, and many of those rights are enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Since the ratification of the Bill of Rights on Dec. 15, 1791, the rights enumerated in the First Amendment have been interpreted broadly to include a range of individual freedoms not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, including freedom of conscience and free association. Other important rights, such as due process, privacy, and a speedy trial with an impartial jury, are protected by subsequent amendments in the Bill of Rights.
The Constitution’s world-leading protections for individual rights — including the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances — is arguably the defining factor of our American system of government.
Free Speech
Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental individual freedoms protected by the First Amendment, and is perhaps the most well-known by most if not all Americans.
Freedom of speech encompasses the right to be free of government punishment for what you say (with very few, narrowly-defined exceptions), but that’s not all. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld that this also includes “freedom of expression,” which extends First Amendment protections to communications that aren’t literally spoken (again, with some exceptions). This allows for you to wear a jacket that says “Fuck the Draft” in a public courthouse, or burn the American flag in protest.
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Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental personal freedoms protected by the First Amendment. Without free speech, individuals could not criticize government officials.
As FIREPresident and CEO Greg Lukianoff said, the cultural norms and assumptions surrounding freedom of speech are what allow us to live in a deeply pluralistic democracy. The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment guarantees us the right to preserve that pluralism.
Even though freedom of speech became established law with the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1791, it would take more than 100 years for the legal principles to coalesce into coherent jurisprudence. In the meantime, many violations of First Amendment principles became law. For example, John Adams used the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 — which outlawed “any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings” against the executive branch — to stifle criticism of his administration. Similarly, Abraham Lincoln curtailed freedom of speech and press during the Civil War. Freedom of speech as we know and enjoy it today was not widely recognized by either the government or the courts until after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. But now, the jurisprudence is incredibly robust, ensuring that the First Amendment protects free speech and expressive activity to the greatest possible extent.
Religious Liberty
Today, this is generally known as “freedom of religion,” and no freedom may be more central or important to the human spirit and condition. Religious liberty is the ability to believe and practice one’s religious faith, or to practice none at all, free from governmental interference.
Supreme Court rulings have divided this section of the First Amendment into two clauses. The first 10 words of the First Amendment are known as the Establishment Clause, which prevents the government from establishing official religions and forcing people to support them. The next six words — “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” — comprise the Free Exercise Clause, which protects the right to believe in and practice any religion, or no religion, the way we choose.
At the heart of American liberty lies a recognition of individual rights, individual responsibility, and individual dignity.
The purpose of religious liberty is to ensure our government does not target or discriminate against religious faiths or those who practice them, and does not establish a religious orthodoxy, advance a specific religion, or promote religion in general. This principle has been confirmed many times by the Supreme Court.
As former FIREpresident David French writes in ĂŰÖĎăĚŇ’s Guide to Religious Liberty on Campus: “America is a nation that, from its founding, has proclaimed the rights of religious liberty and religious diversity.” As David emphasizes, for James Madison and his fellow Founders, “religious liberty was an inalienable right.”
Press Freedom
While there is a great deal of overlap between press freedom and freedom of speech, this protection emphasizes that Americans may not be restricted to talking only to people within shouting distance. Freedom of the press ensures the government also may not act to prevent you from spreading your message more broadly, such as in a book, newspaper, blog, or on social media.
A free press ideally serves as a check on the government, a watchdog of a free society. Its purpose is considered so important that the press is sometimes referred to as “the Fourth Estate,” an entity designed to review the three branches of government. For example, the Supreme Court ruled in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971) — also known as the Pentagon Papers case — that the government could not prevent The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing a study about how the U.S. government got involved in Vietnam. In his concurring opinion, Justice Hugo Black explained, “The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”
A true democratic society — and one committed to freedom of expression — must recognize a free press. Without it, not only is there no check on government power, but also a significant limitation on the ability of ordinary people to express and disseminate their ideas.
