Law Practice,
Appellate Practice
Jul. 28, 2022
A Red Flag about a Red Flag in 1920s California
For the first time, the Supreme Court reversed a state court conviction on free speech grounds. Moreover, the court explicitly held that the First Amendment’s free speech protections were enforceable against states and that “visual symbols like the red flag” qualified as speech.
John S. Caragozian
Email: caragozian@gmail.com
John is a Los Angeles-based lawyer and sits on the Board of the California Supreme Court Historical Society. He welcomes ideas for future monthly columns on California's legal history at caragozian@gmail.com.
When a teenage camp counselor raised a red hammer-and-sickle flag and had children pledge to it, she and other camp personnel were convicted of felonies. The case’s background and eventual resolution by the U.S. Supreme Court offer insights into 1920s California.
In the early twentieth century, California was, in writer Carey McWilliam’s words, “at the quirky vanguard of social change…” For example, California’s progressives had enacted di...
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