The Supreme Court rules on First Amendment rights for children making California's ban on the sale or rental of violent video games to minors unconstitutional.
By Zena Barakat on Publish Date June 27, 2011.
Friday is the observance of Constitution Day, and we have updated our extensive list of resources for teaching about it.
Instead of a new lesson plan today, we’ve invited Frank LoMonte, the executive director of the Student Press Law Center, which provides information and legal support for student First Amendment rights and student journalists, to guest-blog for us.
Mr. LoMonte wrote two guest posts for us this summer about school newspapers, including one on First Amendment rights for student journalists. Here, he provides a hook for engaging teenagers in learning about their First Amendment rights.
After you’ve read his post, you might have your class answer our Student Opinion question in which we link to a number of recent, and thorny, First Amendment-related cases and ask, “Do You Know Your First Amendment Rights?”
By FRANK LoMONTE
Young people understandably may view the First Amendment as remote to their daily lives, an abstraction that exists only as a history lesson. There is a two-word response to that perception: mortal kombat.
As The Times’s Adam Liptak reported, in June a divided United States Supreme Court took seven months before deciding – on the very last day of its 2011 term — that teenagers have a Constitutional right to buy and watch video games.
That right, the justices decided, cannot be taken away on the basis of a handful of studies, which a majority of justices found to be unconvincing, that found that playing violent “first-person shooter” games makes young people act more aggressively in real life.
Striking down California’s 2005 law making it a misdemeanor to sell violent video games to minors, the justices reaffirmed that the First Amendment is powerful, powerful stuff. Speech is constitutionally protected even if it is threatens to bring up breakfast.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who joined the court’s 7-2 majority with hesitation, filled his concurring opinion with graphic descriptions of video-game maiming, dismemberment and torture that Justice Antonin Scalia described several times as “disgusting.”
The First Amendment says the government shall “make no law” infringing speech — and under the chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr., and the current Supreme Court lineup, “no” seems to really mean “no.”
The video games decision, Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, continues a string of rulings in which the court has protected unpopular and distasteful speech, including videos of animal abuse (United States v. Stevens) and anti-gay protests outside military funerals (Snyder v. Phelps).
The Times’s summary and infographic on the 2011 Supreme Court term show that the First Amendment is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. In fact, the court’s conservative members often find themselves supporting freedom of speech because it serves their ideal of a smaller government with less power over business.
The Brown case may have been just about video games, but it has much broader importance. The State of California was asking the court to create a new category of “too violent for minors” speech that is unprotected by the First Amendment.
If the court had agreed, it might have invited a new wave of restrictions on everything from what movies teenagers can rent to what subjects they can blog about. The Brown decision seems to slam that door pretty tightly shut.
More resources for learning about the First Amendment and the United States Constitution:
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I’m not going to sugar coat this: Anyone who believes video games are pure entertainment with no speech value is still living in 1985. The argument that games are entertainment alone may have held more water in the days of Pac Man and Space Invaders (and truthfully, I can still dispute that) but today’s video games have elaborate narratives, plot development, voice acting, extensive artwork, themes, motifs, and characterization. As Justice Scalia wisely noted in his majority opinion:
“Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas–and even social messages–through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.”
So really, comparing video games to pornography, cigarettes, or alcohol or making the cop out argument “We ban this, so why not video games!?” is not only disingenuous and flat out wrong, but also insulting and rude. It’s rude to the artists who make these games as well as the millions of people who play them, enjoy them, and take lessons and experiences away from them.
Video games are speech, and they’re here to stay. The federal government, the Smithsonian, and the Supreme Court have all come to the same conclusion.
Students deserve better than this.
First: “A handful of studies: ..please. Every major national medical association – including the American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics – has concluded that exposure to violent video games causes an increase in aggressive behavior, physiological desensitization to violence, and decrease pro-social behavior.
As long ago as July 2000 six major professional societies, including the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association, signed a joint statement concluding that “… at this time, well over 1,000 studies … point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children.”
In another major review of research on violent media, the authors of the review noted that support for the media violence effect is stronger than evidence linking condom use to the prevention of sexually transmitted HIV and passive smoking at work to lung cancer.” (Kanner, //fwd4.me/0BS1)
The real issue for all of us isn’t the freedom of speech of under 17 year olds, but the person-hood of corporations that gives them these protections under law. Then, we subsidize them with our tax breaks, as pointed out by DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI in his recent NYTimes article //fwd4.me/0BS5
The forces that are brought to bear on the American family are unheard of elsewhere and you have a responsibility to point that out to your students, not make this “isn’t it great we always protect free speech” wide-brush argument.
