Final answer:
The Supreme Court adopted the doctrine of selective incorporation in the case of Gitlow v. New York (1925), which applied First Amendment protections through the Fourteenth Amendment to the states.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Supreme Court rejected total incorporation and adopted the doctrine of selective incorporation in a series of cases, but it was in the case of Gitlow v. New York (1925) where it laid down a precedent for selective incorporation. Selective incorporation means only certain protections of the Bill of Rights are applied to the states, on a case-by-case basis, based on whether the justices determine those rights to be fundamental to liberty and justice. In Gitlow, the Court held that the states could not infringe on freedom of speech — a fundamental liberty — protected by the First Amendment, thereby extending those protections to apply at the state level through the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Fourteenth Amendment plays a critical role in this doctrine, serving as the vehicle through which certain federal protections are incorporated into state law. The Supreme Court continues to apply selective incorporation in subsequent rulings, including McDonald v. Chicago (2010) for the Second Amendment and Near v. Minnesota (1931) for freedom of the press. These cases reflect the ongoing nature of selective incorporation as it extends various Bill of Rights protections to the states.