In 1971, the United States Supreme Court issued a major ruling in Cohen v. California regarding the constitutional limits of free speech. The dispute began when Paul Robert Cohen was prosecuted for wearing a jacket in a courthouse featuring a profane slogan aimed at the military draft. Overturning a lower court's decision, the majority opinion held that the First Amendment protects the use of offensive language when used to convey a political message. Justice John Marshall Harlan II famously reasoned that the government cannot criminalize specific words simply because they are vulgar or distasteful to some. This landmark case established that offensive conduct must do more than j ...