Case Categories: Bad Tendency Test

The bad tendency test was mostly used to determine whether criticism of World War I was protected by the First Amendment. The end result of the bad tendency test was that during the wartime era the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government’s anti-seditious behavior almost without fail. Among the most well-known cases related to the First Amendment were Abrams v. United States (1919), Gitlow v. New York (1925), and Whitney v. California (1927).

• Fox v. Washington (1915)

  The ruling in Fox v. Washington (1915), dealing with an article on nude bathing, was issued before the Court recognized that the First Amendment limited state...

• Gitlow v. New York (1925)

  In Gitlow v. New York, the Court applied free speech and press protection to the states through the due process clause of the the Fourteenth Amendment...