Shelton v. Tucker’s Empirical Analysis
1960
Citation profile
969 federal appellate · 396 district · 779 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,474 later decisions (306 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
969 federal appellate · 396 district · 779 state decisions — followed in 42 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Yick Wo v. Hopkins · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization · Thornhill v. Alabama
Cited together with Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of NY · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 3,474 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“even though the governmental purpose be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved. The breadth of legislative abridgment must be viewed in the light of less drastic means for achieving the same basic purpose.”
93 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools.”
36 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to compel a teacher to disclose his every associational tie is to impair that teacher's right of free association, a right closely allied to freedom of speech and a right which, like free speech, lies at the foundation of a free society”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.