Task: sc_lcdisposition

What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the treatment the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed, that is, whether the court below the Supreme Court (typically a federal court of appeals or a state supreme court) affirmed, reversed, remanded, denied or dismissed the decision of the court it reviewed (typically a trial court). Adhere to the language used in the "holding" in the summary of the case on the title page or prior to Part I of the Court's opinion. Exceptions to the literal language are the following: where the Court overrules the lower court, treat this a petition or motion granted; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing refuses to enforce or enjoins the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as reversed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing enforces the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as affirmed; where the court whose decision the Supreme Court is reviewing sets aside the decision of the court, tribunal, or agency which it reviewed, treat this as vacated; if the decision is set aside and remanded, treat it as vacated and remanded.

Justice Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The term “concerted action” encompasses unlawful conspiracies and constitutionally protected assemblies. The “looseness and pliability” of legal doctrine applicable to concerted action led Justice Jackson to note that certain joint activities have a “chameleon-like” character. The boycott of white merchants in Claiborne County, Miss., that gave rise to this litigation had such a character; it included elements of criminality and elements of majesty. Evidence that fear of reprisals caused some black citizens to withhold their patronage from respondents’ businesses convinced the Supreme Court of Mississippi that the entire boycott was unlawful and that each of the 92 petitioners was liable for all of its economic consequences. Evidence that persuasive rhetoric, determination to remedy past injustices, and a host of voluntary decisions by free citizens were the critical factors in the boycott’s success presents us with the question whether the state court’s judgment is consistent with the Constitution of the United States.
I — I
In March 1966, black citizens of Port Gibson, Miss., and other areas of Claiborne County presented white elected officials with a list of particularized demands for racial equality and integration. The complainants did not receive a satisfactory response and, at a local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meeting at the First Baptist Church, several hundred black persons voted to place a boycott on white merchants in the area. On October 31, 1969, several of the merchants filed suit in state court to recover losses caused by the boycott and to enjoin future boycott activity. We recount first the course of that litigation and then consider in more detail the events that gave rise to the merchants’ claim for damages.
A
The complaint was filed in the Chancery Court of Hinds County by 17 white merchants. The merchants named two corporations and 146 individuals as defendants: the NAACP, a New York membership corporation; Mississippi Action for Progress (MAP), a Mississippi corporation that implemented the federal “Head Start” program; Aaron Henry, the President of the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP; Charles Evers, the Field Secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi; and 144 other individuals who had participated in the boycott. The complaint sought injunctive relief and an attachment of property, as well as damages. Although it alleged that the plaintiffs were suffering irreparable injury from an ongoing conspiracy, no preliminary relief was sought.
Trial began before a chancellor in equity on June 11, 1973. The court heard the testimony of 144 witnesses during an 8-month trial. In August 1976, the chancellor issued an opinion and decree finding that “an overwhelming preponderance of the evidence” established the joint and several liability of 130 of the defendants on three separate conspiracy theories. First, the court held that the defendants were liable for the tort of malicious interference with the plaintiffs’ businesses, which did not necessarily require the presence of a conspiracy. Second, the chancellor found a violation of a state statutory prohibition against secondary boycotts, on the theory that the defendants’ primary dispute was with the governing authorities of Port Gibson and Claiborne County and not with the white merchants at whom the boycott was directed. Third, the court found a violation of Mississippi’s antitrust statute, on the ground that the boycott had diverted black patronage from the white merchants to black merchants and to other merchants located out of Claiborne County and thus had unreasonably limited competition between black and white merchants that had traditionally existed. The chancellor specifically rejected the defendants’ claim that their conduct was protected by the First Amendment.
Five of the merchants offered no evidence of business losses. The chancellor found that the remaining 12 had suffered lost business earnings and lost goodwill during a 7-year period from 1966 to 1972 amounting to $944,699. That amount, plus statutory antitrust penalties of $6,000 and a $300,000 award of attorney’s fees, produced a final judgment of $1,250,699, plus interest from the date of judgment and costs. As noted, the chancellor found all but 18 of the original 148 defendants jointly and severally liable for the entire judgment. The court justified imposing full liability on the national organization of the NAACP on the ground that it had failed to “repudiate” the actions of Charles Evers, its Field Secretary in Mississippi.
