[1] On April 6, 1940,[2] Walter Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, was using the public sidewalk as a pulpit in downtown Rochester, passing out pamphlets and calling organized religion a "racket".

[3] Columbia Law School professor Vincent Blasi's article on the topic describes the events thus: while preaching, Chaplinsky was surrounded by men who mocked Jehovah's Witnesses' objections to saluting the flag.

Chaplinsky responded by calling the town marshal, who had returned to assist the officer, a "damn fascist and a racketeer" and was arrested for the use of offensive language in public.

The cases have also varied on what contexts – such as the reaction of hearers (public officials, police officers, ordinary citizens) – make a difference for the limits on protected speech.

The Court's opinion, by Justice John Marshall Harlan II, declared, "For while the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man's vulgarity is another's lyric.

"[5] David L. Hudson Jr., a legal scholar writing in 2003, over 60 years after the Chaplinsky decision, noted that lower courts "have reached maddeningly inconsistent results" on what is and is not protected by the First Amendment in the area of fighting words.