In Garner v. Louisiana, Justice John Harlan advocated for an expanded understanding of what constitutes free speech. A group of black students from Southern University sat at a restaurant’s “whites only” lunch bar in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. When the students stayed at the bar after the owners asked them to move, the police arrived and arrested the students for disturbing the peace.

The Supreme Court sided with the students, arguing that the conviction violated their due process rights under the 14th Amendment. The court argued that because the students were sitting quietly, there is no evidence that they were disturbing the peace. Harlan, in his concurrence, compared the sit-in demonstration to free speech, stating that the protest “is as much a part of the free trade of ideas as is verbal expression.”