Required caseFreedom of the Press

New York Times Co. v. United States

1971·Unit 4: American Political Ideologies and Beliefs

The government may not impose prior restraint on the press without meeting an extremely heavy burden.

Practice the comparison FRQRead the brief
Decided
1971
Clause at issue
First Amendment: Freedom of the Press
Course unit
Unit 4
Case number
9 of 14

Case brief

The three pieces every AP answer about this case should get right.

  1. 1

    The facts

    The Nixon administration sought to block newspapers from publishing the classified Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War.

  2. 2

    The constitutional question

    Can the executive branch stop publication of classified material through prior restraint?

  3. 3

    The holding

    The Court refused to allow the government to block publication.

Why it matters

  • Prior restraint on the press bears a heavy presumption against its constitutionality.
  • The government did not show that immediate, irreparable harm to national security justified censorship.
  • The case strengthened press freedom against executive secrecy claims.

Check yourself

Three questions on New York Times Co. v. United States: the holding, a common mix-up, and how it differs from another required case.

Question 1 of 3

In New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), the federal government tried to stop newspapers from publishing a classified study of the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court ruled that

SCOTUS comparison FRQ

Can you connect New York Times Co. v. United States to a case you’ve never seen?

The exam hands you an unfamiliar case and asks how it relates to a required one. Practice that here: name the shared principle, state the holding, and explain the connection.

Start the comparison

You’ll compare it with

Near v. Minnesota (1931)

Three parts

  1. A. Identify the shared principle
  2. B. Describe the required case
  3. C. Explain the connection

Frequently asked questions

What was the government asking the Court to do?

Stop newspapers from publishing the Pentagon Papers before the stories ran. The Nixon administration said the classified Vietnam history would harm national security. The Court refused to block publication.

What is prior restraint in this case?

A court order that censors speech in advance, instead of punishing it after it is published. The Court treated that kind of order as presumptively unconstitutional. The government did not prove that immediate, irreparable harm justified stopping the presses.

Does the holding say classified material can always be printed?

No. It says the showing in this case was not enough. National security can still matter. The government has a heavy burden when it wants a gag before publication, and it did not carry that burden here.

How is this different from Schenck?

Schenck allowed punishment of speech that had already gone out. New York Times refused a request to block speech that had not yet been published. Both involve war and national security. One is about punishment after the fact. The other is about censorship beforehand.

The other required cases