Thanks for your attention
Mary Rothschild, Director
Healthy Media Choices
//www.healthymediachoices.org
Justice Breyer, in his dissent, stated: “..the First Amendment does not disable government from helping parents make such a choice here – a choice not to have their children buy extremely violent, interactive video games, which they more than reasonably fear pose only the risk of harm to those children.”
What you and advocates of video game censorship repeatedly fail to take into account is the fact that these effects are indistinguishable from other media. Anderson’s study – so often touted by California and other misguided advocates like yourself – openly says that the (alleged) effects of video games on aggression are the same effect as children who watch Bugs Bunny, read Bible passages, or look at imagery of guns, which was also highlighted by Sotomayor during oral arguments and by Scalia in his opinion.
You also misrepresent the science in the same way that California did. A coalition of 82 social scientists, media researchers, and criminologists submitted an amicus brief in support of the video game industry out of concern that California was distorting the science on video games.
Read their first point: “California’s Studies Do Not Show A
Causal Link, Or Even A Correlation, Between Playing Violent Video Games And Psychological Or Neurological
Harm To Minors.” It provides a detailed rebuttal of the studies you claim show a clear effect.
Then read the third point: “California And Senator Yee Ignore The Large Body Of Empirical Evidence That
Shows No Causal Connection, Or Even A Correlation, Between Violent Video Games And Harm To Minors.” Anderson and Gentile also concede that there is a substantial gap in media research because of the lack of longitudinal studies done.
You also ignore very reputable studies like the one done by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson of Harvard, which is also referenced in the brief I linked (and their website: //www.grandtheftchildhood.com/GTC/Myths.html).
Your disregard of the First Amendment and the paramount right of free speech is honestly shocking, and it reflects exactly what I said in my above post. Free speech does not stop whenever you find it inconvenient. Justice Breyer’s dissent is grossly disingenuous simply because parents do have a choice. They are and have always been gatekeepers to what their children consume in the media. A government mandate would not have done anything except cause a chilling effect on video game makers afraid of running afoul of the law (as noted by Alito in his concurrence).
In fact, as Justice Scalia noted in his majority opinion, “The sale of alcohol to minors, for example, has long been illegal, but a 2005 study suggests that about 18% of retailers still sell alcohol to those under the drinking
age.” The voluntary ESRB rating system had a 13% failure rate as of the most recent FTC blind shopper tests. It’s shameful that in response to the video game industry’s sincere attempts to assist parents in making the right decision, you want to throw the entire industry under a bus.
No, students don’t deserve better than this. Students deserve better than the cowardice that causes people to blindly scapegoat a new medium without taking a serious look at the emotional and developmental issues children face.
I also find it funny that the free speach debate seems to be so fully based on personal feelings, as displayed by Mary. Let us forget for the moment the terrible and dangerous effects of goverment intervention in the realm of creative industry, lets focus on equally implementing these issues. If we take the drugs, pornography debate as vaild then once we decide that violence is innappropiate we should also place laws in actions that will punish those that do expose minors to things they should not. Because those studies show the desparte impact of all media, we should apply these same rules and regulations to other media as well. Following this line of reasoning this would include books, films, television, games, magazines, comics, et. all.
So the question then becomes, who will stand outside the theatre to fine the parents taking their kids to see The Passion of Christ?
Although the first amendment prohibits states from banning the sale of products to certain age groups, I strongly believe that parents should be responsible and monitor how often children and teenagers play video games or what content is in the games kids play. It’s vital for parents to make sure kids are not exposed to sexual content or violence at an early stage because this can lead to a serious issue in the future. For games to portray women as objects and weapons as fun can cause kids to be violent in multiple ways in the future. I’ve seen this happen to others and it’s tragic because they end up ruining their lives by getting involved in gangs, using drugs and alcohol, and being sexually active at an early age and unaware of the consequences such as STDs, AIDS and pregnancy.
WOW get a life people
Constitutionally, minors have the right to purchase video games. Minors, like every other American citizen, have the right to express themselves in any way they desire. Certain laws should not be able to restrict them from freely exposing themselves to any sort of material, regardless if that material is violent, sexual, or inappropriate in any way. Society, government, and politics cannot go against the Constitution and completely revoke the first amendment because of their own opinions. People believe that violent video games will corrupt the young minds of minors, therefore they urge that they should not be able to get a hold of them in any way until they are able to make their own decisions. The people that should be making this choice are their parents. They are the only people that are lawfully able to restrict them from these materials, (aside from certain laws that forbid them to do certain things). If they would like to enforce their child’s unawareness, they can forbid them from buying these materials. After all, ignorance is bliss.