In addition to imposing damages liability, the chancellor entered a broad permanent injunction. He permanently enjoined petitioners from stationing “store watchers” at the respondents’ business premises; from “persuading” any person to withhold his patronage from respondents; from “using demeaning and obscene language to or about any person” because that person continued to patronize the respondents; from “picketing or patroling” the premises of any of the respondents; and from using violence against any person or inflicting damage to any real or personal property.
In December 1980, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed significant portions of the trial court’s judgment. 393 So. 2d 1290. It held that the secondary boycott statute was inapplicable because it had not been enacted until “the boycott had been in operation for upward of two years.” The court declined to rely on the restraint of trade statute, noting that the “United States Supreme Court has seen fit to hold boycotts to achieve political ends are not a violation of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. § 1 (1970), after which our statute is patterned.” Thus, the court rejected two theories of liability that were consistent with a totally voluntary and nonviolent withholding of patronage from the white merchants.
The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the imposition of liability, however, on the basis of the chancellor’s common-law tort theory. After reviewing the chancellor’s recitation of the facts, the court quoted the following finding made by the trial court:
“In carrying out the agreement and design, certain of the defendants, acting for all others, engaged in acts of physical force and violence against the persons and property of certain customers and prospective customers. Intimidation, threats, social ostracism, vilification, and traduction were some of the devices used by the defendants to achieve the desired results. Most effective, also, was the stationing of guards (‘enforcers,’ ‘deacons,’ or ‘black hats’) in the vicinity of white-owned businesses. Unquestionably, the evidence shows that the volition of many black persons was overcome out of sheer fear, and they were forced and compelled against their personal wills to withhold their trade and business intercourse from the complainants.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 39b (quoted 393 So. 2d, at 1300).
On the basis of this finding, the court concluded that the entire boycott was unlawful. “If any of these factors — force, violence, or threats — is present, then the boycott is illegal regardless of whether it is primary, secondary, economical, political, social or other.” In a brief passage, the court rejected petitioners’ reliance on the First Amendment:
“The agreed use of illegal force, violence, and threats against the peace to achieve a goal makes the present state of facts a conspiracy. We know of no instance, and our attention has been drawn to no decision, wherein it has been adjudicated that free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment includes in its protection the right to commit crime.” Id,., at 1301.
The theory of the Mississippi Supreme Court, then, was that petitioners had agreed to use force, violence, and “threats” to effectuate the boycott. To the trial court, such a finding had not been necessary.
Although the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the chancellor’s basic finding of liability, the court held that respondents “did not establish their case” with respect to 38 of the defendants. The court found that MAP was a victim, rather than a willing participant, in the conspiracy and dismissed — without further explanation — 37 individual defendants for lack of proof. Finally, the court ruled that certain damages had been improperly awarded and that other damages had been inadequately proved. The court remanded for further proceedings on the computation of damages.
We granted a petition for certiorari. 454 U. S. 1030. At oral argument, a question arose concerning the factual basis for the judgment of the Mississippi Supreme Court. As noted, that court affirmed petitioners’ liability for damages on the ground that each of the petitioners had agreed to effectuate the boycott through force, violence, and threats. Such a finding was not necessary to the trial court’s imposition of liability and neither state court had identified the evidence actually linking the petitioners to such an agreement. In response to a request from this Court, respondents filed a supplemental brief “specifying the acts committed by each of the petitioners giving rise to liability for damages.” Supplemental Brief for Respondents 1. That brief helpfully places the petitioners in different categories; we accept respondents’ framework for analysis and identify these classes as a preface to our review of the relevant incidents that occurred during the 7-year period for which damages were assessed.
First, respondents contend that liability is justified by evidence of participation in the “management” of the boycott. Respondents identify two groups of persons who may be found liable as “managers”: 79 individuals who regularly attended Tuesday night meetings of the NAACP at the First Baptist Church; and 11 persons who took “leadership roles” at those meetings.
Second, respondents contend that liability is justified by evidence that an individual acted as a boycott “enforcer.” In this category, respondents identify 22 persons as members of the “Black Hats” — a special group organized during the boycott — and 19 individuals who were simply “store watchers.”
Third, respondents argue that those petitioners “who themselves engaged in violent acts or who threatened violence have provided the best possible evidence that they wanted the boycott to succeed by coercion whenever it could not succeed by persuasion.” Id., at 10. They identify 16 individuals for whom there is direct evidence of participation in what respondents characterize as violent acts or threats of violence.
