Can you be arrested for giving the finger to police?
Do you have a First Amendment right to flip the middle finger at the police? Is it illegal to do so? The First Amendment prohibits the government from abridging freedom of speech with a limited carveout for certain categories like obscenity, incitement, fighting words, and true threats. As Professor Rachel Harmon explains, the Supreme Court has long recognized that protected speech may include symbolic and expressive conduct — like flipping the bird — when the speaker intends to convey a message or idea. Even when the target of the expressive conduct is a police officer, this protection still stands. The Supreme Court has noted that police officers, when faced with verbal challenges to police action, are expected to exercise a higher degree of restraint than the average citizen. And lower courts have found time and again that the middle finger gesture directed at an officer, without more, is not a legitimate reason for arrest.
