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Home » Legal » High School Civil Liberties Project » Student Press
Teacher ACLU Fact Sheet STUDENT PRESS Landmark Cases - Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 303 U.S. 503 (1969) Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1988) The Constitutional Question Do educators violate students' First Amendment rights by exercising editorial control over student speech in school-sponsored publications? Amendments Implicated 1st Amendment – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances…” Backrounds Tinker v. des Moines Mary Beth Tinker, a 13 year-old junior high student, and John Tinker and Christopher Eckhardt, both 15 year-old senior high students, went to school in 1965 wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. They were suspended after the students refused to remove their armbands. Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier Cathy Kuhlmeier was a student editor of the Hazelwood East High School newspaper, the Spectrum. Her principal removed pages from the newspaper before distribution when the principal reviewed the issue and found two stories, one on student pregnancy and one on the effects of divorce on students, to be objectionable on grounds that the students, who were not identified by name in the article, could be easily identified by teachers and the student body. Kuhlmeier sued the principal, arguing that her First Amendment rights had been violated. The Decisions Tinker In 1969, the Supreme Court ruled that the students’ symbolic speech was protected under the First Amendment and wrote “Schools may not be enclaves of totalitarianism. Students and teachers do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of expression at the schoolhouse gates.” Hazelwood The Supreme Court ruled that principals may censor newspapers, yearbooks, performances, and other school activities if the activity is a part of the school’s curriculum, and the censorship is based on legitimate pedagogical concerns of the school’s top educational officer. While the case did not overturn the Tinker v. Des Moines decision, student rights were limited. Related Cases Zucker v. Panitz – 1969 The principal of New Rochelle High School in New York ordered the school’s newspaper editor not to publish an advertisement that opposed the war in Vietnam. The editor and the student group that placed the ad contested his order, and the court held that under the recent Supreme Court’s ruling, the students’ claim was a valid one. Gambina v. Fairfax County School Board - 1977 The student editors of a school-sponsored publication in Virginia prepared a news story that provided information about the forms of birth control available and their relative rates of effectiveness. The school principal claimed the story would violate of a school policy that prohibited the teaching of sex education in the school. The students took their case to court and both the federal district court and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the First Amendment had been violated. Web Links |
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