Transcript Tinker v. Des Moines Ind. Comm. School Dist. 393 U.S. 503

Freedom (or lack
thereof) of the Student
Press
What a High School Journalist Needs
to Know
A Brief History of
Student Free Speech
• Students often confuse First
Amendment Rights with their
rights as students.
• It all started with…
Tinker v. Des Moines
Ind. Comm. School Dist.
393 U.S. 503 (1969)
Argued: November 12, 1968
Decided: February 24, 1969
Tinker v. Des Moines
Facts of the Case
• John Tinker, 15 years old, his sister Mary Beth Tinker, 13 years old, and
Christopher Echardt, 16 years old, decided along with their parents to
protest the Vietnam War by wearing black armbands to their Des Moines
schools during the Christmas holiday season. Upon learning of their
intentions, and fearing that the armbands would provoke disturbances, the
principals of Des Moins school districts resolved that all students wearing
armbands would be asked to remove them or face suspension. When the
Tinker siblings and Christopher wore their armbands to school, they were
asked to remove them. When they refused, they were suspended until
after New Year's Day.
Tinker v. Des Moines
Constitutional Question
• Does a prohibition against the wearing of
armbands in public school, as a form of
symbolic protest, violate the First Amendment's
freedom of speech protections?
Conclusion
• The Court ruled that wearing armbands is
protected speech as a form of political
expression. This right is extended to students
as a form of non-disruptive speech.
Tinker v. Des Moines
Vote 7-2
Majority Opinion: Justice Fortas, joined by White,
Stewart, Brennan, Douglas, Warren, Marshall
• “The wearing of armbands was "closely akin to 'pure
speech'" and protected by the First Amendment. School
environments imply limitations on free expression, but
here the principals lacked justification for imposing any
such limits.The principals had failed to show that the
forbidden conduct would substantially interfere with
appropriate school discipline.”
Tinker v. Des Moines
Vote 7-2
Majority Opinion: Justice Fortas, joined by
White, Stewart, Brennan, Douglas, Warren,
Marshall
• “First Amendment rights, applied in light of the
special characteristics of the school
environment, are available to teachers and
students. It can hardly be argued that either
students or teachers shed their
constitutional rights to freedom of speech
or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
Tinker v. Des Moines
• “. . . In order for the State in the person of school
officials to justify prohibition of a particular
expression of opinion, it must be able to show
that its action was caused by something more
than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and
unpleasantness that always accompany an
unpopular viewpoint. Certainly where there is no
finding and no showing that engaging in the
forbidden conduct would "materially and
substantially interfere with the requirements of
appropriate discipline in the operation of the
school," the prohibition cannot be sustained . . .”
Tinker v. Des Moines
Minority Opinion: Justice Black and Harlan:
“While I have always believed that under the First and
Fourteenth Amendments neither the State nor the
Federal Government has any authority to regulate or
censor the content of speech, I have never believed that
any person has a right to give speeches or engage in
demonstrations where he pleases and when he pleases.
This Court has already rejected such a notion. The
Court clearly stated that the rights of free speech
and assembly "do not mean that everyone with
opinions or beliefs to express may address a group
at any public place and at any time.”’
Yeah for
Students’
Rights!
But then….
Hazelwood School District
et al.
v. Kuhlmeier et al.
484 U.S. 260
Argued October 13, 1987
Decided January 13, 1988
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Facts of the Case:
• Former high school students who
were staff members of the
school's newspaper, filed suit in
Federal District Court against the
school district and school officials,
alleging that their First
Amendment rights were violated.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Facts of the Case:
• The newspaper was written and edited by a
journalism class, as part of the school's
curriculum. A journalism adviser, who
supervised the Spectrum’s staff, submitted
each edition to the principal for review, prior
to publication. In May 1983, a substitute was
advising the newspaper because the regular
journalism teacher left before the school
year ended.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Facts of the Case:
• After reviewing the May 13 edition of the
paper, principal Robert Reynolds decided
that two articles should not be published.
The articles covered teenage pregnancy at
Hazelwood East and the effects of divorce
on students. Reynolds decided to delete the
two pages on which they appeared, thus
deleting additional articles as well.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Facts of the Case:
• This is how the story on teen pregnancy in the
May 13 issue of the Spectrum began:
• Sixteen-year-old Sue had it all — good looks,
good grades, a loving family and a cute boyfriend.
She also had a seven pound baby boy. Each
year, according to Claire Berman (Readers
Digest, May 1983), close to 1.1 million teenagers
— more than one out of every 10 teenage girls —
become pregnant. In Missouri alone, 8,208 teens
under the age of 18 became pregnant in 1980,
according to Reproductive Health Services of St.
Louis. That number was 7,363 in 1981.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Facts of the Case:
• The article followed with personal accounts of three
Hazelwood East students who became pregnant. The
names of all three were changed:
• Terri: I am five months pregnant and very excited about
having my baby. My husband is excited too. We both
can’t wait until it’s born. . . .
• Patti: I didn’t think it could happen to me, but I knew I
had to start making plans for me and my little one. . . .
• Julie: At first I was shocked. You always think ‘It won’t
happen to me.’ I was also scared because I did not
know how everyone was going to handle it. . . .