Fourth, respondents contend that Charles Evers may be held liable because he “threatened violence on a number of occasions against boycott breakers.” Id., at 13. Like the chancellor, respondents would impose liability on the national NAACP because Evers “was acting in his capacity as Field Secretary of the NAACP when he committed these tortious and constitutionally unprotected acts.” Ibid.
Finally, respondents state that they are “unable to determine on what record evidence the state courts relied in finding liability on the part of seven of the petitioners.” Id., at 16. With these allegations of wrongdoing in mind, we turn to consider the factual events that gave rise to this controversy.
B
The chancellor held petitioners liable for all of respondents’ lost earnings during a 7-year period from 1966 to December 31, 1972. We first review chronologically the principal events that occurred during that period, describe some features of the boycott that are not in dispute, and then identify the most significant evidence of violent activity.
In late 1965 or early 1966, Charles Evers, the Field Secretary of the NAACP, helped organize the Claiborne County Branch of the NAACP. The pastor of the First Baptist Church, James Dorsey, was elected president of the Branch; regular meetings were conducted each Tuesday evening at the church. At about the same time, a group of black citizens formed a Human Relations Committee and presented a petition for redress of grievances to civic and business leaders of the white community. In response, a biracial committee — including five of the petitioners and several of the respondents — was organized and held a series of unproductive meetings.
The black members of the committee then prepared a further petition entitled “Demands for Racial Justice. ” This petition was presented for approval at the local NAACP meeting conducted on the first Tuesday evening in March. As described by the chancellor, “the approximately 500 people present voted their approval unanimously.” On March 14, 1966, the petition was presented to public officials of Port Gibson and Claiborne County.
The petition included 19 specific demands. It called for the desegregation of all public schools and public facilities, the hiring of black policemen, public improvements in black residential areas, selection of blacks for jury duty, integration of bus stations so that blacks could use all facilities, and an end to verbal abuse by law enforcement officers. It stated that “Negroes are not to be addressed by terms as ‘boy/ ‘girl/ ‘shine/ ‘uncle/ or any other offensive term, but as ‘Mr./ ‘Mrs./ or ‘Miss,’ as is the case with other citizens.” As described by the chancellor, the purpose of the demands “was to gain equal rights and opportunities for Negro citizens.” The petition further provided that black leaders hoped it would not be necessary to resort to the “selective buying campaigns” that had been used in other communities. On March 23, two demands that had been omitted from the original petition were added, one of which provided: “All stores must employ Negro clerks and cashiers.” This supplemental petition stated that a response was expected by April 1.
A favorable response was not received. On April 1, 1966, the Claiborne County NAACP conducted another meeting at the First Baptist Church. As described by the chancellor:
“Several hundred black people attended the meeting, and the purpose was to decide what action should be taken relative to the twenty-one demands. Speeches were made by Evers and others, and a vote was taken. It was the unanimous vote of those present, without dissent, to place a boycott on the white merchants of Port Gibson and Claiborne County.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 15b.
The boycott was underway.
In September 1966, Mississippi Action for Progress, Inc. (MAP), was organized to develop community action programs in 20 counties of Mississippi. One of MAP’s programs— known as Head Start — involved the use of federal funds to provide food for young children. Originally, food purchases in Claiborne County were made alternately from white-owned and black-owned stores, but in February 1967 the directors of MAP authorized their Claiborne County representatives to purchase food only from black-owned stores. Since MAP bought substantial quantities of food, the consequences of this decision were significant. A large portion of the trial was devoted to the question whether MAP participated in the boycott voluntarily and — under the chancellor’s theories of liability — could be held liable for the resulting damages. The chancellor found MAP a willing participant, noting that “during the course of the trial, the only Head Start cooks called to the witness stand testified that they refused to go into white-owned stores to purchase groceries for the children in the program for the reason that they were in favor of the boycott and wanted to honor it.,,
Several events occurred during the boycott that had a strong effect on boycott activity. On February 1, 1967, Port Gibson employed its first black policeman. During that month, the boycott was lifted on a number of merchants. On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis. The chancellor found that this tragic event had a depressing effect on the black community and, as a result, the boycott “tightened.”
