Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court, which was joined in full by
Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices
Anthony Kennedy,
David Souter and
Clarence Thomas.
Justice Byron White wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, which was joined in full by Justices
Harry Blackmun and
Sandra Day O'Connor and in part by Justice
John Paul Stevens. Justice Blackmun also wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Stevens also wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, which was joined in part by Justices White and Blackmun., who wrote the majority opinion in
R.A.V. The majority decision The Supreme Court's decision began with a recitation of the relevant factual and procedural background, noting several times that the conduct at issue could have been prosecuted under different Minnesota statutes. In construing the ordinance, the Court recognized that it was bound by the construction given by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Therefore, the Court accepted the Minnesota court's conclusion that the ordinance reached only those expressions that constitute "fighting words" within the meaning of
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. Petitioner argued that the
Chaplinsky formulation should be narrowed, such that the ordinance would be invalidated as "substantially overbroad", or even expressive conduct, because of disapproval of the ideas expressed. The Court noted that while content-based regulations are presumptively invalid, society has permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas, which are "of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality." The Court then clarified language from previous free-speech cases, including
Roth v. United States,
Beauharnais v. Illinois, and
Chaplinsky that suggested that certain categories of expression are "not within the area of constitutionally protected speech", and "must be taken in context". The Court's stated that this meant that certain areas of speech "can, consistently with the First Amendment, be regulated
because of their constitutionally proscribable content (
obscenity,
defamation, etc.)—not that they are categories of speech entirely invisible to the Constitution, so that they may be made the vehicles for content discrimination." For example, the government may "proscribe libel, but it may not make the further content discrimination of proscribing
only libel critical of the government." The Court recognized that while a particular utterance of speech can be proscribed on the basis of one feature, the Constitution may prohibit proscribing it on the basis of another feature. Thus, while burning a flag in violation of an ordinance against outdoor fires could be punishable, burning a flag in violation of an ordinance against dishonoring the flag is not. The Court recognized two final principles of free-speech jurisprudence. One of these described that when "the entire basis for the content discrimination consists entirely of the very reason the entire class of speech is proscribable, no significant danger of idea or
viewpoint discrimination exists." As examples, Justice Scalia wrote, The other principle of free-speech jurisprudence was recognized when the Court wrote that a valid basis for according different treatment to a content-defined subclass of proscribable speech is that the subclass "happens to be associated with particular 'secondary effects' of the speech, so that 'the regulation is
justified without reference to the content of the ... speech. As an example, the Court wrote that a state could permit all obscene live performances except those involving minors. Applying these principles to the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, the Court concluded that the ordinance was facially unconstitutional. Justice Scalia explained the rationale, writing, The Court explained that, in addition to being an impermissible restriction based on content, the ordinance constituted viewpoint-based discrimination, writing, ==Limitation==