(upbeat trumpet music) (school bell ringing) ♪ Yo, I've got self-determination ♪ ♪ That's the heart and the soul of this nation ♪ ♪ Each American's got the right to be ♪ ♪ Though we live together, we all live free ♪ ♪ You got that right ♪ ♪ You got that right ♪ ♪ You got that right ♪ ♪ You got that right ♪ - So that is why I believe that the 2 Live Crew is a serious artistic group with valuable social perspective.

- Thank you, Mark.

Now, are there any questions?

- Man, you guys are a bunch of punks.

- Yeah, they promote violence toward women.

- They're just trying to show off.

- Oh man, they're harmless.

- They're dangerous.

- They're criminals.

- I never heard of them before.

- If you all don't like the music, don't buy the album.

- They've got a right to say whatever they want.

- They can't come in my community and say it.

- Hey, it's a free country.

- So how come they got arrested then?

- Yeah, so why did they get arrested?

- And what about the guy selling the album, why did he get arrested?

- You think I'll get arrested if I buy the album?

- No, but you should be.

- For buying an album, isn't that censorship?

(school bell ringing) (teacher chuckling) - Well, I can see we will have to continue this later.

Students, do not forget about what you were saying or feeling on this subject.

We will continue this tomorrow in class.

(children chatting) - Freedom of speech is one of our fundamental rights as United States citizens.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees some very important freedoms: freedom of religion, speech, the press, and the right of assembly are all covered by this one amendment.

Without it, this might be a very different sort of country.

Without freedom of religion, the government could tell people where, when, how, and what to worship.

Without freedom of the press, a reporter could be arrested for writing the truth about a senator or mayor.

And without freedom of speech, honest citizens could be arrested just for criticizing their political leaders.

Doesn't sound very pleasant, does it?

(Alfre screeching) - I don't get it.

- What don't you get?

- If we've got all this freedom of speech, how come 2 Live Crew and the guys who sold their albums got arrested?

- Let me ask you a question, what do you think your teacher would have done just now if you had busted out a mic and started to rock the house with some 2 Live Crew rap?

- I don't think I would have gotten very far.

- Oh really, why?

- Because this school has rules about bad language and that kind of stuff.

- And who made those rules?

- Probably the school board.

- So all the rules about bad language and the other things kids in public high school might get in trouble for, those rules are established by the community, right?

- Yeah, but I still don't see why they got arrested.

- Well, one person's freedom of speech might be another person's obscenity.

It depends on the way it's judged.

- Wait a minute, I'm getting a little confused.

- Okay, check this out.

You've heard of the Supreme Court, right?

- Yeah.

- In 1957, the US Supreme Court ruled that obscene forms of expression are not protected by the First Amendment.

- Yeah, but what did they mean by obscene?

(upbeat music) (upbeat trumpet music) - [Alfre] Since 1973, the Supreme Court has decided whether or not something is obscene by applying these three criteria.

First, to the average person applying contemporary community standards, it must be patently offensive in showing sexual or excretory functions.

- Or in other words?

- In other words, nothing.

You know what I'm talking about.

Now, pay attention.

The second criteria is this, to the average person applying contemporary community standards and taken as a whole, it must appeal to the prurient interest.

- Well, what do you mean by that?

- Well, the Supreme Court said having a shameful interest in nudity, sex, or excretory function.

- There's my favorite word again.

- And finally, it must lack any serious artistic, literary, political or scientific value.

- So you mean like what I was talking about in my report?

- Yes.

- But those were just judgment calls.

- Exactly.

- Man, it seems like the Supreme Court has opened up a whole new can of worms.

- Well, that's the problem with the Bill of Rights, it was written by a bunch of troublemakers.

- Well, what do you mean by that?

(footsteps running) (relaxing piano music) - [Alfre] It's hard to believe now, but all those guys whose portraits are on our money and whose names have become part of our landscape, back when they were alive they were outlaws.

They were dangerous.

They were revolutionaries.

They were so restless and angry about being told what to do by a king and a parliament over which they had no control that they revolted and fought and bled and died so that they could determine their own future.

And when they developed the Constitution, they were still so wary about giving too much power to too few people that they created a limited government of checks and balances and divisions of power.

And the citizens insisted that a written Bill of Rights be added.

No one had ever tried anything quite like it before.

They didn't have much to compare it to, so they had no idea if it was gonna work.

- Well, it's not working if you ask me.

- Why do you say that?

- I mean, you said yourself that they didn't wanna give too much power to too few people, but it seems like the Supreme Court has an awful lot of power if they can decide what is obscene and what is free speech.