One event that occurred during the boycott is of particular significance. On April 18, 1969, a young black man named Roosevelt Jackson was shot and killed during an encounter with two Port Gibson police officers. Large crowds immediately gathered, first at the hospital and later at the church. Tension in the community neared a breaking point. The local police requested reinforcements from the State Highway Patrol and sporadic acts of violence ensued. The Mayor and Board of Aldermen placed a dawn-to-dusk curfew into effect.
On April 19, Charles Evers spoke to a group assembled at the First Baptist Church and led a march to the courthouse where he demanded the discharge of the entire Port Gibson Police Force. When this demand was refused, the boycott was reimposed on all white merchants. One of Evers’ speeches on this date was recorded by the police. In that speech — significant portions of which are reproduced in an Appendix to this opinion — Evers stated that boycott violators would be “disciplined” by their own people and warned that the Sheriff could not sleep with boycott violators at night.
On April 20, Aaron Henry came to Port Gibson, spoke to a large gathering, urged moderation, and joined local leaders in a protest march and a telegram sent to the Attorney General of the United States. On April 21, Evers gave another speech to several hundred people, in which he again called for a discharge of the police force and for a total boycott of all white-owned businesses in Claiborne County. Although this speech was not recorded, the chancellor found that Evers stated: “If we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we’re gonna break your damn neck.”
As noted, this lawsuit was filed in October 1969. No significant events concerning the boycott occurred after that time. The chancellor identified no incident of violence that occurred after the suit was brought. He did identify, however, several significant incidents of boycott-related violence that occurred some years earlier.
Before describing that evidence, it is appropriate to note that certain practices generally used to encourage support for the boycott were uniformly peaceful and orderly. The few marches associated with the boycott were carefully controlled by black leaders. Pickets used to advertise the boycott were often small children. The police made no arrests — and no complaints are recorded — in connection with the picketing and occasional demonstrations supporting the boycott. Such activity was fairly irregular, occurred primarily on weekends, and apparently was largely discontinued around the time the lawsuit was filed.
One form of “discipline” of black persons who violated the boycott appears to have been employed with some regularity. Individuals stood outside of boycotted stores and identified those who traded with the merchants. Some of these “store watchers” were members of a group known as the “Black Hats” or the “Deacons.” The names of persons who violated the boycott were read at meetings of the Claiborne County NAACP and published in a mimeographed paper entitled the “Black Times.” As stated by the chancellor, those persons “were branded as traitors to the black cause, called demeaning names, and socially ostracized for merely trading with whites.”
The chancellor also concluded that a quite different form of discipline had been used against certain violators of the boycott. He specifically identified 10 incidents that “strikingly” revealed the “atmosphere of fear that prevailed among blacks from 1966 until 1970.” The testimony concerning four incidents convincingly demonstrates that they occurred because the victims were ignoring the boycott. In two cases, shots were fired at a house; in a third, a brick was thrown through a windshield; in the fourth, a flower garden was damaged. None of these four victims, however, ceased trading with white merchants.
The evidence concerning four other incidents is less clear, but again it indicates that an unlawful form of discipline was applied to certain boycott violators. In April 1966, a black couple named Cox asked for a police escort to go into a white-owned dry cleaner and, a week later, shots were fired into their home. In another incident, an NAACP member took a bottle of whiskey from a black man who had purchased it in a white-owned store. The third incident involved a fight between a commercial fisherman who did'not observe the boycott and four men who “grabbed me and beat me up and took a gun off me.” In a fourth incident, described only in hearsay testimony, a group- of young blacks apparently pulled down the overalls of an elderly brick mason known as “Preacher White” and spanked him for not observing the boycott.
Two other incidents discussed by the chancellor are of less certain significance. Jasper Coleman testified that he participated in an all-night poker game at a friend’s house on Christmas Eve 1966. The following morning he discovered that all four tires of his pickup truck had been slashed with a knife. Coleman testified that he did not participate in the boycott but was never threatened for refusing to do so. Record 13791. Finally, Willie Myles testified that he and his wife received a threatening phone call and that a boy on a barge told him that he would be whipped for buying his gas at the wrong place.
Five of these incidents occurred in 1966. The other five are not dated. The chancellor thus did not find that any act of violence occurred after 1966. In particular, he made no reference to any act of violence or threat of violence — with the exception, of course, of Charles Evers’ speeches — after the shootings of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968 or Roosevelt Jackson in 1969. The chancellor did not find that any of the incidents of violence was discussed at the Tuesday evening meetings of the NAACP.
