Ward v. Rock Against Racism’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
1,960 federal appellate · 816 district · 914 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,843 later decisions (126 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Rav v. City of St Paul Minnesota (1992), Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of University of Virginia (1995)
1,960 federal appellate · 816 district · 914 state decisions — followed in 47 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
reviewedRock Against Racism v. Ward (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Grayned v. City of Rockford · United States v. O'Brien · Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. · Perry Education Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n
Cited together with Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence · Perry Education Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n · Members of the City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent · City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. · United States v. O'Brien
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 5,843 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A regulation that serves purposes unrelated to the content of expression is deemed neutral, even if it has an incidental effect on some speakers or messages but not others.”
526 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech.”
73 later decisions quote this exact passage“Ward, 491 U.S. at 799, 109 S.Ct. 2746. 33 The validity of a time, place, or manner regulation”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.