What is wrong with our current society? By allowing thewse children to play violent games were setting them up to be violent from a young age. Maybe the problem is the age gaps that are made in videogames. If we allowed kdis to play violent games from the moment theyre thirteen, wouldn’t it help release some of that early tyeen angst? In a way this could fix the problems by stopping kids from playing violent games until theyre teens so that they don’t hold in so much stress.
On the other hand this could backfire and make kids more violent and have another columbine event happen. Because theyre young kids are more influenced by the images around them, and what are kids most attracted to now than video games? For now things may be calm we just have to wait to see the results of kids playing violent video games when theyre in theyre late teens.
To me, this is is a very interesting topic. I saw on the news the other day that video games cause temper issues. The games that are the most addicting are the ones with M for mature. They are making you lose your eyesight and is not recomended for you to play for more than two hours a day.
After reading other people comments, i agreed with some and disafgreed with some. I agreed with Lees comment because you can take it in two diffarent ways. One way i took what he said was that people who play video games need to get a life and go outside to breath some fresh air. The other way that i understood it was that he was telling people who read this stuff to get a life too. And i agree with both.
Childeren who buy volient games are normally kids who didnt have as many friends. Volient games are yes fun to play but also can change a way a person thinks. Lots of people think that video games are the reason why kids are into killing. Many kids don’t understand that killing or any sort of volience is okay. Also the video games like WWE or RAW are based on real fights by real people just in video form.
Video games that are volient can also help people releave there stress. MAny people come home and play the games to help them unwhined from a hard days work. IN the Miltary they use video games for basic training. the video that they chose are really volient because they have to show what will really happen when they are in combat. i think its okay for kids to have volient video games because it will help them releave stress from the day.
I dont think there should ban certain kids from getting video games because of there age.It should be their parents responsibility to get the kids the games they want and and to know if they’re mature enough to handle the game.They also shouldn’t have certain age groups be able to buy games because some young children are very mature for there age,i say this because i have a 7 year old brother who likes playing video games and he’s really mature.So i dont think it would be fair to make him play games that they have for his age because it would be boring for him.
Videos game can also help children and teenagers.Some videos games are educational and help students that aren’t doing good in school,and it makes a way for them to learn fun.Other video games can be helpful for kis that don’t like to exercise.Like the wii is a video game where your active and it helps them stay some what active if they don’t do anything else but video games.
I highly disagree with them allowing young children to buy things with such material because it only lets them think they can get away with more things that most deffinetly should not be available to them. This can also lead to children thinking that the can do things in the real world that they are able to do in videogames such as, drugs, alcohol, and sexual content.
This may also make children mature before they have to. It eliminates their chance to be a child. All kids should have a chance to be a child, and that is why our country has matured so much in this century , no one is leaving children to themselves, and they are taking advantage of out technology.
What is wrong with kids playing mature video games anyways? Of cousre in mature video games there is a lot of violence and foul language. Teenagers our age her fou language and watch violence all the time on either television,or in real life. Teenagers understand that video games is all a bunch of fake or mythical things that really couldn’t happen in the realworld. Many kids play these games even though they aren’t supposed to.
Why not just allow teenagers to play rated matrure games? It’s not like the game will influence us and make us do the violent things they do in the video games. We are a lot smarter than that we know that theres’s no way that you should be able to kill hamless creatures for no reason. Or even kill a human for no reason.
Are people really wasting there time on this? The key word is game and yet people are taking this too serious. It should be the parents decision on what they watch and what they play. There are more important issues in the world that people should be worrying about.
Video games do not incourage violence. Most people play video games to take off stress out of there life. I have yet to hear about a guy mimic a fatality from Mortal Kombat. If video games were banned, violence would still appear on the television or off the internet. The parents should be the ones chosing what games their children are able to play.
Even though the first amendment simply prohibits states from banning to selling products to minors i strongly believe and agree with Steven on the fact that it all comes from the parents and there surroundings.I think this because there can be some kids who play violent video games and handle them maturely because of parent discipline telling them when enough is enough and there surrounding.Surrounding meaning if a kid doesn’t have a stable home statistics show that there more likely to be influenced by violent video games.However there again are the kids who don’t have the discipline to know when enough is enough.
