Virginia v. Black
E179511
First Amendment case
U.S. Supreme Court case
criminal law case
hate speech case
symbolic speech case
Virginia v. Black is a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a ban on cross burning carried out with intent to intimidate while clarifying the limits of First Amendment protection for hate speech and symbolic expression.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Virginia v. Black canonical | 4 |
| Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003) | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1572451 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Virginia v. Black Context triple: [Brandenburg v. Ohio, subsequentCitationBy, Virginia v. Black]
-
A.
Maryland v. Wirtz
Maryland v. Wirtz was a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the extension of federal minimum wage and overtime provisions to employees of state-operated schools and hospitals under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
-
B.
Boynton v. Virginia
Boynton v. Virginia was a 1960 U.S. Supreme Court decision that extended federal prohibitions against racial discrimination in interstate bus terminals, helping lay the legal groundwork for the Freedom Rides.
-
C.
Washington v. Davis
Washington v. Davis is a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case that held laws or policies with a racially disproportionate impact do not violate the Equal Protection Clause absent proof of discriminatory intent.
-
D.
Morgan v. Virginia
Morgan v. Virginia was a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down state laws mandating racial segregation on interstate buses, laying important groundwork for later civil rights actions.
-
E.
Gregg v. Georgia
Gregg v. Georgia is a landmark 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision that reinstated the death penalty under revised statutes, holding that capital punishment is constitutional under certain guided-discretion procedures.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Virginia v. Black Target entity description: Virginia v. Black is a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a ban on cross burning carried out with intent to intimidate while clarifying the limits of First Amendment protection for hate speech and symbolic expression.
-
A.
Maryland v. Wirtz
Maryland v. Wirtz was a 1968 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the extension of federal minimum wage and overtime provisions to employees of state-operated schools and hospitals under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
-
B.
Boynton v. Virginia
Boynton v. Virginia was a 1960 U.S. Supreme Court decision that extended federal prohibitions against racial discrimination in interstate bus terminals, helping lay the legal groundwork for the Freedom Rides.
-
C.
Washington v. Davis
Washington v. Davis is a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court case that held laws or policies with a racially disproportionate impact do not violate the Equal Protection Clause absent proof of discriminatory intent.
-
D.
Morgan v. Virginia
Morgan v. Virginia was a 1946 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down state laws mandating racial segregation on interstate buses, laying important groundwork for later civil rights actions.
-
E.
Gregg v. Georgia
Gregg v. Georgia is a landmark 1976 U.S. Supreme Court decision that reinstated the death penalty under revised statutes, holding that capital punishment is constitutional under certain guided-discretion procedures.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (51)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
First Amendment case
ⓘ
U.S. Supreme Court case ⓘ criminal law case ⓘ hate speech case ⓘ symbolic speech case ⓘ |
| addressesIssue |
First Amendment limits on hate speech regulation
ⓘ
constitutionality of cross-burning bans ⓘ symbolic expression under the First Amendment ⓘ |
| clarifies |
distinction between protected advocacy and unprotected true threats
ⓘ
scope of First Amendment protection for symbolic speech ⓘ |
| concurrenceInPartAndDissentInPartBy |
Antonin Scalia
ⓘ
Clarence Thomas ⓘ David H. Souter ⓘ Ruth Bader Ginsburg ⓘ Stephen G. Breyer ⓘ |
| definesConcept | true threats ⓘ |
| hasArgumentDate | 2002-12-11 ⓘ |
| hasCitation |
123 S. Ct. 1536
ⓘ
155 L. Ed. 2d 535 ⓘ 538 U.S. 343 ⓘ |
| hasCourt | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| hasDecisionDate | 2003-04-07 ⓘ |
| hasDocketNumber |
01-1107
ⓘ
01-1117 ⓘ 01-1124 ⓘ |
| holding |
A state may prohibit true threats consistent with the First Amendment
ⓘ
States may ban cross burning carried out with intent to intimidate ⓘ The Virginia statute is unconstitutional insofar as it treats any cross burning as prima facie evidence of intent to intimidate ⓘ |
| involvesStatute | Virginia cross-burning statute ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | United States federal law ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy |
Sandra Day O'Connor
ⓘ
linked to:
Sandra Day O’Connor
|
| majorityOpinionJusticesJoining |
Anthony M. Kennedy
ⓘ
Antonin Scalia ⓘ Clarence Thomas (in part and in the judgment only on some issues) ⓘ
linked to:
Clarence Thomas
John Paul Stevens ⓘ William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| originatedIn |
Commonwealth of Virginia
ⓘ
linked to:
Virginia
|
| petitioner |
Commonwealth of Virginia
ⓘ
linked to:
Virginia
|
| pluralityOpinionBy |
Sandra Day O'Connor
ⓘ
linked to:
Sandra Day O’Connor
|
| pluralityOpinionJusticesJoining |
Anthony M. Kennedy
ⓘ
John Paul Stevens ⓘ William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Brandenburg v. Ohio
ⓘ
R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul ⓘ |
| respondent |
Barry Elton Black
ⓘ
Jonathan O'Mara ⓘ Richard J. Elliott ⓘ |
| statuteCitation | Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-423 ⓘ |
| topic |
cross burning
ⓘ
hate symbols ⓘ racial intimidation ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Virginia v. Black Description of subject: Virginia v. Black is a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a ban on cross burning carried out with intent to intimidate while clarifying the limits of First Amendment protection for hate speech and symbolic expression.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Virginia v. Black