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1988 United States Supreme Court case

Boos v. Barry
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 9, 1987 Decided March 22, 1988
Full case name	Michael Boos, J. Michael Waller and Bridget Brooker, Petitioners v. Marion S. BARRY, Jr., Mayor, District of Columbia, et al.
Citations	485 U.S. 312 (more)
Holding
Content-based restrictions on political speech in a public forum must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
Case opinions
Majority	O'Connor, joined by Brennan, Marshall, Stevens, Scalia
Concurrence	Brennan, Marshall
Concurrence	Rehnquist (dissenting in part), joined by White, Blackmun
Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312 (1988), was a First Amendment rights case before the United States Supreme Court. The plaintiffs, a group protesting the Contra War and the jailing of Andrei Sakharov, challenged a District of Columbia code forbidding the display within 500 feet of an embassy of any sign that tends to bring the foreign government in question into "public odium" or "public disrepute."

The U.S. Supreme Court found the "display clause" of the code banning the display of certain protest signs to be facially unconstitutional, as the U.S. government did not have a compelling interest in protecting foreign governments from insults. However, the court maintained the constitutionality of a "congregation clause" of the code requiring protesters to obey any police dispersal orders.

References

"Boos v. Barry(1988)". firstamendment.mtsu.edu.
"Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312 (1988)". supreme.justia.com.

Clear and present danger and imminent lawless action	Schenck v. United States (1919) Debs v. United States (1919) Abrams v. United States (1919) Gitlow v. New York (1925) Whitney v. California (1927) Fiske v. Kansas (1927) Dennis v. United States (1951) Communist Party v. Subversive Activities Control Bd. (1955; 1961) Yates v. United States (1957) Bond v. Floyd (1966) Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) Hess v. Indiana (1973)
Defamation and false speech	New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988) United States v. Alvarez (2012) Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus (2014)
Fighting words and the heckler's veto	Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940) Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) Terminiello v. City of Chicago (1949) Feiner v. New York (1951) Gregory v. City of Chicago (1969) Cohen v. California (1971) Nat'l Socialist Party v. Village of Skokie (1977) R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) Snyder v. Phelps (2011)
True threats and threatening the President of the United States	Virginia v. Black (2003) Elonis v. United States (2015) Counterman v. Colorado (2023)
Obscenity	Rosen v. United States (1896) Roth v. United States (1957) One, Inc. v. Olesen (1958) Smith v. California (1959) Marcus v. Search Warrant (1961) Manual Enterprises, Inc. v. Day (1962) Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964) Quantity of Books v. Kansas (1964) Ginzburg v. United States (1966) Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966) Redrup v. New York (1967) Ginsberg v. New York (1968) Stanley v. Georgia (1969) United States v. Thirty-seven Photographs (1971) Kois v. Wisconsin (1972) Miller v. California (1973) Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton (1973) United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film (1973) Jenkins v. Georgia (1974) Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville (1975) Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc. (1976) People v. Freeman (Cal. 1988) United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc. (1994) Reno v. ACLU (1997) United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc. (2000) City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc. (2002) Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties Union (2002) United States v. American Library Ass'n (2003) United States v. Williams (2008) FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. (2009) United States v. Stevens (2010) Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Ass'n (2011) FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc. (2012) Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025)
Speech integral to criminal conduct	New York v. Ferber (1982) Osborne v. Ohio (1990) Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002) United States v. Hansen (2023)

Strict scrutiny

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project (2010)
Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar (2015)

Overbreadth and
Vagueness doctrines

Smith v. Goguen (1974)
Board of Airport Commissioners v. Jews for Jesus (1987)
Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky (2018)

Symbolic speech
versus conduct

Stromberg v. California (1931)
United States v. O'Brien (1968)
Cohen v. California (1971)
Spence v. Washington (1974)
Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984)
Dallas v. Stanglin (1989)
Texas v. Johnson (1989)
United States v. Eichman (1990)
Barnes v. Glen Theatre (1991)
City of Erie v. Pap's A. M. (2000)
Virginia v. Black (2003)

Content-based
restrictions

Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965)
Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego (1981)
Boos v. Barry (1988)
Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Crime Victims Board (1991)
R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992)
Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015)
Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants (2020)
City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of Austin, LLC (2022)

Content-neutral
restrictions

Schneider v. New Jersey (1939)
Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1986)
City of Ladue v. Gilleo (1994)
Packingham v. North Carolina (2017)
TikTok v. Garland (2025)

In the public forum	Davis v. Massachusetts (1897) Hague v. CIO (1939) Thornhill v. Alabama (1940) Martin v. City of Struthers (1943) Niemotko v. Maryland (1951) Edwards v. South Carolina (1963) Cox v. Louisiana (1965) Brown v. Louisiana (1966) Adderley v. Florida (1966) Carroll v. Town of Princess Anne (1968) Coates v. City of Cincinnati (1971) Org. for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971) Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984) Frisby v. Schultz (1988) Ward v. Rock Against Racism (1989) Burson v. Freeman (1992) Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc. (1994) Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network of Western New York (1997) Hill v. Colorado (2000) McCullen v. Coakley (2014)
Designated public forum	Widmar v. Vincent (1981) Rosenberger v. Univ. of Virginia (1995) Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski (2021)
Nonpublic forum	Lehman v. Shaker Heights (1974) Perry Education Association v. Perry Local Educators' Association (1983) Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense Fund (1985) Arkansas Educational Television Commission v. Forbes (1997) Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky (2018)