What fundamental rights are protected?

The fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment are speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition. The amendment, ratified on December 15, 1791 as the first article of the Bill of Rights, protects these five freedoms with forty-five words: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Each of the five carries a distinct sphere of protection. Religion involves both an Establishment Clause that bars government from creating an official church or favoring particular faiths and a Free Exercise Clause that protects individual worship and practice. Speech protects expression of opinions in conversation, writing, broadcasting, social media, art, music, and symbolic conduct, subject to narrow exceptions for incitement, true threats, fighting words, defamation, child pornography, and obscenity. Press protects publication of information and opinion without prior restraint, anchored by Near v. Minnesota (1931) and the Pentagon Papers ruling in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971). Assembly protects peaceful gatherings, marches, protests, and meetings. Petition protects the right to ask government for redress of grievances through letters to elected officials, lawsuits, ballot initiatives, and lobbying.

American constitutional rights extend beyond the First Amendment. Other fundamental rights protected by the Bill of Rights and incorporated against state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment include the right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment, the right to due process and the privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, the rights to a speedy and public trial, an impartial jury, and assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, the right to a jury trial in civil cases under the Seventh Amendment, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, and the right to equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Additional unenumerated rights have been recognized through substantive due process, including the right to marry under Loving v. Virginia (1967) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the right to direct the upbringing of children under Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), and the right to interstate travel under Saenz v. Roe (1999). The Ninth Amendment confirms that the enumeration of certain rights does not deny or disparage others retained by the people. Naturalization candidates should be ready to list at least the five core First Amendment freedoms.