I think that if we ban these thing s it wont matter because even though sexual content is illegal to minors and not able to get kids in specific teens still find a way to get it. Banning these things practically mean nothing because kids have the potential to get it. Also if we ban these two things really whats next? Banning meat? Say if Mr.Munoz needs more meat than the average person but we passed a law to limit everyone’s supply of meat what happens to him ? I’m simply saying there is no point in banning it.
i disagree think that the decision to censor young children from video games is purely the decision of the childs parent that could be depending on the maturity of the child or just if the parent allows it or not.i mean these parents buy them the games knowing whats in them,thats what the ESRB is for the ratings are on the box.you shouldnt buy the game in the first place when u get a fair warning from the start.
This is the parents fault if their kid is playing violent video games with cursing, nudity,and violence.because its not like they can just walk into a gamestore and buy grand theft auto or mortal kombat.and besides everyone knows waht those games are about.
I agree with Steven. Because if children are exposed to video games, X rated movies and magazines that are for adults, are going to be a bad infuluence to children. Then thoes children would be more violent and crime would increase. Violence is not the answer. Allowing high violent and gruesome video games to be bought to little kids is not good. Its teaching them to be more violent and bad behavior. They would learn to kill oithers virtuallay and maybe they would bring that into the real world.
What about the future? Why dont congress think about when children grow up, what they would be like with more violence in their lives. They just dont understand how they would be. My younger brother enjoys to watch the violent movies. Then he plays with his toys reanacting the fighting and violence in the movie. Sometimes he hurts him self or others. Where is our nation going to ?
What i think is that kids should respect the ratings.It dosent matter if kids of any age want to play games like call of duty or home front or any others.But if some kids want to buy some games that are rated m or t there parents should buy them.But its not like ure gona get std or aids but in school kids learn about that kind of stuff in health class they learn all about aids or pregnacy or even other nasty stuff.And if i play call of duty its not like im gona be in a gang just because the character kills nazi’s or any other ‘s.And its there joice if they want to play those types of games or if they want to be in a gang not unless if they are under age then they have there parents to decide for them.
Billy Bob Joe October 10, 2011 · 4:36 pmi think that it is is wrong to take that privelage away from kids because its not right. It is the parents choice wether or not they can have the games they want. i personally love video games. To me, this is is a very interesting topic. I saw on the news the other day that video games cause temper issues. The games that are the most addicting are the ones with M for mature
I think this because there can be some kids who play violent video games and handle them maturely because of parent discipline telling them when enough is enough and there surrounding.Surrounding meaning if a kid doesn’t have a stable home statistics show that there more likely to be influenced by violent video games.However there again are the kids who don’t have the discipline to know when enough is enough.
i agree with raul
jose manuel antonio October 10, 2011 · 4:39 pmI say that we children have all the rights to buy wich ever video game we want to to buy. I say that there is no point of making espacific ages to buy a game because there is kids that buy those games anyway. These violent games are no other thatn just blood and i dont think that your mind could change in the outside when you are talking to other people. In my opinion i say that most of the people that play video games for more than 2 hours they need to get a life.
Video games are awsome and that is why every single kid wants a system to play games. Those kids are nomal and they know that if they play to much they aint going to turn into video games addict but you are going to be all in it that when you talk to a person that is all you are going to talk about and that person is going to be enoyed. This is why people should get a game system and what they should do.
I strongly agree that kids can buy M Rated games. But only kids that are 15 or older. Younger kids no because they do have the mind to do what the game has in it. It works out better for parents so kids don’t bug them in saying ” please mommy , buy me this game”. Also they do have the ability because 15 year olds are teenegers and they know about what the game is going to have in it and know that their not suppose to do it at home.
One of the things that are also kids get bored at home because they have the same old games. So they aske their parents if they can buy them a new game and there to lazy to go. So it’s a good thing kids can buy them theirselves. Everyone was born with the same equal rights . I will agree that if problems start with the buying rated M games with !5 year olds to make it illegal.
i agree with the suprema court beacuse its showing kids how to kill; we dont want kids to be murders. i agre beacu se kids are having to much violence around ther houses they dont need them to come in our houses. what also i think is bad because and they are showing kids whats happening like in iraqand modern war.
my opinon on the other hand is that we should be able to play rated M ganes because they are nice and bveast and they take your mind of things. Its actully fun because you can play againts other people and its fun because you have fun and the other people have fun. What i also think about games that are bloody is that the are nice and fun beacuse they make you think
these people are taking video games very serios when at the time, they should being woried about other things that are more important. in the first place the parenst are the ones that have the responsability to tell wheather they can play or can not.
the kids also need to have feedback about what they are whatching. but i agree that little kids at least under 10 year old, shouldn’t play those games. this games are very violent and this could give them night mares.