Court Cases

TINKER V. DES MOINES:
Three students in Des Moines,Iowa, were suspended for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam war. The students were not allowed to come back to school until they came back without the armbands on. The Tinker siblings sued the school. The case made it to the supreme court. The court ruled that, "Students do not shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door." This meant that from that point on students were seen as having freedom of speech. This was the start of a long issue of what the restrictions are on student speech in public schools. The court also ruled that, "Symbolic speech can only be prohibited by school administrators if they can show that it would cause a substantial disruption of the school's educational mission." This was the line that could not be crossed in student speech.

HAZELWOOD V. KUHLMEIER:
A student paper, the Spectrum, was always reviewed by the principal before being published. One issue contained stories about teenage pregnancy and divorce. There were many things in the articles that the principal thought were contraversial. He didn't have time to change them, so he eliminated those stories. An author of one of the stories sued the school. The case made it to the supreme court. The court ruled that,"Public school cirricular student newspapers that have not been established as forums for student expression are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection than independent student expression or newspapers established as forums for student expression." This put a restriction on student expression in the form school newspapers. Schools can now review and revise student newspapers to fit school rules and policies.