II
This Court’s jurisdiction to review the judgment of the Mississippi Supreme Court is, of course, limited to the federal questions necessarily decided by that court. We consider first whether petitioners’ activities are protected in any respect by the Federal Constitution and, if they are, what effect such protection has on a lawsuit of this nature.
A
The boycott of white merchants at issue in this case took many forms. The boycott was launched at a meeting of a local branch of the NAACP attended by several hundred persons. Its acknowledged purpose was to secure compliance by both civic and business leaders with a lengthy list of demands for equality and racial justice. The boycott was supported by speeches and nonviolent picketing. Participants repeatedly encouraged others to join in its cause.
Each of these elements of the boycott is a form of speech or conduct that is ordinarily entitled to protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The black citizens named as defendants in this action banded together and collectively expressed their dissatisfaction with a social structure that had denied them rights to equal treatment and respect. As we so recently acknowledged in Citizens Against Rent Control/Coalition for Fair Housing v. Berkeley, 454 U. S. 290, 294, “the practice of persons sharing common views banding together to achieve a common end is deeply embedded in the American political process.” We recognized that “by collective effort individuals can make their views known, when, individually, their voices would be faint or lost.” Ibid. In emphasizing “the importance of freedom of association in guaranteeing the right of people to make their voices heard on public issues,” id., at 295, we noted the words of Justice Harlan, writing for the Court in NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U. S. 449, 460:
“Effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association, as this Court has more than once recognized by remarking upon the close nexus between the freedoms of speech and assembly.”
The Chief Justice stated for the Court in Citizens Against Rent Control: “There are, of course, some activities, legal if engaged in by one, yet illegal if performed in concert with others, but political expression is not one of them.” 454 U. S., at 296.
The right to associate does not lose all constitutional protection merely because some members of the group may have participated in conduct or advocated doctrine that itself is not protected. In De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, the Court unanimously held that an individual could not be penalized simply for assisting in the conduct of an otherwise lawful meeting held under the auspices of the Communist Party, an organization that advocated “criminal syndicalism.” After reviewing the rights of citizens “to meet peaceably for consultation in respect to public affairs and to petition for a redress of grievances,” id., at 364, Chief Justice Hughes, writing for the Court, stated:
“It follows from these considerations that, consistently with the Federal Constitution, peaceable assembly for lawful discussion cannot be made a crime. The holding of meetings for peaceable political action cannot be proscribed. Those who assist in the conduct of such meetings cannot be branded as criminals on that score. The question, if the rights of free speech and peaceable assembly are to be preserved, is not as to the auspices under which the meeting is held but as to its purpose; not as to the relations of the speakers, but whether their utterances transcend the bounds of the freedom of speech which the Constitution protects. If the persons assembling have committed crimes elsewhere, if they have formed or are engaged in a conspiracy against the public peace and order, they may be prosecuted for their conspiracy or other violation of valid laws. But it is a different matter when the State, instead of prosecuting them for such offenses, seizes upon mere participation in a peaceable assembly and a lawful public discussion as the basis for a criminal charge.” Id., at 365.
Of course, the petitioners in this case did more than assemble peaceably and discuss among themselves their grievances against governmental and business policy. Other elements of the boycott, however, also involved activities ordinarily safeguarded by the First Amendment. In Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, the Court held that peaceful picketing was entitled to constitutional protection, even though, in that case, the purpose of the picketing “was concededly to advise customers and prospective customers of the relationship existing between the employer and its employees and thereby to induce such customers not to patronize the employer.” Id., at 99. Cf. Chauffeurs v. Newell, 356 U. S. 341. In Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, we held that a peaceful march and demonstration was protected by the rights of free speech, free assembly, and freedom to petition for a redress of grievances.
Speech itself also was used to further the aims of the boycott. Nonparticipants repeatedly were urged to join the common cause, both through public address and through personal solicitation. These elements of the boycott involve speech in its most direct form. In addition, names of boycott violators were read aloud at meetings at the First Baptist Church and published in a local black newspaper. Petitioners admittedly sought to persuade others to join the boycott through social pressure and the “threat” of social ostracism. Speech does not lose its protected character, however, simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action. As Justice Rutledge, in describing the protection afforded by the First Amendment, explained:
“It extends to more than abstract discussion, unrelated to action. The First Amendment is a charter for government, not for an institution of learning. ‘Free trade in ideas’ means free trade in the opportunity.to persuade to action, not merely to describe facts.” Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 537.
In Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415, the Court considered the validity of a prior restraint on speech that invaded the “privacy” of the respondent. Petitioner, a racially integrated community organization, charged that respondent, a real estate broker, had engaged in tactics known as “blockbusting” or “panic peddling.” Petitioner asked respondent to sign an agreement that he would not solicit property in their community. When he refused, petitioner distributed leaflets near respondent’s home that were critical of his business practices. A state court enjoined petitioner from distributing the leaflets; an appellate court affirmed on the ground that the alleged activities were coercive and intimidating, rather than informative, and therefore not entitled to First Amendment protection. Id., at 418. This Court reversed. The Chief Justice explained:
“This Court has often recognized that the activity of peaceful pamphleteering is a form of communication protected by the First Amendment. E. g., Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 (1943); Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 (1939); Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444 (1938). In sustaining the injunction, however, the Appellate Court was apparently of the view that petitioners’ purpose in distributing their literature was not to inform the public, but to ‘force’ respondent to sign a no-solicitation agreement. The claim that the expressions were intended to exercise a coercive impact on respondent does not remove them from the reach of the First Amendment. Petitioners plainly intended to influence respondent’s conduct by their activities; this is not fundamentally different from the function of a newspaper. See Schneider v. State, supra; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940). Petitioners were engaged openly and vigorously in making the public aware of respondent’s real estate practices. Those practices were offensive to them, as the views and practices of petitioners are no doubt offensive to others. But so long as the means are peaceful, the communication need not meet standards of acceptability.” Id., at 419.
In dissolving the prior restraint, the Court recognized that “offensive” and “coercive” speech was nevertheless protected by the First Amendment.
In sum, the boycott clearly involved constitutionally protected activity. The established elements of speech, assembly, association, and petition, “though not identical, are inseparable.” Thomas v. Collins, supra, at 530. Through exercise of these First Amendment rights, petitioners sought to bring about political, social, and economic change. Through speech, assembly, and petition — rather than through riot or revolution — petitioners sought to change a social order that had consistently treated them as second-class citizens.
The presence of protected activity, however, does not end the relevant constitutional inquiry. Governmental regulation that has an incidental effect on First Amendment freedoms may be justified in certain narrowly defined instances. See United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367. A nonviolent and totally voluntary boycott may have a disruptive effect on local economic conditions. This Court has recognized the strong governmental interest in certain forms of economic regulation, even though such regulation may have an incidental effect on rights of speech and association. See Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490; NLRB v. Retail Store Employees, 447 U. S. 607. The right of.business entities to “associate” to suppress competition may be curtailed. National Society of Professional Engineers v. United States, 435 U. S. 679. Unfair trade practices may be restricted. Secondary boycotts and picketing by labor unions may be prohibited, as part of “Congress’ striking of the delicate balance between union freedom of expression and the ability of neutral employers, employees, and consumers to remain free from coerced participation in industrial strife.” NLRB v. Retail Store Employees, supra, at 617-618 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part). See Longshoremen v. Allied International, Inc., 456 U. S. 212, 222-223, and n. 20.
While States have broad power to regulate economic activity, we do not find a comparable right to prohibit peaceful political activity such as that found in the boycott in this case. This Court has recognized that expression on public issues “has always rested on the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values.” Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 467. “[S]peech concerning public affairs is more than self-expression; it is the essence of self-government.” Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 74-75. There is a “profound national commitment” to the principle that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 270.
In Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc., 365 U. S. 127, the Court considered whether the Sherman Act prohibited a publicity campaign waged by railroads against the trucking industry that was designed to foster the adoption of laws destructive of the trucking business, to create an atmosphere of distaste for truckers among the general public, and to impair the relationships existing between truckers and their customers. Noting that the “right of petition is one of the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, and we cannot, of course, lightly impute to Congress an intent to invade these freedoms,” the Court held that the Sherman Act did not proscribe the publicity campaign. Id., at 137-138. The Court stated that it could not see how an intent to influence legislation to destroy the truckers as competitors “could transform conduct otherwise lawful into a violation of the Sherman Act.” Id., at 138-139. Noting that the right of the people to petition their representatives in government “cannot properly be made to depend on their intent in doing so,” the Court held that “at least insofar as the railroads’ campaign was directed toward obtaining governmental action, its legality was not at all affected by any anticompetitive purpose it may have had.” Id., at 139-140. This conclusion was not changed by the fact that the railroads’ anticompetitive purpose produced an anti-competitive effect; the Court rejected the truckers’ Sherman Act claim despite the fact that “the truckers sustained some direct injury as an incidental effect of the railroads’ campaign to influence governmental action.” Id., at 143.
It is not disputed that a major purpose of the boycott in this case was to influence governmental action. Like the railroads in Noerr, the petitioners certainly foresaw — and directly intended — that the merchants would sustain economic injury as a result of their campaign. Unlike the railroads in that case, however, the purpose of petitioners’ campaign was not to destroy legitimate competition. Petitioners sought to vindicate rights of equality and of freedom that lie at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment itself. The right of the States to regulate economic activity could not justify a complete prohibition against a nonviolent, politically motivated boycott designed to force governmental and economic change and to effectuate rights guaranteed by the Constitution itself.
In upholding an injunction against the state supersedeas bonding requirement in this case, Judge Ainsworth of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit cogently stated:
“At the heart of the Chancery Court’s opinion lies the belief that the mere organization of the boycott and every activity undertaken in support thereof could be subject to judicial prohibition under state law. This view accords insufficient weight to the First Amendment’s protection of political speech and association. There is no suggestion that the NAACP, MAP or the individual defendants were in competition with the white businesses or that the boycott arose from parochial economic interests. On the contrary, the boycott grew out of a racial dispute with the white merchants and city government of Port Gibson and all of the picketing, speeches, and other communication associated with the boycott were directed to the elimination of racial discrimination in the town. This differentiates this case from a boycott organized for economic ends, for speech to protest racial discrimination is essential political speech lying at the core of the First Amendment.” Henry v. First National Bank of Clarksdale, 595 F. 2d 291, 303 (1979) (footnote omitted).
We hold that the nonviolent elements of petitioners’ activities are entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.
B
The Mississippi Supreme Court did not sustain the chancellor’s imposition of liability on a theory that state law prohibited a nonviolent, politically motivated boycott. The fact that such activity is constitutionally protected, however, imposes a special obligation on this Court to examine critically the basis on which liability was imposed. In particular, we consider here the effect of our holding that much of petitioners’ conduct was constitutionally protected on the ability of the State to impose liability for elements of the boycott that were not so protected.
The First Amendment does not protect violence. “Certainly violence has no sanctuary in the First Amendment, and the use of weapons, gunpowder, and gasoline may not constitutionally masquerade under the guise of ‘advocacy.’” Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66, 75 (Douglas, J., concurring). Although the extent and significance of the violence in this case are vigorously disputed by the parties, there is no question that acts of violence occurred. No federal rule of law restricts a State from imposing tort liability for business losses that are caused by violence and by threats of violence. When such conduct occurs in the context of constitutionally protected activity, however, “precision of regulation” is demanded. NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 438. Specifically, the presence of activity protected by the First Amendment imposes restraints on the grounds that may give rise to damages liability and on the persons who may be held accountable for those damages.
In Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715, the Court considered a case in many respects similar to the one before us. The case grew out of the rivalry between the United Mine Workers (UMW) and the Southern Labor Union (SLU) over representation of workers in the southern Appalachian coal fields. A coal company laid off 100 miners of UMW’s Local 5881 when it closed one of its mines. That same year, a subsidiary of the coal company hired Gibbs as mine superintendent to attempt to open a new mine on nearby property through use of members of the SLU. Gibbs also received a contract to haul the mine’s coal to the nearest railroad loading point. When he attempted to open the mine, however, he was met by armed members of Local 5881 who

Question: What treatment did the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed accorded the decision of the court it reviewed?
A. stay, petition, or motion granted
B. affirmed
C. reversed
D. reversed and remanded
E. vacated and remanded
F. affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part
G. affirmed and reversed (or vacated) in part and remanded
H. vacated
I. petition denied or appeal dismissed
J. modify
K. remand
L. unusual disposition
Answer:

Answer: F