The First Amendment (Essay Sample)

Exam 1
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Exam 1
The First Amendment protects the rights of Americans to assemble, protest, and petition. Under the First Amendment, freedom of speech guarantees citizens the right to express their ideas freely. As a democratic ideal that has been exercised in many courts in the United States, the right to protest or express one's ideas has some limits (Herbeck, 2018). In the case presented, students in Freedom of Speech uploaded their skit video on YouTube. However, the video was perceived as similar to the Mean Girls movie, and the copyright holders of the film sent a takedown notice to YouTube seeking the removal of the students' video. Gretchen Wieners, a protest leader, requested Cady, a member of Gretchen's female students' society, to hack YouTube's computers and retrieve the home address of YouTube executives. However, she was prosecuted for her statement but argued that her message was protected by the First Amendment. Indeed, the First Amendment protects Gretchen's message. It protects the right to express her ideas and protest peacefully.
Similar to the case against Gretchen, where she is prosecuted for her statement, a case involving Brandenburg v. Ohio demonstrates the sovereignty of the people and the authoritative features of the First Amendment in protecting human rights. In 1969, Supreme Court judges ruled that Clarence Brandenburg, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, did not violate the law in his speech. They also explained that the laws in Ohio overlooked Brandenburg's freedom of speech. Nevertheless, the First Amendment emphas