Freedom of Assembly
Freedom of assembly is the right of individuals to come together to express shared ideas. This includes the right to peaceably protest, and also extends to freedom of association — essential guarantees for ideas to flow freely.
The “right to protest” means that governments must allow (or have a fair permitting system for) protests in outdoor public places like streets and parks, and cannot reject or shut down a protest because of its message, so long as the protest is peaceful. The right to “free association” protects Americans’ right to assemble as everything from groups of friends to massive organizations, formal or informal, without being told that they may not have contact with one another or work together towards a common goal.
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The Supreme Court ruled in 1937 that “the holding of meetings for peaceable political action cannot be proscribed.”
The First Amendment-protected freedoms of assembly and association have allowed students to organize to express popular and unpopular ideas alike, enabled the development of on-campus protests like the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, and social campaigns like the Abolitionist movement, the Women’s Suffrage Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement. Through these exercises of free assembly and association, students and everyday Americans can come together in support of various political and religious causes to fight for their rights, beliefs, and fundamental freedoms.
Right to Petition
History provides many examples of government officials (including Britain’s then-King George III) refusing to read or even receive complaints, and retaliating against people for making a complaint, in order to avoid having to address serious problems. The “right to petition” guaranteed by the First Amendment means government officials can neither prevent Americans from contacting them in order to make their complaints heard, nor punish them for trying to do so.
Freedom of Conscience
Freedom of conscience protects your right to hold your own private beliefs, no matter how many people agree with you or how much power they have. After all, the freedom to speak is a dead letter if one lacks the freedom to think, to believe, or to disbelieve — even if the majority around you thinks differently. At the heart of American liberty lies a recognition of individual rights, individual responsibility, and individual dignity. Over one’s inner mind, conscience, and self, no one should have coercive power.
Freedom of belief and freedom of speech are, in a sense, two sides of the same coin. After all, usually when we speak we are expressing what we believe. However, there is an important distinction between the two.
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This primer outlines the fundamental right of freedom of conscience and the threats to this right on college campuses.
When the government seeks to prevent someone from speaking his or her mind, that is what we traditionally call censorship, and it is a clear-cut violation of our First Amendment-protected freedom of speech. However, coercion is yet more pernicious and evil because it violates the sovereignty of an individual’s mind as well as their tongue. Sometimes, rather than simply silence dissenters, tyrannical power seeks to force individuals to speak or utter things that they do not believe. In our moral tradition, that is a frightful assault upon the innermost sanctum of human privacy and dignity, not to mention individual rights.
In our legal tradition, it is a worse violation of the First Amendment to force someone to say that which he does not believe (which we might describe as an affirmative form of censorship) than to prevent him from saying that which he does believe (which we might describe as a negative form of censorship). This is why freedom of belief and conscience are also important First Amendment-protected principles.
Due Process
Due process demands that authorities provide fair, unbiased, and equitable procedures when determining a person’s guilt or innocence. The same principle applies to judicial hearings on college and university campuses: If those campuses care about the justice and accuracy of their findings, they must provide fair and consistent procedures for both the accuser and the accused.
Due Process is so important to preserving individual rights that it is mentioned twice in the Constitution: once in the Fifth Amendment, which limits the powers of the federal government, and again in the Fourteenth Amendment, which limits the powers of state and local governments. Both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment due process clauses prohibit government officials from depriving an individual of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law” and applies in both civil and criminal cases.
Due process rights are important in a wide variety of contexts, such as housing evictions, immigration removal proceedings, termination of governmental benefits, and campus disciplinary proceedings. Think about it — if you are charged with a serious criminal offense that could brand you with a record, fines, or prison time, or serious civil charges that could lead to your expulsion from school, you would want the proceeding to be as fair and transparent as possible. explains that “[d]ue process has evolved over the centuries as a way to ensure that accusatory proceedings produce accurate and truthful results.” Without due process, it becomes painfully easy for the government to abuse the legal system to silence critics and punish opponents. That’s why it is fundamental to preserving our individual freedoms and our expressive rights.