united-states freedom-of-speech
What rights would be violated by laws restricting your gestures in US?
<p>What rights would be violated by laws restricting your gestures in the US?</p>
<p>Examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>A law forbidding the US Military salute</li>
<li>A law forbidding &quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dab_(dance)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">dabbing</a>&quot; (making &quot;a gesture in which a person drops their head into the bent crook of a slanted, upwardly angled arm, while raising the opposite arm out straight in a parallel direction&quot;)</li>
</ul>

<p>In the United States, the First Amendment generally protects your right to communicate using gestures.</p>
<p>Probably the most common example of efforts to outlaw specific gestures involves the &quot;middle finger,&quot; which is a symbolic &quot;fuck you&quot; to its target. The U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged in <a href="https://casetext.com/case/west-virginia-state-board-of-education-v-barnette" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette</em>, 319 U.S. 624, 632 (1943)</a>, that symbolic gestures can be &quot;a form of utterance&quot; protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, and it addressed the middle finger specifically in a decision last year.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://casetext.com/case/mahanoy-area-sch-dist-v-b-l" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Mahanoy Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L.</em>, 141 S. Ct. 2038, 2046 (2021)</a>, a school suspended a student from its cheerleading team because she posted a picture to social media showing her and a friend &quot;with middle fingers raised&quot; (and bearing the caption &quot;Fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything.&quot;). But the Supreme Court held that this violated her right to free speech, as her post &quot;did not involve features that would place it outside the First Amendment’s ordinary protection. That decision aligned neatly with decades of lower-court decisions holding the same. E.g., <a href="https://casetext.com/case/bad-frog-brewery-v-new-york-st-liquor-auth" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Bad Frog Brewery v. N.Y. State Liquor Auth.</em>, 134 F.3d 87 (2d Cir. 1998);</a> <a href="https://casetext.com/case/sandul-v-larion" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Sandul v. Larion</em>, 119 F.3d 1250, 1255 (6th Cir. 1997)</a> (&quot;Sandul's action was not fighting words and therefore was speech protected by the First Amendment.&quot;).</p>
<p>Of course, First Amendment protectiosn are not absolute, so although the government almost certainly could not criminalize dabbing itself, it would be easier for a governmental body to prohibit it during its public meetings, easier still for a government employer to justify disciplining a working for dabbing, and easier still for a public school to justify disciplining a student for dabbing.</p>
