Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
1,125 federal appellate · 462 district · 340 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,411 later decisions (77 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Rav v. City of St Paul Minnesota (1992), Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of University of Virginia (1995)
1,125 federal appellate · 462 district · 340 state decisions — followed in 33 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedNAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. v. Devine (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 26 U.S.C. § 501
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois · Connick v. Myers · Buckley v. Valeo · City of Cleburne Texas v. Cleburne Living Center
Cited together with Perry Education Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n · Widmar v. Vincent · Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of University of Virginia · United States v. Kokinda · International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Inc. v. Lee
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 3,411 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The government does not create a public forum by inaction or by permitting limited discourse, but only by intentionally opening a nontraditional forum for public discourse.”
316 later decisions quote this exact passage“have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The existence of reasonable grounds for limiting access to a nonpublic forum ... will not save a regulation that is in reality a facade for viewpoint-based discrimination.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.