The first amendment states that “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.” The Constitution’s First Amendment gives one their freedom of speech, religion, press, and assembly. Over the years, court cases have been interpreted by many people to determine school’s restrictions on student’s First Amendment rights. And through the years it has been shown that students are given restrictions with their First Amendment rights. It is correct to say that public school students have most of their First Amendment rights while in school, but not as many as adults do on an everyday basis.
The first time the Supreme Court disputed over a case on students and their First Amendment rights was in 1943 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. During the tough fight of World War II, multiple Jehovah’s Witnesses were arrested by Nazi officials since there were not saluting the Nazi flag. Jehovah’s Witnesses could not participate in this salute since their religion prevented salutation to any God. The West Virginia State Board of Education developed and passed a law enforcing all students to salute the flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance. Students and families who were members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to salute due to their religion and began to get into a lot of trouble. Walter Barnette, a parent of two students who were expelled because they refused to salute the flag, fought the law and believed his children’s First Amendment rights were being violated. The United States District court agreed with the students and parent that their rights were being violated. The Barnett sisters returned to school while the West Virginia State Board of Education appealed the decision of the District court. On June 14, 1943, with a 6-3 vote, the court sided with the Barnettes’. The court relied heavily on the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette was a giant win for Jehovah’s Witnesses across the United States. To this day, students have a right in schools to not salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
In 1965 in Des Moines, Iowa, a couple of students decided to meet at Christopher Eckhardt’s home to discuss a public protest against the Vietnam War. Christopher Eckhardt, Mary Beth Tinker, and John Tinker decided to wear black armbands to school in protest of the Vietnam War. The word spread quickly through the student’s schools and two days before the protest, the Des Moines school board implemented a policy that stated that any student wearing an armband must remove it and if the student refused to remove the armband, they would be suspended. All three students wore their armbands to school and were suspended. These students believed their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech had been violated This led to a Supreme Court case that has continued to shape the rights and concepts of free speech through and including the present. The students believed that their right to wear the black armbands was protected under the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and expression. Concluding in a 7-2 vote, the Earl Warren Supreme Court agreed with the students that Des Moines school board had violated their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court believed the school board was punishing the students for a “passive expression of opinion.” Only a few students out of the 18,000 students actually wore the bands, and five were suspended. The minimal amount of suspensions helped prove to the Court that the students weren’t hurting anyone around them as they were expressing their opinions. The Supreme Court agreed and ruled in favor of the students.
In Pierce County, Washington in 1983, Matthew Fraser, a senior in the Bethel School District wanted to nominate his friend Jeff Kuhlman for Vice President. In order to nominate a student, all students are given the opportunity to speak in front of about six hundred students and voice why their candidate would be the best fit for that position. On the day of the assembly, Matthew Fraser told six hundred students why he believed his friend Jeff would be the best vice president. Before the assembly, Matthew had brought his speech to a few teachers at school to review and was warned not to read it on assembly day because it was extremely inappropriate.
In spite of the warning, Matthew gave his speech, which was extremely vulgar, embarrassing and inappropriate. He was called down to the school office where he was given a three-day suspension and banned from talking at his future graduation which he had planned on doing. The school board stated Matthew had violated the school conduct policy. Despite the speech, Matthew’s parents believed his First Amendments rights were being violated as well as his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law. The Fraser family sued the school for violating Matthew’s rights and ended up winning the case through the district. This case was then brought to the Supreme Court. The Justice Burger Court sided with the Bethel School District. The Burger Court brought up Tinker v. Des Moines as a case that ruled that students were permitted to express their own opinions as long as they were not engaged in inappropriate student conduct. The Burger Court argued that Matthew was warned by teachers and knew not to read the speech but did it anyway. While Tinker v. Des Moines sided with the students, Bethel School District v. Fraser sided with the school district. Bethel School District v. Fraser concluded that schools can regulate freedom of speech in schools if the expression or speech is offensive and/or hurting the students and/or faculty around them.
In the case Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier, Kathy Kuhlmeier, Leslie Smart and LeAnn Tippet believed their First Amendment rights of freedom of the press and freedom of speech were being violated. At Hazelwood East High School, Kuhlmeier and her friends were enrolled in a journalism class where they wrote the schools newspaper. These students wrote multiple articles but two in particular stood out to the Hazelwood East High School faculty. One of the articles was based on teen pregnancy and consisted of multiple interviews with pregnant students at the school with changed names for privacy reasons. The second article was on divorce and how a student’s father broke up the family. The principal believed it would be easy to pick out which students were pregnant from the first article since a student could only hide a pregnancy for so long, and the father in the second article did not know about the article and did not give permission to be written about or published. The principal concluded this was unfair and inappropriate journalism for a high school paper and told Kathy and her friends they were not allowed to put these articles in the paper. Kathy Kuhlmeir sued the school for violation of her First Amendment rights. While, Kuhlmeir won the district case, the Hazelwood School District did not agree with the decision and brought the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled the case in favor of the school district. They argued that educators are not violating students First Amendment rights if the newspaper is a school-sponsored publication. The fact that it is not a public newspaper but is school regulated changes the concept of what and who regulates free speech. Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier created a basis for following cases by stating that schools can regulate students First Amendment rights if students are being abused in a vulgar or inappropriate way.
A more recent case that further restricted student speech is Morse v. Frederick in 2002. Joseph Frederick, a student at Juneau-Douglas High School in Alaska took a field trip with some of his friends to the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Torch Relay. Surrounded by the media, Joseph revealed a fourteen-foot banner that read, “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” Immediately, as the principal, Deborah Morse saw it, she told him to take it down. Joseph refused. Morse took it away from Joseph and suspended him for ten days. Joseph tried arguing that the sign did not have anything to do with drugs and was just a banner to catch the media’s attention. Joseph Frederick believed his first amendment rights were violated by the principal, Deborah Morse and sued. The US District Court of Alaska voted against Joseph as the court believed the banner was vulgar and inappropriate for any school function. The court used Bethel School District v. Kuhlmeier as supporting case to reason that schools should be able to regulate speech and expression if inappropriate such as promoting the use of drugs. Yet, the 9th Circuit Court overturned the court’s decision and used Tinker v. Des Moines to reason that the school and the students did not cause any disturbance by expressing their opinions by holding up the banner at a “non-school” event. This case moved to the Supreme Court where Douglas Mertz argued Joseph was not at a school sponsored event nor on school property so this case should not be argued with school restrictions. Deborah Morse won with a five to four vote. The court argued that the school field trip was indeed a school event and used cases like Bethel School District v. Fraser and Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier to support the decision that promoting drugs goes against the educational mission of school education in general and that in a school setting, some rights need to be restricted for the protection of the students around them.
The first case that challenged students First Amendment rights through freedom of expression and speech was in 1943 in West Virginia, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. Tinker v. Des Moines, a case handling the use of black armbands in a school setting to protest the Vietnam War, and West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette won their cases as stating the students are allowed to express their opinions and rights as long as it is not harming or disturbing the students and faculty around them.
Historically, the issue with interpreting First Amendment rights is that each case is unique to itself. The issues concerning students and their rights in and about their schools did not exist when the First Amendment was created so they now must be interpreted by the courts.
While some cases use previous ones as examples (as in the Matthew Fraser case using Tinker v. Des Moines) they are not always on point. While each case that we looked at might use previous ones to make its argument the outstanding factor is that each case has different circumstances, different principles and different motivation. And since First Amendment rights are still open to interpretation by the courts, each case is individual and must be decided on its own merits.