I mean, they're just a bunch of guys, right?

- [Alfre] Mark!

- [Mark] What?

- Mark!

- What?

- Sandra Day O'Connor is not a guy.

- Well okay, you know what I mean.

- Yes, I know what you mean and you are in good company.

(children chatting) (upbeat drum music) Almost from the day it was adopted, the First Amendment right to free speech has been the subject of fierce debate between those who believe that it is absolute and those who would make exceptions to it.

In 1798, when the Bill of Rights was only seven years old, Congress passed the Sedition Act.

- [Narrator] "Be enacted that if any person shall write "or publish any false, "scandalous, or malicious writings against the government "of the United States or the president with intent "to defame or to excite against them the hatred "of the good people of the United States, "then such a person being thereof convicted "shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $2,000 "and by imprisonment not exceeding two years."

- [Alfre] For three years, this law was actually enforced.

And those indicted included prominent newspaper editors, a United States Congressman and an ordinary citizen named Luther Baldwin, who was fined $150 for saying out loud that he hoped that a cannon fired during a presidential salute, would hit President Adams in the seat of his pants.

When Thomas Jefferson became president, he pardoned everyone who had been convicted under the Sedition Act and allowed the law to expire.

But that wasn't the last time that the First Amendment has been tested.

In the 1950s, when many Americans felt that the country was being corrupted by communism, the Supreme Court upheld convictions of individuals for organizing groups which opposed the government, even though they had not really taken any action and were simply exercising what they believed to be their right to free speech.

In a dissenting opinion from a 1961 case called, Konigsberg versus California State Bar, Supreme Court Justice Black responded against the mood of the times.

- [Justice Black Voiceover] I believe that the first Amendment's unequivocal command that there should be no abridgment to the rights of free speech shows that the men who drafted our Bill of Rights did all the balancing that was to be done.

I fear that the creation of tests by which speech is left unprotected under certain circumstances is an invitation to abridge it.

- So, if it had been up to him, the guys in 2 Live Crew wouldn't have been arrested.

- Well, I'm not so sure.

Justice Black wrote that in 1961.

The world was a very different place back then.

As a matter of fact, in the late 60s and early 70s, he pulled back that position.

But the thing we can be sure of is that as times change and people's opinions and beliefs change, the Constitution will be reinterpreted and applied in unsuspected and surprising new ways.

- Yeah, but what's going to happen to the guys in 2 Live Crew?

- Oh, didn't you hear?

On October 20th, 1990, it was four months after they were arrested for performing obscene material in a Florida nightclub, they were acquitted by a jury and went on to record another album.

- So that jury didn't believe that the law had been broken?

- That's right, but-- - Yo Mark, man, you know we got practice, man, what's up?

- Oh man, I gotta go.

I'll see you around.

- What are you practicing?

- Oh, didn't I tell you?

I'm in a band.

- Well, don't you wanna know what happened to Charles Freeman?

- Who's Charles Freeman?

- [Alfre] He's the record store owner who was arrested for selling the 2 Live Crew albums.

- Oh yeah, what happened to him?

- Okay, he was tried for selling obscene material.

And in front of a different jury in a different town he's trial took place - Man we're gonna be late man.

- A few weeks before the band's trial and strange as it seems, he-- - Don't tell me.

- Yes, he was convicted.

- But that's not right.

He didn't write the songs on that album.

He didn't even record them.

All he did was sell them.

- Yes, but this jury felt that the record was obscene so Florida has a law that makes it a crime to sell obscene materials.

So they didn't give it the protection of the First Amendment because to them it wasn't free speech.

- So I guess that guy's in jail now.

- Oh no, Mr. Freeman has appealed to a higher court and there's gonna be a hearing before a panel of judges to decide if the conviction stands.

- So this case could go all the way to the Supreme Court.

- [Alfre] It's possible.

- Yo Mark, man, let's go.

- Then the question will finally be answered.

- What question?

- You know.

- Huh-uh.

- Whether or not those guys can really be as nasty as they wanna be?

- You are late for rehearsal.

- [Mark] Man, I'm out of here.

- The Bill of Rights says, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it?

But since those words were written, the Supreme Court has established certain exceptions that have changed the way the First Amendment is applied.

One of those changes came in 1973, when the court wrote the current legal definition for obscenity.

And as my friend Mark said, that opened up a whole can of worms.

2 Live Crew is an example of a recurring American dilemma.

How much tolerance should society have in the name of free speech?

And then again, how many exceptions can be made before truly free speech is drowned out by the noise of popular opinion?

And as we have seen, there are no easy answers.

(relaxing humming music)