First Amendment

The 1791 guarantee of religious freedom, speech, press, assembly, and petition in the US Constitution

Overview

Ratified with the rest of the Bill of Rights in 1791, the First Amendment bars Congress from establishing religion or prohibiting its free exercise and from abridging freedom of speech, the press, peaceable assembly, and petition for redress of grievances. It originally restrained only the federal government, but beginning with Gitlow v. New York in 1925 the Supreme Court applied its protections to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Landmark rulings such as New York Times v. Sullivan and Brandenburg v. Ohio gave American speech protections an unusually broad reach. Its religion clauses continue to generate disputes over school prayer, public funding, and exemptions.