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Facts of the Case:
• Principal Reynolds believed the pregnancy article
was inappropriate for a school newspaper and its
intended audience, and the girls’ anonymity was not
adequately protected. He also believed that the
divorce article, in which a student sharply criticized
her father for not spending more time with his family,
violated journalistic fairness because the newspaper
did not give the girl’s father a chance to defend
himself. As the journalism class was, in part,
designed to teach these notions of fairness, Reynolds
asserted that he was acting in the best interests of
the school by censoring the material.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Facts of the Case:
• The District Court held that no First
Amendment violation had occurred. The
Court of Appeals reversed.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Conclusion:
• On Jan. 13, 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court voted
5-3 to reverse the decision of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 8th Circuit in St. Louis, which had
upheld the rights of the students. The Court ruled
that Principal Reynolds had the right to censor
articles in the student newspaper that were
deemed contrary to the school’s educational
mission.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Conclusion:
• The majority opinion noted that the school
newspaper was not a public forum and thus the
1st Amendment challenge was not valid.
Moreover, the court affirmed prior rulings that
student right are not “coextensive” with the rights
of adults outside of the school setting. The
school may still meet its educational mission
while censoring the student newspaper and so
the principals editorial control is upheld.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Conclusion:
• Where Tinker gave students the
power of free expression, Hazelwood
gave school administrators the power
to censor student newspapers.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Conclusion:
• The Supreme Court began its analysis by
citing Tinker’s basic premise that students “do
not shed their constitutional rights to freedom
of speech or expression at the school house
gate.” But the Court modified this position by
citing Bethel vs. Fraser, “A school need not
tolerate student speech that is inconsistent
with its basic educational mission.”
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Conclusion:
• The Court said schools could censor any
forms of expression deemed “ungrammatical,
poorly written, inadequately researched,
biased or prejudiced, vulgar or profane, or
unsuitable for immature audiences,” or any
expression that advocates “conduct otherwise
inconsistent with the shared values of the
civilized social order.”
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Majority Opinion: Rehnquist, White, Stevens,
O’Connor, Scalia
• “Respondents' First Amendment rights were not
violated.”
• “First Amendment rights of students in the
public schools are not automatically
coextensive with the rights of adults in other
settings, and must be applied in light of the special
characteristics of the school environment. A school
need not tolerate student speech that is
inconsistent with its basic educational mission,
even though the government could not censor
similar speech outside the school.”
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Vote: 6-3
Majority Opinion: Rehnquist, White, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia
• “The school newspaper here cannot be
characterized as a forum for public
expression.”
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Vote: 6-3
Majority Opinion: Rehnquist, White, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia
• “The standard for determining when a school
may punish student expression that happens
to occur on school premises is not the
standard for determining when a school may
refuse to lend its name and resources to the
dissemination of student expression. Tinker v.
Des Moines Independent Community School
Dist., 393 U.S. 503, distinguished.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Vote: 6-3
Majority Opinion: Rehnquist, White, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia
• Justice Byron White wrote in the Court’s
majority opinion, “A school must be able to
set high standards for the student speech that
is disseminated under its auspices —
standards that may be higher than those
demanded by some newspaper publishers or
theatrical producers in the ‘real’ world — and
may refuse to disseminate student speech
that does not meet those standards.
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Vote: 6-3
Majority Opinion: Rehnquist, White, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia
• Justice Byron White continued, “In addition, a
school must be able to take into account the
emotional maturity of the intended audience
in determining whether to disseminate
student speech on potentially sensitive topics,
which might range from the existence of
Santa Claus in an elementary school setting
to the particulars of teenage sexual activity in
a high school setting.”
Hazelwood School District v.
Kuhlmeier
Vote: 6-3
Majority Opinion: Rehnquist, White, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia
• Educators do not offend the First
Amendment by exercising editorial control
over the style and content of student
speech in school-sponsored expressive
activities so long as their actions are
reasonably related to legitimate
pedagogical concerns.”
Sources
• Much of this is excerpted from “From Tinker to
Hazelwood: Landmark Supreme Court decisions and
how schools deal with them” originally appeared as
chapter 7 in “Death By Cheeseburger: High School
Journalism in the 1990s and Beyond.”
• "Education for Freedom Lesson 8 - Case Summary:
Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier." Education
for Freedom Lesson 8 - Case Summary: Hazelwood
School District v. Kuhlmeier. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Aug.
2012.
<http://www.freedomforum.org/packages/first/curricul
a/educationforfreedom/supportpages/l08casesummaryhazelwood.htm>.
• "Tinker v. Des Moines Ind. Comm. School Dist. 393
U.S. 503 (1969)." Isite.lps.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 9
Aug. 2012.
<https://docs.google.com/a/cfsd16.org/viewer?a=v
&q=cache:XTezP4lKerwJ:isite.lps.org/rsalem/web/
documents/Student_Rights_and_the_Supreme_Co
urt_revision_624.ppt+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShBie
Ohw3g3IN9mxFK7gd8-NVKLn4eCZSTUBEaANI6noe1BxFW8w3tkssfcGUbTHxTAN2pVsR0uUq4O3lZEFGseIS
msrZsScD_jDWhAYc3VkWvgtrbywkpAB74Df4Zcu
248dl&sig=AHIEtbRMf63PFGSp45sNlXH0qvbYGT
FhiQ>.
Sources
• Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to
American Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2002.
• Hartman, Gary, R., Roy M. Mersky, and Cindy L.
Tate. Landmark Supreme Court Cases. New York,
Facts on File, Inc., 2004.
• The Oyez Project, www.Oyez.org, 2007.