Whitney v. California

California's Criminal Syndicalism Act banned advocating or teaching crime, sabotage, or unlawful force to accomplish industrial or political change. Whitney (plaintiff), a Communist Labor Party member, was convicted for helping organize a Communist Convention and challenged the Act as violating her First and Fourteenth Amendment free-speech rights. The California courts upheld her conviction, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Whether a state law criminalizing participation in organizing an association that advocates unlawful means to accomplish political or industrial change violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.